Comfort food

One of the joys of living in Beijing is the ability to be able to eat, at any given meal, food from all four corners of the country. Spicy Sichuan hot pot, sweet Shanghai fish dishes, dim sum from Guangdong and Hong Kong, cumin encrusted lamb kebabs and flat bread from the deserts of Xinjiang or rich, bubbling pork dishes in glutenous sweet sour red sauce from Hunan. They are all, in their own way, delicious. but sometimes, it all just gets a bit much. Sometimes, plates piled high with scarlet red chillis and thick rich sauces are the last thing you want. Sometimes simple, unpretentious, comfort food is what is called for. Back in the UK comfort food would probably be either huge wedges of granary bread, cheddar cheese and branston pickle or a steaming hot bowl of pasta, green pesto and more cheese....god, just thinking about that is making me hungry.

Of course in these oooooh so international days in Beijing, those foods can all be gathered with a little bit of effort, but Chinese comfort food is pretty damn good too. To clarify, what i call 'comfort food' is in fact, the basic elements of the diet of the vast bulk of the country. People who eat little meat and rely on fresh grains - be it wheat in the north or rice in the south - and plenty of fresh, locally grown vegetables, light on the seasoning usually and simply prepared. Its not sophisticated food, its certainly any awards, its not going to be replicated and appear on the menus of swanky restaurants in London and LA, but damn, it sure is comforting.

A few of my favourites include...

Steamed pork and cabbage dumplings

sliced tomatos with sugar sprinkled on top. odd, but good, try it!

Fried pork, onion, rice cake and green pepper, real simple peasant food

A simple, delicious peasant feast, comfort food, Chinese stylee

Oh dear

It seems I have not posted anything for...well, for two months. There has been a number of reasons for this. Its been too hot to do anyhing much more than sit by my a/c and pant, work has been busy and the Chinese government have made logging onto anything other than state sanctioned news sites very difficult and to be honest, the novelty of writing a blog that nobody reads has worn off somewhat. BUT, its October now, the weather has cooled, my energy levels have returned to normal levels, and its time to get back in the game. Over the next couple of weeks i will be posting a few catch up posts, some photos and generally trying to get back into the habit of one or two posts a week. watch this space. i know, i know, its almost too exciting.