Please eat the exhibits
Huai’an residents believe their foods are museum- caliber, and a proud chef has come to the capital to convince Beijingers, Ye Jun reports.
Acuisine style considered so important that locals created a museum for it has to be worth trying. Cai Guobin, a 37-year-old from Huai’an, Jiangsu province, is executive chef with China Huaiyang Cuisine Cultural Museum. He is working as a guest chef at a Huaiyang food event at the Red Chamber Chinese Restaurant, China World Summit Wing Beijing until Aug 25. “Huaiyang cuisine has several hundred years of history. The local government places a lot of importance on it. More than 10 gourmet festivals have been held,” says Cai, who has worked for 21 years as a cook. The museum, according to Cai, has 8,000 centuries ago to visiting Qing Emperor Qianlong is taken out, and rinsed with water. Chefs will square meters for displays that include local — quite a gourmet himself, if we judge slice it open to take only the flesh on the back, wedding customs, the story of Huaiyang from the number of foods with stories relating frying it in salad oil with soy sauce, black pepper, cuisine, and a history of the regional salt to him. The emperor praised it, and the yellow rice wine, starch and garlic slices. business. soup has been popular ever since. Chef Cai says Huai’an food offers simple
The name Huaiyang comes from the initial Of course, the secret of any food’s longterm but good countryside taste, like that made characters of Huai’an and Yangzhou, but popularity lies in good taste. Tofu for by “an old mom”. Compared with Cantonese the concept of Huaiyang cuisine is already the Pingqiao-style soup has to be cut neatly food, which uses a lot of seasoning, Huai’an extended to include food styles of the nearby into small rhombic shapes, and made with cuisine relies more on the taste of the ingredients area. The cuisine immediately relates to chicken stock. themselves. Although the dishes look Huai’an, Yangzhou and Zhenjiang, cities on Pucai, or cattail from Kaiyang, is also very simple, the chef ’s effort is apparent in the the path of the Beijing- Hangzhou Grand special. It is the crisp and tender stem of a food and its taste. Canal, a lifeline of transportation in ancient water plant, raised in very deep, fertile silt. To adapt to modern tastes, Cai says local China. A flourishing salt business brought Very tender and delicate, pucai is mostly sauteed chefs have meshed modern concepts of health prosperity to the area, giving rising to beautiful and added to chicken soup, then topped into Huai’an food. Local people, who once gardens and a gourmet cuisine. with dried shrimp. The tenderness reminds used pork fat in the cooking, now replace
In modern times, Huai’an has been the one of white asparagus, only more tender. It’s it with vegetable oil. “Clear water” beef is hometown of some famous people, too. become a high-end delicacy locally. braised in vegetable juice during preparation These include China’s late premier, Zhou Huai’an has many rivers and lakes, such as to make it more tender and healthy. Enlai, and Wu Cheng’en, author of Journey Hongze Lake, Dayun Lake, the ancient Yellow Quick- boiled bean- curd slices, brined to the West. Apart from the cultural displays, River, and Baima Lake. The city is a proud “oily chicken”, and Qingong pork meatball the museum has two kitchens serving classic producer of good rice and fishes. processed with an iron pole are also classic and new dishes of Huaiyang style. Silver minnow is lightly brined and dried Huai’an specialties.
Cai, who runs both kitchens, says while to give it a bit of good chewy texture, before The chef says he and his team have worked Yangzhou food adopts ingredients from it’s steamed and served. Huai’an’s braised eel to present “the tastes we had in childhood”. around the country, Huai’an cuisine uses a uses only the back of those about the size of Although he depicts Huai’an cuisine as that lot of local produce. a chopstick, because they offer the best taste. made by a countryside grandma, the amount
This is reflected in the Huai’an menu at Red The preparation of the eel is a good example of effort put into the food, and its simple but Chamber. Many specialties are named after of how much effort is made in the food natural taste, may explain why the food style the area in Huai’an where the ingredients style. The eel is boiled until the pot is seething, has earned its place in a museum. hail from. and then simmered for 15 minutes with
Bean-curd soup is from Pingqiao. A local an array of seasonings — ginger, shallot, yellow landlord is said to have served it almost three rice wine, salt and vinegar. Then the eel Contact the writer at yejun@chinadaily.com.cn.