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The climate of Jiangxi is very hot and humid in the summer and so, like neighboring province, Hunan and Hubei, the cuisine is fairly spicy. Like other Chinese regional cuisines, chili peppers are directly used as a vegetable and not just for flavoring. A unique feature of Jiangxi cuisine (also known as Gan cuisine) is that tea oil is used almost exclusively as the only cooking oil in its dishes. The dishes often incorporate douchi (fermented black beans) and doufu (tofu).
The region is known for its freshwater fish and over 170 species of fish, which accounts for 21.4% of the national total of freshwater fish. Lake Poyang is the largest fresh water lake in China. Consequently, Jiangxi cuisine is known for their freshwater fish banquet.
Another specialty is soup. Every restaurant serves soup. Chefs put several small clay pots with water and duck, or chicken, or pig’s foot and ingredients such as ginger and green onion into a large pot over a slow fire. It usually takes at least five hours to cook the soup. Clay pot soup served with rice noodles (banfen) is the breakfast dish of choice for the residents of Nanchang.
The best food areas are along Xiangshan beilu, for fish. Jiangxi food is best tried in the upmarket Wenxuan Restaurant (Wenxuan jiulou), also on Xiangshan lu, or in many of the local hotels. For cheap snacks and fast food, around the railway station is a good place to go. Other places to go to taste genuine specialties such as Nanchang Rice Noodles and Shitou Jie Mahua are Ruzi Lu and Fuzhou Lu. For clay pot soup, Yuzhang Dalaowu Soup Restaurant located near Shengjinta Tower is a place to try.
Recommended restaurants for Gan cuisine:
Jiachang Fan
Hongcheng branch address: No.659, Hongcheng Lu
Ruzi branch address: No.141, Ruzi Lu, Xihu District
Yutu Fanzhuang
Address: No.168, Ruzi Lu, Xihu District
Xiangtang Tuji Dian
Address: Dieshan Lu, Xihu District
Three Cup Chicken (Sanbei Ji)
Three Cup Chicken is a traditional Jiangxi cuisine dish. Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces. Heat up the sesame oil, add garlic and ginger, stir-fry till fragrant, and then add chicken pieces till it changes color. Season with sugar, soy sauce and rice wine. After boiling, turn the heat to medium till the sauce thickens. Turn the heat to high and add basil and green onion, then serve.
Steamed Pork Slices with Glutinous Rice (Mifen Zhengrou)
Nanchang people like to have a bowl of steamed pork slices with glutinous rice around the beginning of summer each year. The main material is the streaky pork.
Cured Meat with Wild Artemisia Selengensis (Lihao Chao Larou)
Artemisia Selengensis Turcz is a kind of wild herb that grows around Poyang Lake. The nutritious herb is known to contain protein and carotene. Nanchang people are fond of it and like to cook it with cured meat.
Yuzhang Duck
A spicy crispy skin duck dish.
Just off of Wangfujing Avenue on Dong An Men Avenue, food stalls open during the evening and serve street food to passersby. This is a very popular area. In addition to such fare as jaozi and guotie (dumplings and potstickers), baozi (steamed buns filled with roast pork, bean paste or other fillings) and noodles, there are also a lot of offerings that are served on a stick. You can find meat kabobs and fruit. Alas, there are no corn dogs or pork chops on a stick. They did, however, have a few offerings that I suspect will never be offered at the Minnesota State Fair.
I wasn’t at all tempted to eat the deep fried scorpions, grasshoppers or insect pupae although we did see streetgoers happily consuming them. Then, again, they might have turned up their noses at twinkies or hot dish on a stick. 
Here is a video of some folks who are much braver than I:
Today is my dad’s birthday. In China, “longevity noodles” would be eaten on birthdays because the long noodles symbolize long life.
In my family we continued this tradition by always eating noodles on birthdays. Some times it would be Chinese noodles, other times it would be spaghetti, as long as it was noodles. Spaghetti with white clam sauce is a dish I often make for my birthday. I always eat noodles to celebrate a birthday of anyone in my family and have taught this tradition to Karen. We’ll be eating noodles this evening.
A friend of mine, Jackie Urbanovic, illustrated a children’s book called Spaghetti Eddie.
She decided to portray the family as Chinese American because I once told her about our tradition of eating noodles. She sent me an autographed copy of the book. Natalie likes us to read it to her when she goes to bed.
We will certainly go to eat Peking Duck when we visit Beijing. We will probably go to Quanjude Restaurant. The original Quanjude was established in 1864. It is located south of Tiananmen Square. The last time we went to Beijing we visited the branch located at Wangfujing which opened in 1959. The area around Wangfujing Avenue near Tiananmen Square is the central business district and shopping area of Beijing.
Quanjude uses the traditional method of roasting duck that they learned from imperial chefs from the Forbidden City. The duck is rubbed with salt, sugar and spices. The skin of the duck is inflated like a balloon to separate it from the fat underneath. It is then hung on a pole over a non-smoky hard wood fire (such as date, peach, and pear trees) until the skin turns golden brown and crisp. When the duck is served, a cook comes to the table to carve the duck by cutting off slices of crispy skin and tender meat.
The dish is eaten by placing some crispy skin and duck meat on a bao bing, a thin small tortilla-like wrapping. A slice of scallion and some sweet paste made of hoisin sauce.
At the end of the meal a bowl of duck broth is served.
Last time we just ordered Peking Duck. Next time I hope we order a couple of additonal dishes. Other duck dishes available are: duck foot webs with mustard, Brine duck liver, stewed duck liver and gizzard, duck rolls in Maotai wine, duck slices in wine essence, duck with all flavours, duck wings in brown sauce, assorted four delicacies from the duck, deep-fried duck liver and gizzard, grilled duck heart, four delicacies from the duck in hot sauce, three delicacies of duck in rice wine, white grilled three delicacies of duck, duck tongues with egg-white, Beijing duck rolls, egg custard with duck grease, shark’ fin with duck, steamed duck, steamed duck breast in unglazed pot, mushroom stewed with duck wings, snow mushroom soup with duck tongues, bird’s nest and duck tongues, duck hearts with chrysanthemum, sauted duck intestine, fresh mushroom with duck slices, duck-like pastry, stuffed dumpling with duck meat and crepes with vegetables oil.
One restaurant that I really hope that we can visit in Beijing is the Fangshan Restaurant located in Beihai Park. The restaurant is located in Yilantang Hall on the north side of the Jade Isle. The Empress Dowager Cixi(1835 – 1908) used to take her meals in Yilantang Hall after sight – seeing in the park, which was once an imperial garden. Fangshan Restaurant is well-known because it serves imperial court cuisine from the Qing Dynasty. The restaurant was opened in 1925 by chefs of the imperial court. This was a year after Puyi, “the Last Emperor,” was driven out of the Forbidden City. The restaurant is known for their “ManHan” banquet which is composed of Manchu and Han dishes. Stewed camel’s hump and deer tendon are some of the exotic dishes that they offer. They are also known for their pastries such as the Empress Dowager Cixi’s favorite sesame buns stuffed with minced pork and wan dou huang, a sweet made from dried peas and sugar.
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My dad used to call me a fan tong. The literal translation means “rice bucket.” He said he called me that because I ate so much rice. Yep, you could say that again. I love rice. I could eat rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t think I could go more than a few days without eating rice. In fact, we have five different types of rice in our kitchen: Thai jasmine, New Orleans long grain, Japanese short grain, basmati and arborio. (My friend John made me aware of this fact although he bettered me, he has six types of rice.)
It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned (from some Chinese exchange students) that when you call someone a fan tong, you are calling him an idiot or a simpleton. Ha. Yep, that’s me. I’m a fan tong. Really. I’m a fan tong. I love these flashes of satori.
Karen says there’s a saying about toddlers. They will be two of three things: eaters, sleepers and talkers. Well, Hua Mei is a sleeper and a talker. As far as eating goes, well, that’s another story. Once we finally get food in her mouth, we have to remind her to chew and swallow. She’s happy to just hold food in her mouth. Fortunately she does like to eat rice. When she’s hungry, she’ll ask to eat rice morning, noon or night. Maybe we’ll have another fan tong in the family.
The weather in Beijing in Nov and Dec will have highs in the 40ºF to 50ºF range and lows in the 20ºF to 30ºF range. Given the expected weather in Nanchang and Guangdong, we’ll need to bring along a fairly wide range of clothes. We’ll probably be flying in to Beijing and spend three to four days to acclimate and sightsee.
When we last visited Beijing, we visited the Summer Palace:
the Forbidden City:
the Great Wall:
and the Ming Tombs:
These trips were arranged by our CHSFS contact and guide Peter. He also took us to some Friendship Stores and a pearl market. I’m sure we’ll try to go to the same sights since this will be the first time for Grace, Laurel, Abby and Hua Mei. I’ll make sure that we also return to Quanjude Restaurant for Peking Duck.
This trip though I really want to go to Beihai Park. My dad said that in his youth he spent a lot of time there. There’s also a restaurant in the park called Fangshan restaurant that serves dishes based on imperial recipes.
I also want to go see the Temple of Heaven.
It might also be fun to go see the Olympic Park. Obviously, it will depend on time and weather.
Last time we went to China, we were really focused on preparing for receiving Hua Mei. We had no expectations regarding being tourists and had very little idea or plans about what to see. Now that we’ve gone through the process once, we are a bit more prepared and kind of know what to expect. It’s kind of funny to think about planning out places to go visit. I suppose that a lot has to do with showing Hua Mei China too.
