Chinese Cuisine

Typical Roundtable Dinner

Eating in China has been an interesting experience in itself. The food has a few fairly consistent themes. Rice or noodles are common foods and appear in most every meal. There is an abundance of fresh local vegetable dishes; a few common items include tofu, cucumbers, mushrooms, peppers, bamboo shoots, and various greens similar to spinach. Steamed buns take the place of breads, but are not usually served with each meal. Meat is not uncommon but is typically pork, fish, or chicken. Beef seems to be less common and shows up more often in areas that cater to foreigners. Dishes are prepared to be eaten with chopsticks, so everything is cut into smaller pieces. Fried foods are very popular, a fact that is supported by the popularity of KFC. It is hard to find salty foods and just as difficult to locate truly sweet food or drink. Surprisingly this trend also holds true in American based fast food chains in China such as KFC and McDonalds.


Assortment of street food from vendors

On most Chinese market streets, individual vendors offer unique varieties of street food. Street foods are often times meat, and frequently on a stick. Again pork is common as well as tofu and fried foods.

Since coming to China, almost every meal we have eaten as a group has been a “round table” meal. This type of meal consists of many different dishes placed in the middle of the table, usually on a “lazy susan” which can be rotated instead of passing dishes back and forth. Each person serves themselves as much of each dish as they want as the food spins in the center. Each meal has at least one type of soup, and dessert is a seasonal fruit, which has by and large been watermelon.