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Yunnan Food

Click on the buttons above for some of our favourite Yunnan-inspired recipes, dishes we occasionally rustle up at here in Simao...
Try cooking them at home (if you can find the ingredients!).

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In Britain we might 'small talk' about the weather; in China the topic is FOOD... Over here, a common greeting around mealtimes is "ni chi le ma?", literally "have you eaten?"

The Lanhua Market
Out the back gate of the College and across the road is one of Simao's general markets (above), where Alastair buys most of our fruit, fish and vegetables. It's an amazing place, and we are always spotting new and unusual things here. The girls are developing a good awareness of food in all its forms!

Freda and Edie came home very excited after their first market trip, where they saw sackfuls of frogs squirming about, catfish leaping about, bee larvae in honeycombs, turtles, and live (but not for long) chickens. Although the market might seem slightly daunting at times, if one goes early in the morning there will always be fresh, organic produce available. Everything is weighed using these rod counterbalances (above left and right).

We buy fish, pumpkin by the slice, juicy red tomatoes (that taste like tomatoes should!), coriander in large, fragrant bunches and tasty 'ladies' fingers' bananas. Some things are seasonal, which is a nice change from Tescos. We give the dog meat (see above right) a wide berth - that's to say meat OF dog, not meat FOR dog! In the winter there's a lot of it about - it's supposed to be a 'warming' food; good for keeping out the winter chill. Alastair is sticking to whisky!

Two local delicacies we are still to get the hang of are fried bees/bee larvae (above left) and pickled chicken feet...it's something to do with a combination of cultural upbringing as well as texture! Edie is not constrained by ingrained Scottish culture and loves them... Whole Chickens (above right) in the Supermarket, which isn't always the freshest source of meat. We do however go to the supermarket for some foods: porridge oats, rice, crackers, yoghurts, beer, oil and ... ahemm, chocolate. However, it took us 14 months to discover that we could buy delicious smoked bacon (see below) in the supermarket (and elsewhere).

The problem was that we hadn't actually recognized it as bacon (a sad reflection of the oversanitized nature of supermarket food shopping in the UK!). This bacon is the best I've ever tasted - dry cured, delicately smoked, and with no added brine. We slice it to our preferred thickness and fry it up with eggs for a special treat! And it only costs about 2 GBP/kg.

Early days of chopstick use. 
Techniques are a bit more refined these days! We've never insisted on them using chopsticks but, of course, the girls are keen to do what everyone else is doing. Freda's fingers started off very close to the tips (above left) but she can now use them as the Chinese do! Luckily you don't use chopsticks to eat kebabs, as Edie demonstrates (above centre). Sometimes the food comes skewered ONTO a chopstick, as in the case of this fresh pineapple (above right) from a street-vendor. Delicious, but best eaten out-of-doors as it's very juicy...

Eating out
We have a number of favourite restaurants for eating out, ranging from cheap to very cheap. In addition, there are numerous noodle-shops in Simao. Most sell a basic bowl of rice noodles for Y2.5 (18p), but at some places you can pick up a bowl of hand-pulled wheat noodles. Watching the cook prepare these is an experience in itself (above left and centre)! Ali's favourite meal out is a hamburger and chips from the MeiMei Cafe in Jinghong (above right). Unfortunately this, our nearest Western-style cafe, is a two hour bus journey from Simao!

More detail of some individual establishments follows...

Campus Canteen

Ideal for a late-night bowl of noodles, a chilli-smothered frankfurter, or a quick bowl of fresh pineapple or melon, or even an ice lolly from the freezer. They also serve baozi at breakfast time and meals at other times of day but we prefer to head outside...

       
Across-the-Bridge Noodle Restaurant

This is where to come for the classic Yunnan dish - Across-the-Bridge Noodles. You are served an enormous earthenware pot containing boiling hot chicken broth covered in a layer of oil (which keeps it hot). Then you add thin slices of meat/fish, an egg or two, mushroom, pork fat, chickweed, and finally a big bowl of rice noodles. Stir it up, add a few bits of garnish from the buckets, and get slurping...

     
Dong-Bei Jaozi (Dumpling) Restaurant

Not so close to the campus as the other places, but has a good selection of Beijing-style food including "jaozi" (boiled dumplings filled with meat or vegetable, and "di san xian", a delicious stirfry of aubergines, potato and peppers (above right).

       
Muslim Restaurant

One of our favourite places, close to the College with very friendly staff and delicious food. Fish, sliced beef, potato pancake, soups and stirfried vegetables served with rice, and of course, no pork (which makes a pleasant change)! All the photos above feature the bamboo rice steamer sitting in a wok precariously balanced on top of the coal-block cooking drum.

       
Lu Dao Sha Guo Restaurant

Another favourite - we come to this town-centre place for their speciality "sha guo", earthenware pots filled with rice noodles, vegetables and topped off with pork slices. The other draw is their fresh crinkle-cut chips, with or without a healthy dose of chilli! They also do great lamb kebabs, and barbequed fish, courgette and other vegetables. We also like their fresh juices - pineapple, lime or coconut are the best, and they also do cocktails! Edie really enjoyed this fish, head and all. As well as the food being tasty we enjoy relaxing in the breezy balcony-like setting draped in artificial vines!

   
Betty's Restaurant

Betty is the no-nonsense lady who recently opened up this canteen-style eatery, the closest one to the college and very popular with us for an easy lunch. She does a great pumpkin soup and stirfried potato cubes. The fish soup is another classic. We try to bag this spot outside in the shade where we squat on wee stools at a low table.

KUNMING FOOD

During the 2005 mid-autumn break we headed to Kunming for a short holiday. The culinary adventure began en-route when the bus company provided us with a meal ticket for this little bus station restaurant at Mo Jiang. The food was really tasted but we had to scoff it down in 15 minutes, along with the other 40 passengers, stewardess and our driver. Apart from the rice and green beans we're unable to identify the other ingredients.

Exploring the Old Quarter of Kunming we were introduced to the joys of street food - spicy kebabs are being prepared by this Muslim chef.

Raw and partially-cooked skewers sit prepared for grilling over charcoal when they are sprinkled with chilli,  cumin and salt. Here the chef wafts the coals with his baseball cap. 

Directly outside our guest house there were even more Yunnan specialities to try. The Sichuan pepper in this little boiled noodle dish blew our lips off! First of all one chooses the ingredients from the fresh vegetables on the cart. These are put in a basked to cook in a pot of steaming, spicy, watery soup. When ready they are tipped into a plastic bag for the final seasoning ("What, no MSG or salt?!" They think we're mad) and handed over with a pair of chopsticks.

On the left, just what you need after some spicy noodles - a banana fritter drizzled with condensed milk. Absolutely yummy. On the right, and centre, one can see a fabulous Yunnan speciality - bamboo rice - rice cooked and sold in a bamboo tube. The water-soaked rice is sweetened by the fresh bamboo on a grill. Before handing it over the vendor/chef strips the hard outer shell off with a clever, leaving soft bamboo flesh to peel back. Like many Chinese dishes, it would be hard to categorize it as either sweet or savoury.