/ck/ - Food & Cooking

rice

>>17554266
thank you for you insight, anon

>>17554262
This dick

>>17554270
anon, thats an axe wound

>>17554262
Probably a lot of soups / sauced noodle dishes. Meat is usually expensive in East Asia, so they may get their protein from bean curd or something.

>>17554288
>probably
>may
What even reply if you don't know what you're talking about.
>>17554262
Depends on the region. Coastal regions are going to rely more heavily on seafood while the most inner regions are going to have more access to livestock. Northern China eats more noodles and Southern China eats more rice. They all eat lots of steamed vegetables.

>>17554301
I dont believe that Chinese people exist, so I'm estimating based off of what I know about Vietnamese people.

>>17554307
based retard

>>17554268
It's true, what Asians eat daily follows the same formula as any other culture
>carb/some sort of base: rice
>main entree: meat, fish, etc.
>sides: vegetables, soup
The difference is in the spices, aromatics, etc. used

>>17554307
My mom says there is a lot of Chinese people in Africa

>>17554301
Breakfast in Beijing was great. I nice white steamed bun with some pickled vegetables and either eggs or pork

>>17554262
>what do people in china eat on a day-to-day basis?
I can only talk about what I ate when I was there as an exchange student as a kid. It's reasonable to expect that they put in slightly more effort than usual due to me being a guest. I also don't remember it too exactly since it's been ages.

The usual breakfast would be made by the mother and it was warm, consisting of leftovers from the previous day, so usually one or two dishes like braised pork or fish. Served with a bowl rice and fried eggs. You'd have some sauces available to dip it into. Kids would go to school with a box of the same stuff, somewhat similar to a japanese bento box. That being said we only were at their parents places since we were guests, normally the kids would live on campus at the school 5 days a week.
You'd go to school/work and eat what you had with you there. After work they sometimes went to a restaurant/diner, sometimes had snacks, sometimes didn't have anything.
Then at home there was dinner, which was the main meal. Always rice and usually 2-3 different dishes. Stuff like braised tofu, braised pork belly, fresh eel, fish, chicken, veggies and stir fries. The dishes would be in the middle of the table and you'd just take whatever you wanted. Normally you don't stay silent during eating and slurping is considered a compliment to the chef, but they didn't. I have no idea if they didn't because they normally don't or if it was out of consideration for me. The preparation was mostly the woman's job though the father sometimes helped for dinner. To drink there was usually tea, water, beer and sometimes other alcoholic drinks. Dessert wasn't really a thing and the few times we had any it was very westernized (ice cream and stuff) so I suspect it was done out of consideration for us too. Closest where stuff like steamed buns with sweet bean paste.
(1/2)

>>17554439
As for restaurants, there were different ones ranging from "takeaway/diner" to "high class restaurant". The normal ones were either sit down with russian service like in the west or upper-middle restaurants which often had french service and also more of a buffet feel: You'd have one big rotating plate on your table with different plates of different dishes on top that you had ordered before. You'd spin the table and take stuff on your plate. Always with a side of rice. Then there was also hotpot where you'd have one big bubbling soup in the middle and sit around that with fresh ingredients to cook in it, similarly to a fondue (not the cheese kind).
As for the cheaper/lower class restaurants they were often sit down but without a server and you'd sit outside on garden chairs. You'd get a single dish or again 2-3 and share among everyone, but not always, especially if you had noodles (wet or dry) in which case you'd just eat yours. Then there was also takeaway in the markets, ranging from great to backalley cooking. The cheapest was a market we visited in the slums where they prepped food fresh (including the slaughter) which for a bunch of young western children was probably not the wisest choice and may have traumatized a few students, but at least it was fresh I guess. I never had digestion issues while there, but my stomach is quite resilient so who knows if they used shit like gutter oil in those slums. For what it's worth it tasted good and was dirt cheap.

Overall it really depends on where you are. The touristy locations were basically the same as restaurants in europe, with russian service and single plates and servers. I'd assume more western places like hong kong are similar. The biggest difference where probably the markets, but even that's not that different from a french market where you get some oysters with white wine and cheese while watching people walk by.

>>17554446
>>17554439
To clarify when I say russian service I meant individual courses like entree, main dish and dessert, not that they necessarily put it on your plate for you (though that happened once too).
When I say french service I mean that they brought everything at once, not that they prepped it on a cart next to you (they only did that for peking duck in a high-ish class restaurant).
I just realized those terms imply a lot more than I wanted them to.

China is as large as the US and covers about the same latitude. North Chinese food is similar to Korean with potatoes, buns, fish and meat, also lots of spices and alcohol. Southern Chinese is more like Vietnam, much lighter lots of rice, fish and veggies. Also, western China is more like Mongolia or central Asia, Heavy on the meat, will drink dairy.

>>17554439
>>17554446
>>17554481
>>17554492
i'm just a lurker, but thank you so much for taking the time to type your experiences. i didn't know anything about this, and it feels really good to know.

A.N.M.D.

>>17554535
You're welcome, just keep in mind that my experience is probably limited in scope due to the location and the social circles I met while there. My host family was upper middle class and they probably showed the nicer parts of the country, same as we did when we hosted the chinese students where I lived. That being said we also were there without our hosts for a week, during which we probably saw more normal middle class foods.

If you are genuinely interested in chinese food the youtube channels chinese cooking demystified and chef wang have authentic stuff. Chef wang has a lot of exotic ingredients and animals, but also more normal dishes. CKD is more accessible for western viewers but they occasionally upload companion videos from the actual restaurants.
For example they have two from their favorite Dai Pai Dongs, which are like food stalls that have sitdown options on the street (often garden chair tier) and would be what I'd consider lower middle class to middle class food:
Cantonese fry roast chicken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVHZXEHMwrg
Black pepper beef: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4akA83Nd6UE
and lately one from a food stall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfLo0n3oah8
As you can see those have slightly lower hygienic rules than in the west (like france or spain), but better than what I have seen in places like india or some eastern european places, though spain came close.

I found pic related after a quick search and the general feeling of the round tables, the rotary center piece and the heavy dark wood chairs was pretty reprensentative of what I remember from the more upper middle class restaurants.

Blowtorched alive dogs

>>17554584
What I remember about Chinese food as a young kid growing up in Hong Kong was not really that it was “bad” (which it often was, of course) but that the stuff my parents ordered for us was almost all frozen, and that I would generally throw out whatever that they brought home. This was in the days before a proper kitchen, and there was a tiny freezer unit that could only hold what was on the top shelf, and often that was some random combination of Chinese or Indian takeout. A couple of times a week we’d have what seemed like the best of everything, but the rest of the time it was pretty terrible: a frozen piece of some meat and whatever was frozen with it, a tub of rice, and maybe a can of green peas, and maybe a can of baby corn. There was a few times in my childhood when we were treated to something really good, like fresh fish that one of the waiters brought home in a plastic bag. So for my first couple of decades, I never actually ate a lot

>>17554288
>Meat is usually expensive in East Asia

for japan it is because they're an island nation. but beijing was surprisingly cheap when i went in 2016. chicken/pork are cheaper than beef, we ate a lot of fried chicken but once in a while also splurged on beef too.

food tends to be pretty inexpensive although china is a net food importer. however, unlike japan, they can leverage their huge market for discounts on xbox hueg orders, i think the government helps to subsidize the cost of food imports as way to keep people happy and not in the mood for another tiananmen square, and china does a lot of direct foreign investment in food production, which is shipped back to them more cheaply as they work to horizontally integrate the food supply chain.

>>17554262
Mice and rice

>>17554675
That's somewhat interesting to me, because it felt quite different to my experiences when I was there, though as I said the host family I was with had above average income (which the school selected for. While from our school anyone could join if they wanted and had the cash to pay for the flight, the chinese school only allowed the students from the more prestigous families to participate).
This probably influenced their selection of foods greatly. I was much younger at the time and while I already loved food back then I wasn't into cooking as much so I only watched the mother cook once (which I somewhat regret now, but whatever). I doubt they used much in terms of frozen foods if any at all, but a lot more dried and reconstituted ingredients than you'd use in the west. Also a lot of fermented sauces compared to what you'd have in a western kitchen. It's safe to assume that especially those who were born outside the cities and migrated there have much cheaper and worse food and much smaller kitchens (though in general real estate was expensive, so even the rich families didn't have that big homes).
I also think that Hong Kong is somewhat different due to their western minded cuisine. We sadly never visited Hong Kong, but I'd love to do so at some point, simply because of how different their foods seems to be.

>>17554262

>>17554262
CCP propaganda, all day every day.

Cultural revolution got rid of smart and intelligent Chinese, only left with poor quality Chinese peasants.

>>17554262
A shitton of pork. We literally have strategic pork reserves. Pork is a essential part of the Han diet. That said, it's weird how the Hui people, the ethnically han muslims of China, somehow managed to keep a pork free cuisine despite China being pork capital of the world and also being the land where religions get weird interpretations like that one time some guy claimed to be the brother of Jesus Christ and killed WW1 amounts of people.

>inb4 pig uterus pasta

>>17554535
here
>>17554584
thanks for the follow-up! the visual's very cool too, (now i can imagine it)
>>17554675
oh dang, i'm sorry you had it tough.
i very, very much appreciate the shared experience man
since i'm not native to china, it feels like a lot i learn about all fronts of life there is sorted through a westernized filter before it reaches me, sort of like squinting to see the what daily reality's like through foggy glass, and coming away not sure as to what percentage of what i saw was really down-to-earth representative of regular life
again appreciate the post

>>17554262
Everything

>>17554835
>one time some guy claimed to be the brother of Jesus Christ and killed WW1 amounts of people
Fuck, i read an article about him about a hour ago

>>17555478
xdddddd
Go back to rebbit.

>>17554745
upvoted

HUUUUURRRRRRRR CHINA DOG CAT CHINA DOG GUTTER OIL HUUUUURRRRRR ELEVATOR GO BOOM *puts fingers on temples and pulls back to create squinty eyes* HUUUURRRRRRRR ME SO CHINESEY ME SO SOLLLY HUUUURRRR DOG SOUP HUUUURRRRRR

>>17554262
day to day is usually a mixture or rice, noodles or buns or bao

>>17554439
>>17554675
oh my god, I don't know who to believe

>>17554584
Based long form poster

>>17556288
never believe the copy pastas, they're always posted by underage americans

A cheap meal would be rice + one or two dishes. E.g. egg fried with tomato, pork fried with peppers.
Sometimes soup too.

At home, people eat rice with a number of dishes depending on how many are eating. Soup is quite popular and quite watery. I remember there'd be one dish that's literally just cabbage or spinach or some other green vegetable fried with garlic.

The most popular restaurants are cheap ones where you order rice + 1 dish, or noodles. But for a more upmarket restaurant, you can go to a hot pot restaurant, or a 'fine dining' restaurant where you order a bunch of overpriced dishes, or a buffet. Their buffets are really good because alcohol is included, but they're expensive by Chinese standards.

>>17556288
Believe both. They are just different people.
What does the average american eat?
Some probably have lavish breakfasts with pancakes and bacon and eggs, some have a PB&J and some get some cereal.

>>17554675
but why

>>17556308
I was being sarcastic, can't enter a china thread without seeing that copypasta. On that note though, it's nice to see a genuine response for once.

>>17554270
Provide the discourse, sir

>>17556138
>>17556333
i love you, thank you! (not op but) great posts and exactly what I was wondering.

>>17554262
Who is this cutie? Please be a male....

>>17554262
Whats the hairstyle at the bottom left called?

For me, it's bottom left

>>17554262
depends on the region but at least for some of canton/hong kong there's a lot of fish and less beef compared to america, always served with rice and usually some veggies
>a nice restaurant meal
depends, if you're a faggot and want to show off your wealth you go to a seafood restaurant and get stuff like crabs and sea cucumbers
otherwise other decent restaurant food you get is basically the recipes chef wang presents

>>17557294
Sort of a tapered hime cut in a ponytail?

Pork buns, according to my kungfu movies

>>17554262
dated a chinese girl for a bit.
according to her, mostly dumplings, noodles or fried shit.
she said have dumplings almost every morning for breakfast, and not the good fried kind the shitty boiled kind