China Daily (English version) has a story where the reporter gets himself tied up in geographical knots. The first paragraph states that the events take place “in Liuzhou”. The second para says “160 kilometres away from Liuzhou”. Which is correct? Well, both are. The story’s setting is Rongshui County which is in Liuzhou Prefecture, but […]
Friday food is a weekly article about one of the more unusual food items to be found in Liuzhou that week. This week, we are looking at celery with a difference. There are two types of celery widely available in China. First is what we westerners think of as regular celery (Apium graveolens), known in […]
Friday food is a weekly article about one of the more unusual food items to be found in Liuzhou that week. This week, we are longing for beans. Long beans, yard long beans, snake beans, long-podded cowpeas, asparagus beans, pea beans, or Chinese long beans are all the same thing, Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis, a […]
This amused me. A couple of days ago, a man in Matou Village, Liuzhou was tending his bamboo forest when he came across some strangers stealing his bamboo shoots. He wouldn’t have minded, he said, had they only been taking a few for themselves, but they had amassed sack loads, so he called the police. […]
Despite sitting on Vietnam’s shoulder, we are strangely unable to source many of the key ingredients for their wonderful cuisine. I’ve never encountered lemongrass or basil, for example in Liuzhou. I grow my own mint, so that’s no problem. I did, about three or four years ago find limes in Bubugao and had a few […]
Friday food is a weekly article about one of the more unusual food items to be found in Liuzhou that week. This week, we are boiling beans. “Edamame” isn’t a term you are liable to hear anywhere on the streets or markets of Liuzhou. It is the Japanese name for immature soy beans (Japanese:枝豆), known […]
Like so many things, it came out of the blue. I was kind of aware that there was a Chinese holiday this week, but being self-semi-employed I am often a man of leisure and the holidays make little impact on my life. This one is in celebration of the Dragon Boat Festival 端午节 and although […]
Friday food is a weekly article about one of the more unusual food items to be found in Liuzhou that week. This week, we are mincing mushrooms. This mushroom extract is being marketed as “more healthy” alternative to the dreaded, but falsely maligned, MSG. Basically it is salt and powdered dried mushrooms (boletus, shiitake and […]
Friday food is a weekly article about one of the more unusual food items to be found in Liuzhou that week. This week, we are seeing red. I was in the supermarket a while back and became confused – not for the first, or last, time. Among the many mysterious green vegetables on offer was […]
Friday food is a weekly article about one of the more unusual food items to be found in Liuzhou that week. This week, we are doing some arithmetic. Is there anything more typically Chinese than five spice powder (五香粉)? Well, yes. Many years ago, I worked in an office overlooking London’s China town. By around […]