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Eating unadulterated Chinese
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PRATIMA ASHER meets Master Chef Shi Xi Lin, who was in Kochi recently, and extracts a typical Chinese recipe from him
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THE Taj Malabar recently had Master chef Shi Xi Lin from the golden Dragon at the Mumbai Taj to give the people of Kochi a taste of some of the greatest cuisines of the world. Szechwan Chinese cooking.
It might sound incredible to state that Chinese cuisine is as yet a world unexplored by Kerala, what with fifty-six different ethnic groups in China, each with its own favorites and flavours and Mr. Lin's stint here is but a starter to the wondrous world of Chinese cooking.
Mr. Lin, who hails from Beijing says, in what he humorously termed, his Chinglish, how he started his career there. After high school he joined the Beijing Travel College and then a hotel management college. He worked at the government run island resort near Beijing where the cream of China's leadership took their vacations.
A series of job hops took him to place like the Sheng Fang Friendship hotel in the capital of the Ching dynasty. He worked in restaurants and learnt how to cook Muslim Chinese food.#Mr. Lin describes his experience in learning how to cook.
Two teachers taught just one student, that is, him. One, a professor from the hotel management institute and the other a master cook from a restaurant.
A typical day involved study in the morning followed by instructions from his two teachers and then cooking the dish he had learnt from them that day in the evenings at a regular hotel.
Obviously the gruelling routine paid off and Mr. Lin himself is a recognized chef with two gold medals awarded to him in mainland China for his Szechwan specialities.
When China opened its door to the world, a tangible result was the establishment of the Great Wall Sheraton hotel in Beijing and Mr. Lin became one of the first few Chinese to join foreign hotel. In 1994, he joined the Sheraton in Chennai and then moved over to the Taj group in 1997.
Mr.Lin provides fascinating glimpses of Chinese eating habits. People there generally have their main meals beginning with breakfast at six O'clock, consisting of noodle soup and another solid dish. Lunch is at 11 O'clock and dinner at 5.30 or 6 p.m.
This was the pattern in old China where meal times were thus determined by observing the hours of sunrise, noon and sun set and is still widely prevalent. The Chinese workweek consists of four and half days from Monday to Thursday and half day on Friday while Saturday and Sunday are holidays.
A typical day allows, by government rules, for two hours of sleep in the after noon. The great foodies that they are, once a person prospers, his first expenditure is on food and then on other things.
There are several customers who attend formal functions, which are often graded. For what is termed a palace food banquet, you begin with a cold dish. In fact a Chinese meal starts with a cold dish. The main dish is followed by a small snack and then you have another main dish and then a snack and so on.
For less luxurious meals two main dishes are followed by a snack. Unlike in the west, here the meal ends with the serving of soup unless the soup is of a very expensive variety such as bird's nest soup or shark fin soup. Then the soup is served first.
At palace food banquets the cold dish, says Mr. Lin, is often arranged in the shape of a butterfly, dragon, peacock, eagle or cock.
Mr.Lin comments on the subtlety of Chinese particularly Szechwan cuisine, where tricks are often played with appearance, taste and flavour. Szechwan food is often very spicy, a preparation for instance may look very red and spicy, the smell will not be spicy, the taste would be unexpected and at variance with the look and smell, and as you eat, you may experience different flavours.
When you finish eating you are left with a different flavour.
The flavours come in layers, says Mr. Lin. Obviously it is not a cuisine to be gulped down and it is no wonder that gourmets generally make a bee-line for it. If a restaurant does not serve Szechwan food, continues Mr. Lin, it does not have flavour to taste.
Mr. Lin's wife, Wangxing Ran, is also into the cooking profession.
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