Ben Hong
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Posts posted by Ben Hong
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Ah Leung, you sure the second picture is "young bean sprouts"?
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I have a cast iron mouth and I can stand a lot of "heat". Tried a lot of ma-la dishes, and when people exclaim about the same "ma" effect that you described, I just keep on eating
. There is a definite numbing effect, but I am not affected by it that much...if at all. I love the "la" or laht sensation (must be the masochist in me coming out. 
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The garlic breath that comes from the buccal cavity (mouth) is easily gotten rid of by the various methods listed and a good brushing. The more insidious form of garlic breath is actually impossible to get rid of as it is in your blood stream. As the lungs exchange air, the essence of garlic is expelled. Nothing that 12 hours time can't cure.
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How many authors of cookbooks really have the breadth of experience to claim that every recipe in their book is a personal one, developed over time by themselves? Kind of harsh language flung against a well meaning person who tries her best to expose a facet of Chinese cooking to a general audience. Not many of this general audience are sophisticated and skilled enough with pen or spatula as some here who profess to be critics. The perfect cookbook that is 100% valuable to everyone hasn't been nor ever will be written I say BRAVO to Grace Young and all the others who TRY.
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Yeah, I know, just assume the Chinese invented everything.
More like reacting to the "shot" quoted above. Emoticon or no, it is still a shot, given the context.
I agree, finally, that this horse is well into the stage of incipient rigor mortis and it doesn't need any more beating. R.I.P.
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Pan,
I don't care where and how and by whom the humoral systems started, really and truly. My approach to a philosophical diet is as omnivorous and eclectic as it is to my food diet and a lot of times I take anything presented to me with a grain of salt. All I know is that the topic was Yin Yang and the intrinsic "heat" values of various food in Chinese cooking and on a Chinese discussion board and started by a Chinese woman. These concepts, rightly or wrongly, have been generally accepted as Chinese for millenia and, for the purposes of this discussion, I believe that this feeling should prevail, until someone can direct us to documents that says otherwise.
If I may have sounded a little trenchant and caustic at your remarks, maybe that's from the attitude I assumed when you said that your knowledge of this whole thing was gleaned from a Malay neighbour.
As an aside one of best and most erudite members of the eG forums withdrew from these boards after one of the most senior members and prolific contributors argued with her over her culture and customs, into which she was born and raised. His knowledge came from a local family of immigrants. There are montebanks and charlatans and heretics everywhere, even on the eG.
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Sue-On Moi Moi, right you are.
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Ahhh, Zadi. You may have hit on something! That old dude Zoroaster (Zarathustra) was the spark that begat a lot of theories about life and being. If there was one entity who could lay claim to the simultaneous formulation of these theories in this discussion, it would be him, as just by time context alone (anywhere from 500-3000BC ???you know when?)
He's the one person I had not thought of.
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Zadi, I did some extracurricular reading about 40 years ago, but I believe that there is a book called "Pharmacopeia Sineca" written at the beginning of the Han Dynasty, about 2000 years ago. Please don't quote me exactly on this, my memory is not all that good these days. For those of you fresher and brighter people, perhaps you can Google it up.
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Yeah, I know, just assume the Chinese invented everything.
In the early 1400s, the great Chinese Eunuch Admiral took a trip on a sailing ship, and along with a few of his cronies, he visited all the tropical paradises we now call Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, through the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, thence on to Sri Lanka, India, the Middle East, East Africa and on to Madagascar before he turned back to China. On board homeward were tribal chiefs, "ambassadors and plenipotentiaries" from most of these lands, who were taken back to China (voluntarily or not) to pay homage and tribute to the Chinese court. In return, China made these "primitive" societies rich and enlightened.
When the trade routes opened up whole new worlds to these people, lands and cities near or on these trade routes became fabulously wealthy. Enlightenment came with the influx and intermix of various cultures from other lands and other peoples. The Chinese being the only superpower in that part of the world then and because they were so much farther advanced culturally, militarily, politically, socially, became a model from which the tributary countries and peoples drew their inspiration. That influence is accepted now as a fact of life, whether it's in food or cooking, business practices, religions and general conduct.
It was also a two way street, as China benefitted hugely from the commercial intercourse and cultural interchange with these lands. One does not have to delve too deeply to find evidence of these cross cultural influences. But there is one important fact about various medical, humoral, and even spiritual effects of food as is being discussed. That is the Chinese can prove that their ideas and theories about acupuncture, herbal medicines and foods, chi and energy meridians, Y/Y, etc. as these theories and practices were documented and in general usage from oh, about several thousand years ago.
Did the Malays or anyone else come up with the notion of "humor" and yin-yang?? Documents, please.
BTW Old Cheng He sailed three times into the region and on one trip he had 500 vessels, and 80,000 civilians and soldiers. A lot of his ships were 400 feet long. Compare that with Old Chris Columbus' expedition 70 years later. The Italian caravelles Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were in the 80 foot range, maybe smaller.
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So, a potato that is generally "neutral" when boiled retains its neutrality even after it is fried to a crisp and is called a potato chip??
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It's interesting to me that you feel like the yin or yang quality of a foodstuff can be altered by treatment such as longer cooking. Malays and, I believe, most other people who believe in the humoral system feel that humoral qualities of hot and cold are inherent in foodstuffs, regardless of the temperature or raw or cooked state of the item.
Malays?? There is good reason to believe that the Chinese are originators and greatest adherents to the theories of the humoral system. The YY and humoral characteristics of a food can be altered by the maturity of the food and/or cooking length, method and style. A good example is a very popular vegetable that we Chinese love, watercress.
When the plant is young, as sold in a supermarket, we would just pop it into a boiling pot of broth and have a quick refreshing soup (tang). But this quick soup made with very young plants is very, very YIN, so the cook knows enought to toss in a bit of yang in the form of a few slices of gingerroot, or pork liver to moderate the yin effect. But, give the Chinese cook a bunch of gnarly old watercress and he instinctively knows that "lo foh sai yeung choy tang" will be on the table...after 3-4 hours. (long cooked watercress soup). That soup will have a few pork bones, a dried oyster or two, maybe lotus nuts or gingko nuts. This soup and the main constituent (old watercress) is definitely NOT yin. In the belief of the Chinese, inherent or intrinsic qualities of any food can definitely be transformed.
Malays, huh????
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Yes, but what I can taste is only the result of a long process of association. Most fried, deep fried and roasted meats are attributed the yang effect by the cooking process. Boil or steam some of these foods and you might achieve theyin effect. A lot of the "green" tasting foods are yin (spinach, bok choy, gai choy), while some of the more earthy ones are neutral (potatoes, beets,although to some lobok is yang) As Dejah says, most nuts are yang and "dry" in humor (gawn). Lamb and mutton and to a large extent beef is on the yang side. Pork is neutral (conveniently, as that is the most preferred of all the meats. The differences between species of fish are too nuanceful for most people to discern.
Like I said earlier in another post, this whole concept is nebulous and inexact indeed. It's based on type of food, method of cooking, the association with other foods in the pot, and even the season, etc.....How one perceives the classification and the effects of the different foods and materials in the YY dyad, all depends on your family lore(and observation) and teaching, and the popular understanding of what is yin and what is yang. I doubt very much that even two well trained herbalists can agree 100% on what is Yin and what is Yang.
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Of course it was.
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The brown gravy was BOSS! Oh m'lord. I loved eating it freshly made over a scoop of rice.
Gastro Girl, when I was a young'un that was also my favourite treat, but I also like a hamburg patty and fried onions and mushrooms too. Loved that old steam table gravy - over rice, fries, mashed and peas, ....
My all time favourite retaurant kitchen treat, if we were "balls to the walls" busy, was any piece of fried meat (porkchop is tops), a couple of slices of tomato, and a scoop of white rice with a splash of light soy and a few drops of sesame oil. Even now, I have it at least a couple of times a month.
Funny how even with all the great food around in a commercial kitchen, we still prefer the basic stuff.
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I am having a hard time visualizing oil at a "rapid boil"and deep frying egg foo yung.
Me too. How do you keep all the veggies and meat together in the deep fryer. Or maybe you guys shallow fry the stuff in a deep fry pan.
Like I said many times, I am still learning.
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As far as I can remember, this dish was always a "minor" dish at our dinner tables, that is it was no trouble to make and it took so little time. When the cook, eg: my mother felt that we were hungrier than she thought, or a guest came in unexpectedly, she'd crack a half dozen eggs, throw in some scraps of meat and veggies or green onions and presto, another dish in about 3 minutes. The "sauce" was usually a sprinkle of soy sauce , or a dribble of oyster sauce.
Jo-Mel, I hadn't realized that some restaurants deep fried their "foo yong". Must be the dickens of a job, what with all the ingredients bursting all over the deep fat.
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Lord, why can't people just call it an "omelet"? This is a great way to use up leftovers, or add a quick dish if a guest shows up unexpectedly at the family table.
Gravy? Fie, m'lord, get thee hence, away from our trencherboard. Sully not such goodly victuals. Philistines, I say.
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Post?? I am a confirmed dinosaur when it comes to anything related to the computer. Sorry.
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Eureka!! I have found the list. It's in one of my cookbooks "The Encyclopaedia of Chinese Cooking" by Kenneth Lo. In fact he lists 40 terms, starting on page 9 of this book and goes to page 20.
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Never heard of alcohol in jook before. I would have had to live another 40 years tofind that out, if not for the eG.
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I agree with Dejah on the "indoctrination through the ages " theory, I would call it osmosis. All the women in my immediate family, ie: grandmothers, aunts, mother, etc. lived well into their late 80s. My "yee-ma", my mother's eldest sister was 99 when she passed away a few years ago. My mother was 86 when she died, 3 others are still very much alive and thriving, 83, 84, 86 . My maternal grandmother was 101 and her sisters lived well into their 80s through revolution, famines, tortures, disease and other tragedies that only women of that age can relate to. And although they never heavily proselytized the ying-yang thing, they subconsciously followed it.
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I read this in a cookbook/treatise on Chinese cuisine long ago, 40 years , while in university and I was just beginning to search for my roots. It seemed at the time an astronomical number, until I read another book where the author said essentially the same. I can't remember the sources now, but they wrote the Chinese characters and then transliterated them into English using the Pinyin style, approximate at best. I have never heard of the majority of the terms myself. Asking me whether I can remember what I read 40 years ago is a fool's errand because I sometimes can't even remember my own name.
Pictorial: Congee (Jook) with Salted Pork
in China: Cooking & Baking
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That's like jasmine tea without the flowery jasmine bouquet.
