Ben Hong

That's the first real cookbook I bought 45 years ago when I had to start cooking for myself. It is still my main reference source when I have any doubt. It is a simple, plain little book with no glossy photos but it has charm...and good info.

Peter, thanks for a great travelogue. What impressed me was NOT the food, the sights, the places, but the fact that you are raising Scud properly. He is wearing MONTREAL CANADIENS colours!!!!! Given the choice between a crucial Habs game or a Chinese banquet when I am starving, I believe that I would opt for my Habs game I have been a fan for 57 years and 20 Cups. GO HABS GO Do you think that you could pose Scud in front of a historical place/thing wearing the Habs shirt???

It's called fish fragrant because that particular sauce/aroma is generally used for fish dishes, Dejah-Mui.

Cook normally, and keep the bag of sugar handy.

Dee toy comes in several varieties, some disintegrate after cooking for a while and some are indestructible rags that retains its form even after hours of cooking and digestion . Colours range from green to purple. The Island of Grand Manan off the coast of our province (New Brunswick) is the largest harvester and processor of this seaweed, which is the common dulse. Dried dulse is a Maritime treat, sold in bulk or package and snacked on like the potato chip.

I'll pipe in and add a couple of suggestions. With my job I have traveled, and eaten, extensively in 19 other countries over the last 36 years and watched the evolution of the dining experience here in the Maritimes from a participant's and a diner's point of view. Sadly, I will be retiring the end of this week to a lake south of Fredericton and I won't have the opportunities to sample any more. (In some cases, this would be a great thing). I agree with many of the choices and observations on this thread and I'll add two: For authentic Hong Kong style Cantonese food, the "Silvery Moon" in Riverview is beyond compare. To me, it's the only place that serves "Chinese" food in the maritimes. Given enough notice, they can produce items that will transport you back to Old Kowloon, where the owners were very successful restauranteurs in a very tough market. If you go there to order s&s chicken balls, or garlic spare ribs, or combo slop, stay away and go to the nearest take out. For good old Maritime fried seafoods, go to "Comeau's Seafoods" on the Pennfield strip, 35 miles west of SJ. Makes Ossie's look like stingy, miserly amateurs.

XiaoLing Mui, red cooked pork hocks are my family's favourite red-cooked meat. Yours look unctuously decadent, redolent of anise, all sticky sweetness that stays on the lips long after the meal,.....oh, gawd.....

Afters? I'd go for efficiency and authenticity. A couple of crates of Sunkist Navel oranges sliced into sections ala Chinoise

Sweet and sour chicken balls with chicken fried rice. Something that will absolute be eaten by everyone of of those 300.

Ditto. Although, if I have leftovers or if I'm feeling a little fanciful, I might do something like XiaoLing-Mui. But I would definitely like hers better.

I thought "miu" meant foliage. During the famine of the mid 40s, we ate "fan see miu" or the leaves of the sweet potato plant. They did not eat the shoots or sprouts of the sweet potato, which is called "suun" or "thloon" (Toisanese), as in "jook suun" or bamboo shoots (sprouts).

Make friends with Wikipaedia. Type in Chinese vegetables. C'est tres simple, n'est-ce pas?? Try the website www.evergreenseeds.com I know of no place where peashoots (dou miu) are grown hydroponically, ie: in water and without soil. It may be "possible", but highly improbable. Most leguminous plants require soil because they don't like wet feet. Again, since I don't prefer to go into a deep discussion on botany, introduce yourself to wikipaedia and ask about leguminous plants.

Go to your local (real) druggist or apothecary. A lot of the chain store dispensing drug counters may not have them.

Jicama is great as a "filler' in stir fried dishes with lots of veg. Mostly for the textural aspect.

He would have no recourse but to gather all the bowls, chopsticks and teacups in front of you, roll up the plastic table clothes and say, "Hui lah, hum gah chan!!.

Or just point to the limp, flaccid, offensive item, shake your head and say "mm yet"!!(not hot) emphatically. Assuming that the server is a Canto speaker.

The pumpkin that you mentioned, Shiewie, is it kabocha? Like this? Interesting. May be I will make some... ← Technically, these are squash. Very close though.

Toppings?? Any and all of the above. My favourite is thin slices of raw tender beef, scallions, white pepper, soy sauce, ginger OR substitute raw fish for the beef.

Xi = hsi , fan = fan

But...I didn't say anything about congee. So, if the Oxford Dictionary doesn't list jook, then does it mean that we can use the word comme il faut or wherever we feel like ?

Oh Oh! GIRD YOUR LOINS, ERGO SUM YOUR COGITAS', DRAW YOUR LINE IN THE SAND. The storms of another semantic war is gathering. Does porridge have to be made only with oatmeal? Do we not call jook rice porridge? When my mother fed me savoury oatmeal porridge did she not call it mak pei jook?

Some Chinese food ingredients, like aged red wine and brandy, are more precious the older they get. Examples: chan pei (dried mandarin peels). ← Ahem! You forgot to mention Chinese women before Chinese food ingredients. ← Chinese women are precious at whatever age...my mother beat it into me .

Savoury oatmeal with salted duck egg was often served to us when we were off our feed.

You live in a free country, so they say, do whatever and eat whatever you want. But what you propose is not Chinese food You should be summarily convicted of heresy and blasphemy and sentenced to stoning by 10 boxes of Bob's Red Mill.

OMG ROFL ← I hope you read all the posts that led up to Ben's comment. ← Whoa!! I do sound like a dirty old man, don't I?? The Devil made me do it!! What thread was that from?