liuzhou

Had just enough minced ostrich meat left from dinner last night to make another burger for lunch today, so

Two large 肉包 (ròu bāo), minced pork steamed bao buns.

My New Mug An imaginary landscape scene based on the surrounding karst terrain and rivers. Brightens up my morning coffee.

Perhaps you may prefer some hamburger carpet slippers?

It was advertised as a wearable Shrimp Pillow.

Ostrich burger on ciabatta bun. The ostrich meat is very lean and I was worried it might dry out but it was juicy enough. Ate two. Resting burger and mise Slid to the left a bit when I moved it. Next project: Ostrich meat encased quail scotch eggs. Coming soon.

Bought myself a new scarf. (No. I. Didn't.)

Like many places which have either banned or imposed a punishment tax on single use plastic bags, carrier bags, shopping bags, whatever you call them, China has gone the fine route. The charge however, is miniscule and doesn't apply to small stores or delivery services. I do try to minimise their use or to re-use them, but due to my recent limited mobility, often rely on delivery services. However, some of the bags are very decorative, so I thought I'd share some. Many of them are food-themed. Here are a couple just from the last few days. I'll post any other interesting samples as when I get them Also, of course, I'd like to see any of yours.

There are two things with ‘nut’ in their popular names which are found here, but are so un-nut-like that I don’t feel they belong here. I have mentioned them before at the links below. Nutmeg 肉豆蔻 (ròu dòu kòu), Myristica fragrans Houtt, while nut-like is not used as a nut*, but ground as a spice, so gets disqualified. Fox nuts 芡实 (qiàn shí), Euryale ferox are totally misnamed. Which nut thought they were nuts? * Other than by aging relics from the 1960s looking for a high!

And now I’m going for the popular vote. Probably finally in this nutty saga, I come to the world’s most popular “nut”, which isn’t a nut, at all. It is a legume. Arachis hypogaea, 花生 (huā shēng), literally ‘flower (of) life’. The peanut, groundnut, goober, goober pea, pindar or monkey nut. 🥜 Not only are these not nuts; they are also rather odd in that they grow underground unlike most legumes. The scientific name hypogeae means ‘under the ground’ from the Attic ὑπόγαιος. The Romantic languages take their names from Arachis, whereas the Spanish name cacahuate comes from the Nahuatl tlālcacahuatl. My favourite is cneuen ddaear, the Welsh. The peanut is native to South America but is now grown in tropical and semi-tropical areas world wide, with China being the highest producer today. A large proportion of China’s production goes to peanut oil which is a major cooking oil in parts of China. 90% of the oil in my local supermarkets is peanut. It is valued for its mild flavour (but it isn’t totally neutral as some claim) and its for its high smoke point of 225°C (437°F). The rest are eaten as roasted nuts, boiled nuts, salted nuts etc same as elsewhere. My favourite are 酒鬼花生 (jiǔ guǐ huā shēng), literally ‘drunkard’s peanuts’ – roasted, salted peanuts with chilli. They also come in a non-chilli version. Drunkard's Peanuts They also appear in many candies, cookies etc. They turn up in sauces and pastes. Most supermarkets also carry peanut butter, both domestic and imported. The American peanut butter and jelly sandwich is unknown, but the hardest part to source would be the bread. Many Chinese dishes incorporate peanuts. Innumerable noodle dishes include them, including this city’s signature dish, luosifen. And of course 宫保鸡丁 (gōng bǎo jī dīng), known in the west as kung-pao chicken (or variations thereon) traditionally includes peanuts. The recent use of cashews is an American innovation. Gongbao Jiding Then we also get peanut shoots. These are the peanut version of bean sprouts. After all, peanuts are beans, so why not? Peanut Shoots So I leave you with this oddity. Black peanuts. A local cultivar.

窝窝头 (wō wo tóu), steamed bun nests filled with 肉末雪菜 (ròu mò xuě cài), minced pork and 'snow vegetable', which is pickled veg, mainly spicy mustard greens.

I’ve already said I’m going nuts. Now I’m going batty and to the devil. 菱角 (líng jiǎo) are mostly Trapa bicornis although T. natans is also sometimes available. Commonly known, among other names, as buffalo nut, bat nut, devil pod, ling nut, moustache nut, singhara nut. I call them water caltrops. They also get called water chestnuts but that is a misnomer. Water chestnuts are totally different plants and aren’t nuts in any sense; they are the corms of Eleocharis dulcis. The word caltrop comes from the Old English coltetræppe, this being a name given to various devices that catch or entangle the feet. It then extended to plants that do so. The water caltrops grow underwater up to 15 feet deep, but more typically around 8 feet and can indeed trap the feet. Trapa bicornis are known for their strange appearance, often said to resemble bats’ heads or the devils’ horns, hence the names above. The character 角 – jiǎo in the Chinese name means ‘horns’. Bicornis means ‘two horns’. Some people apparently see a moustache instead. They were once widespread across Asia, Europe and North America. Today, they mostly only survive in Asia; the European caltrops are endangered and the North American variety extinct. The were re-introduced to North America around 1874, but are now regarded as an invasive species from Vermont to Virginia and a noxious weed in Florida, North Carolina, and Washington, as well as in Australia. Trapa natans was illegal to sell or ship in the United States from 1956 until 2020 and subject to a fine and or imprisonment. Water caltrops have been cultivated in China and the Indian subcontinent for their edible nuts for at least 3,000 years. They were used in religious rites in the 2nd century BC and they were mentioned in a Chinese guide to herbal medicines published in 1694 CE with the unsubstantiated claim that they can cure hay fever and alcoholism. The starchy kernel can be eaten raw or cooked but good luck getting intact nuts out of the shells in one piece. They are notoriously difficult to crack. Some people boil them in the shells for twenty minutes then attempt to break in. Care is required as the horns are very sharp. The taste is pleasantly similar to that of chestnuts, with a cooked potato texture. Water caltrops are most often eaten as part of a tradition dinner for Mid-Autumn-Festival which falls on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar (which falls between mid September and early October by the Gregorian calendar – October 6 in 2025). They are also used to make jams, drinks and ground into flour and used to make pancakes and fritters etc.

I've been many places where water was more expensive than beer. Makes you wonder where the get the water they use to make the beer. Some beers I've been offered, I could make a good guess!

The translator in your mouth. There's more to saliva than meets the eye tongue. here's the lowdown on how saliva helps us differentiate flavours and even scents. How saliva changes the flavor of food

Today I’m going to be peeking at another nut. Carya illinoinensis is formally 长山核桃 (cháng shān hé tao), which literally means ‘long, mountain walnut’ but less formally and more commonly 碧根果 (bì gēn guǒ), meaning 'jade root nut’. They are in fact a type of hickory. The ‘long’ in the first name points to them not being true nuts but yet another drupe. I’m talking about the humble pecan. Pronunciation varies regionally to the extent that the US National Pecan Growers Association felt obliged in 1927 to choose one while acknowledging the others as legitimate variations. A classic case of hedging their bets. They opted for puh-KAHN, IPA: /pəˈkɑn/ with the stress on the ‘can’, stating: Of course the good people went on pronouncing it as they always had done. The word comes from the native name of the nut in various Algonkin dialects, e.g. Cree pakan, Ojibway pagan, Abnaki pagann, suggesting they couldn’t decided either! The nut itself comes from the southern USA and northern Mexico in the Mississippi region. Although known to the Native Americans and the early colonists, commercial cultivation began only relatively recently – in the 1880s. Nearly all cultivation still takes place in their native range. The pecans here are imported from the USA. As elsewhere, they are used as eating nuts on their own and incorporated into baked goods, but aren’t a mainstream choice. Searching Taobao, China’s Amazon equivalent, for ‘pecans’, returns more instruments of torture for opening the damn things than it does the actual nuts. It is no coincidence that the original Algonquin name meant something like ‘that which is cracked with an instrument, by a stone or hammer’. I heard a rumour that, in the nuts’ native area, people put them into some sort of pie! Obviously fake news! I searched the Chinese internet for ‘pecan pie’ and all I got was children’s comic books! Who starts these stupid stories?