liuzhou

Chinese chefs and cooks are so accustomed to using soy sauce that they offten seem to forget to season any food that doesn't contain their usual go to. This particularly applies to any non-Chinese food. Your fries come salt free. Of course, you can request some 盐 (yán), salt 🧂. Note the rising tone. Screw up and use a flat tone,烟 (yān) and they'll be surprised but will probably manage to bring you the cigarette you have just asked for. Alternatively, use a falling tone, 宴 (yàn) and they will be delighted and rush off to the kitchen to start organizing the feast you just demanded. Try a falling then rising tone , 琰 (yǎn) and they'll think you're demented. Restaurants don't sell gemstones 💎 . Even getting the tone right can be problematic. Use 蜒 (yán) with correct rising and you've just called your server a slug 盐！

Just to reinforce @pastrygirl's point about tradition "Marcella Hazan changed how we cook and experience Italian food. A disabled woman trained as a scientist, Marcella never cooked until she immigrated to America. But through her cookbooks and teaching -- and an uncompromising commitment to Italian tradition -- her impact was felt in millions of American home kitchen." https://marcellafilm.com/ Ghee is an Indian tradition. Why doesn't she make spaghetti curry? Butter is a relatively unused ingredient in Italian cuisine, its use being confined mainly to the north, where this dish presumably originated.

Some mornings, I like to breakfast on 包子 (bāo zi), steamed stuffed buns. The first part has a high flat tone, while zi is always toneless*. Get the tone wrong, 豹子 bào with a falling tone and you have just asked for a leopard for breakfast. Not my favourite way to start the day. * zi is meaningless other than it is used as a noun marker. It appears on many nouns.

Last night. 驴血炒饭 (lǘ xuè chǎo fàn), Donkey bood fried rice.

Before you even get to the food, you may encounter another problem. What are you going to eat it with? As you may have heard, China uses chopsticks for nearly everything. If you are chopstick-challenged you may request a spoon. You may not get one though. Spoon is 勺 (sháo), rising tone. Get it wrong and use a falling tone 哨 (shào), whistle and they'll bring a whistle (in the unlikely event they have one.) You may thing you'd prefer a fork (even more unlikely to be had than whistles). Ask for a 叉 (chā) meaning fork. Flat tone. Screw up again by using a rising tone and they'll be happy to oblige with a nice cup or pot of 茶 (chá), tea. Never ask for a knife! They're taboo outside the kitchen.

Yes, it can but I routinely ignore sell by dates. The manufacturers build in wide margins of error to cover their backsides. Your sauerkraut is only four months over. I'd bet its OK, but read this before you decide. https://www.chefsresource.com/faq/what-happens-if-you-eat-bad-sauerkraut-2/

I like rabbit, served any style but have to be careful with my tone when ordering it in restaurants. Mr. or Ms. Bunny is 兔子 (tù zi) with a falling tone on tù, while the zi is neutral in tone. Get the tone wrong and they're going to refer you to a trichologist or shave your head or set you up with a Yul Brynner type lookalike. 秃子 (tū zi) with a high flat tone means a bald person.

The acquisition makes little difference. Smithfield has held the rights to manufacture and distribute Nathan's in North America since 2014. Those rights expire in the 2032 so Smithfield wanted to make it permanent. The Nathan's hotdogs you've been eating for over a decade were Smithfield all that time. I'm no fan of Smithfield products. Their American "bacon" is tasteless. https://www.foodengineeringmag.com/articles/103485-smithfield-foods-to-acquire-nathans-famous-for-450m

"What could be safer than a bowl of noodles?", you might think! Be careful. Noodles 🍜 are 面条 (miàn tiáo) in Mandarin. Falling tone then rising tone. Slip up and use both with rising tones and you'll have ordered 棉条 (mián tiáo), a tampon! These are rice noodles. For some reason I don't have a picture of a bowl of tampons.

Indeed. And have done so for decades. Back in 1970, as a student, I had a lousy summer job in a London candy/chocolate factory. Everything went through a metal detector. If you cut your finger, you had to use a special Bandaid type dressing with metal wires embedded within so that if it fell off into the mix, it would be detected. Put me off chocolate for years. That was almost 60 years ago!

Fancy some lettuce? Be careful. The Chinese for lettuce is 生菜 (shēng cài). High flat tone on the shēng and falling tone on the cài. Accidentally, change the tones to 剩菜 (shèng cài), both falling tones instead of some nice crispy lettuce, you've aked for leftovers! Or, change the tones to 生财 (shēng cái) flat, then rising, and you've said "make money". Fear not, the vendors will manage that just fine.

Another example is 水饺 (shuǐ jiǎo), meaning "boiled dumplings". Both syllables use a falling and rising tone. If you get it wrong and use only falling tones, 睡觉 shuì jiào, then you are saying "sleep" or "go to bed".

While the locals are battling to get their favourite places back, the local government, in their infinite wisdom, is trying to lure more Tik-Tok idiots to the city. They have commissioned a luosifen mural near the entrance to what used to be my favourite market but is now a hell-hole.

Like many other languages, Mandarin Chinese is tonal. This means that each syllable is assigned one of five tones. Other syllables with otherwise the same pronunciation will often have different tones. These tones are important. Get the tone wrong and you change the meaning. This can be embarrassing in that while you intend saying something inconsequential, you actually come out with something shocking or amusing. One that I hope is deliberate (I know it isnt) is food related. Bell peppers, the most pointless vegetable ever are, in Mandarin 甜椒 (tián jiāo). The first syllable, tián, has a rising tone while the second has a high flat tone. Accidentally change both tones to falling then rising and you've changed the meaning to the verb 'to lick feet', something more flavourful! There are many more food related examples which I will put here as I come across them.

兰州拉面 (lán zhōu lā miàn), Lanzhou hand pulled noodles in soup with beef. Lanzhou city is the origin of hand pulled noodles. The city is mainly Muslim, so no pork. Served with 馕 (náng), the Lanzhou type of naan bread. From my local Halal (清真 - qīng zhēn) restaurant run by a lovely Lanzhou couple. The husband pulls the noodles to order.