liuzhou

I’m beside myself! Scored this this morning. Here is my translation of the description provided. Lean Cured Meat, A Speciality Of Hunan, Smoked Meat, Homemade Smoked Salted Meat From Local Farmers, Pork Tenderloin, And Dried Cured Meat From Hunan, Not From Sichuan Apart from liking a bit of Hunan charcuterie, I’ve never tried smoked meat made from farmers. I never fancied Sichuan farmer’s though. Those boys are obviously inferior meat. Now re-vacuum-packed into more manageable portions.

I mentioned these briefly in passing back in the depths of this topic but for some reason, I hadn't bought one for a long time, until yesterday. It is 香瓜 (xiāng guā), meaning fragrant melon. It is a type of Cucumis melo, although that family contains many types of melon including honeydew and cantaloupe. These are more specifically Cucumis melo Makuwa Group , which still contains several cultivars, but all similar in taste and general size, although varying in shape and colour: green as here but also yellow and white skinned. Sometimes, called Oriental Melons. The are believed to be native to Eastern India and then came to China via the Silk Road. From China, they were introduced to Japan and Korea, where they remain extremely popular. In Japanese, they are 真桑瓜 or まくわうり (makuwa uri); in Korean, 참외 (chamoe). They are rather less sweet than most melons you may be used to: somewhere between melon and cucumber. The skin is also edible. This one weighs 417 g / 14.08 oz.

It's litchi / lychee* sea season! These images are from my friend's grandparents' farm in Guangdong Province, China. * 荔枝 (lì zhī)

Yeah. I've been doing that for about 50 years!

One of my favourites, which I omitted to mention before is 猪皮冻 (zhū pí dòng), pig skin jelly. This is basically pig skin boiled in water to make a gelatinous broth which on cooling turns to jelly. Various flavourings can be added just as you would with most stocks, ginger and garlic being the most common. I've seen suggestions to add soy sauce (usually on American Chinese websites), but never seen that here. Surprisingly delicious. Unsurprisingly served cold.

Today, I took delivery of a refill of my caviar supply. As you do. As usual it came with 'gifts'. Normally they throw in a pack of wonderful hot smoked sturgeon but this time that brought a friend. 150g of Sturgeon Steak. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, yet but thanks! The smoked sturgeon will probably be lunch in a day or two.

It does indeed but the leaves are smaller. I should have linked to this. It is classified as an endangered species in the USA.

No need to be sorry. Some topics should be bumped; some should be dumped.

Here is an odd one. 香柳 (xiāng liǔ), Elaeagnus angustifolia, is a thorny tree native to China. In English it sometimes referred to as silver berry. Alternate names include Russian olive, oleaster or wild olive. These alternates are referring to the trees fruit, which visually resembles olives, although the two plants are unrelated. The fruit is fragrant sweet but seldom eaten due to its dry, mealy texture but surprise, surprise the leaves, fruit and bark are all used in TCM. The only culinary application I’m aware of is that the leaves 香柳叶 (xiāng liǔ yè) are used to remove “fishy smells” from fresh fish. I have told them that if their fish is smelly, it isn’t fresh. They don’t believe me,

I did search this topic for any previous mention of Porthos but there are none. Yes, I meant "Never Porthos Again".

When my favourite sardines disappeared from every store in China a week ago, I went in search for an alternative. My favourite sardines My favourite sardines The only Portuguese sardines I could find were these from Porthos, a Portuguese canning company. I looked them up and it seemed they have a good reputation with some even suggesting they are among the best in Portugal. So, I ordered one can to sample them, intending to reorder if they were satisfactory. They arrived and I tried them this noon. On opening the can, I could barely make out the fish in their pool of suspiciously dark oil. I drained them and found these tiny little fish-shaped things. That side plate they are sitting on is 6 inches / 12.5 cm in diameter. Each fish was under 3 “/ 17 cm long. Half the size or less than my favourites. Still I fork mashed them up to have them on sourdough toast. Well, I tried to mash them but their strange texture made that a difficult task. Finally I put half of the resultant ‘mash’ on the sourdough and attempted to eat them. Utterly disgusting. I couldn’t finish it. Since then, I have brushed my teeth about eight times, but can’t shake off the lingering aftertaste. Never again.

Which company? Good Chop Found it.

A related issue here is that we get streets full of small stores all offering the same basic product. Whereas in western countries we tend to locate businesses in areas with no others doing the same, but with customers who would prefer to buy locally, here the businesses like to cluster together. So, we have light bulb alley, kitchen equipment avenue, liquor lane (aka whisky street), tobacco terrace, banana boulevard etc. OK, I made up the banana one. Beats me.

People in Scotland don't think so.