liuzhou

Yes, it's sold as a fish spatula - mainly used for flipping whole fried fish or for lifting the same to a serving plate. But can you guess what I used it for first? No deep frying involved.

As your wiki link mentions China also has this dish or something so near as to be identical. 锅饭(guō fàn). Yes, the rice is the best bit and highly prized. Available in Chinese fast-food joints everywhere.

I bought this a couple of days ago, on a whim. I've used it once so far, but not for the advertised purpose*, although I will certainly do that in the future. From hanging hole end to end of 'blade' it is 36.5cm / 14.5 inches and the "blade" is 18cm / 7 inches wide at its maximum. * But for culinary purposes, I hasten to add. Behave yourselves!

My cheese choices are extremely limited. Locally made mozzarella is easy to find in specialist bakery supply stores as there has been a bit of a pizza fashion in recent years. The pizzas are inedible, but I can get the cheese. Cream cheese is also available in bakery shops. Cheddar cheese is available in one supermarket at the moment, but that can change at any time. They have imported cheddar from Ireland, both regular and extra sharp. The also have "Dubliner" cheese - an Irish cross between Cheddar and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Not from Dublin, despite the name - it's from Cork. Gouda and "Swiss Cheese" are even less frequently available. We used to get Danish Brie and Camembert until some clown in government misread a report, decided we were all going to die and banned all soft cheeses. It was reported shortly after that the ban had been rescinded, but the cheese has yet to return.

I picked up a can of Guinness this morning, intending to make beef and Guinness pie later. I was amused to see flag on the price ticket sign. It's enough to restart a war. Ireland hasn't been a part of the UK since 1922 and gained full independence as the Republic of Ireland in 1949, the same year Mao formed the People's Republic of China. Maybe the Guinness is well aged?

A few pages further on is an explanation of the celery's presence.

There are only three vegetables in Ireland. Potatoes, cabbage and bacon!

Long cooked fresh tomato sauce with onion, chilli (green and red) and Vietnamese fish sauce for umami. Beef and chickpeas. Randomly decorated with basil leaves as I needed to thin out my balcony plants. Rice.

It's a bit late in the season, but I saw this today. Artemisia vulgaris. 艾草 (Mand: ài cǎo; Cant: ngaai6 cou2) Mugwort or Common Wormwood This is used extensively in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), where it is usually identified as Artemisia argyi. It is used as yet another green to be stir-fried and is also used in "teas", but the most common usage round here are these little cakes which turn up in mid- to late-summer. Called 艾叶粑 (Mand: ài yè bā) or "mugwort leaf cakes" in the local dialect of Mandarin, they are made from a mixture of mugwort, which supplies the colour and flavour, and rice flour which supplies the bulk. The manufacturing process is complicated but involves washing then boiling the mugwort leaves. These are processed with lye to remove bitterness and soften them. Then they are sweetened with sugar and mixed with a 50-50 mixture of rice flour and sticky rice flour to make a dough. The dough is formed into little cakes two to three inches in diameter, then steamed for around 30 minutes. They are nearly always sold as street food, although I have come across a couple of noodle places which have them. Despite their visual resemblance to miniature versions of something a passing cow might have left behind, they taste pleasantly vegetal or herbal but are very sticky. Not for the loose of tooth. The plant is also used to make mosquito repellent incense sticks and in foot baths; not at the same time.

Pan-fried cod with blood sausage and spinach, dressed with lemon/olive oil. Rice.

Poached egg and sausages.

I called it blood sausage as a direct translation of the Chinese. It is more like the the black pudding I grew up with last century in Scotland than say a French boudin noir, but I love them all. On my rare visits back to the UK, my beautiful daughter always makes sure to stock up for me. Stornoway Black Pudding - the food of the Gods.

As I've mentioned here more than once, eating raw food, including vegetables, is extremely rare in China, even recently. You have to remember that "night soil"* is still used as a fertiliser. Vegetables are washed thoroughly (to extreme) and then cooked. And before people get freaked out about night soil, remember it was common in the US until relatively recently. *Human and other excrement.

I had a plan for lunch, but a chance find in a small store changed everything. Over a year ago my regular supplier disappeared and there has been none to be found. Until today. I had just left the bakery where I purchase baguettes and took an unusual route. Outside a small store was a pile of these. Blood sausage. Pig's blood and rice. Half lengthwise, fry, drop onto similarly sliced baguette. No butter or other lubricant required. Cover. Put in mouth, chew and swallow. Make another one. Repeat until sated. Accompany with beer or builder's tea. I never drink builder's tea, so it was a beer.

I think I have now documented pretty much everything in the markets and supermarkets at present along with some things which I can't get now, but had photographs of. More will turn up as time passes, but with this being the start of winter there isn't going to be much. Come spring, I'll be busy here again. (I bet, having said that, two new items will turn up tomorrow. @Anna N - I haven't forgotten your red bean question and will continue to check for supplies. I have asked friends, but none admit to ever having cooked them, so don't know.) In the meantime, I have been going back to previous entries and adding information, clarifications or images and correcting some mistakes. This I will continue to do. So, in the unlikely event that anything fascinated you before, you may wish to go back for a second look. It may be different.

You may be surprised that I'm including these here. Nothing exotic about them. Well, I'm not trying to show you "exotic", but what we get in China. In fact, one of the Chinese names for this item suggests that the Chinese once found them exotic. 西红柿/西紅柿 (Mand: xī hóng shì; Cant: sai1 hung4 ci2) literally means 'western red persimmon'. The other, equally common name is 番茄 (Mand: fān qié; Cant: faan1 ke4*2) and they are tomatoes. The quality of what we get is average. I've had worse. My problem is getting my nearest supermarket to stop shelving them in the chill cabinets and ruining them. In season, we also get them on the vine, which improves them. They are not so common in Chinese cuisine as in many western cuisines, although there are a few well-known dishes that use them. Best known is scrambled egg with tomatoes, the one dish that every Chinese person over five-years-old can cook. Often the only dish some can cook. Other dishes that come to mind are Nanning's "Old Friend's Noodles" and Guilin's Beer Fish and a few Sichuan dishes. These tomatoes are always displayed in the vegetable sections of supermarkets and on vegetable stalls in farmers' markets. Cherry tomatoes are sold separately in the table fruit sections and stalls. The Chinese consider them to be unrelated. In Mandarin, to my delight, they are known as 圣女果 (Mand: shèng nǚ guǒ) which means "Saintly Women Fruit", There may be no saintly women in Cantonese speaking areas as they don't use this term, but instead go for 车厘茄 (Cant: ce1 lei4 ke4*2) which doesn't really mean anything at all. Cherry tomatoes most often turn up in fruit salads in western restaurants or are simple eaten as a table fruit. My Chinese friends are always surprised that I use them in savoury dishes. These, too turn up on the vine at the appropriate time of year. They are also dried and sold as a snack item. These I like a lot, although I usually dry them myself. Canned , imported tomatoes are only generally available on-line at silly prices. Edit April 2023 I recently came across these canned tomatoes from Xinjiang, China's westernmost province. They're good and reasonably priced.

I've often wondered that, too. For example, how did people work out which mushrooms taste great and which kill you? Trial and fatal error? And many other foods are poisonous unless prepared correctly. A marvel indeed. The bamboo is cooked before pickling, yes. The bamboo leaves are soaked overnight before being used as wraps then steamed.

First cold day of the year and I needed comfort food. Bangers and mash with spinach and Dijon mustard.

Spicy minced pork with fresh sweet bamboo shoots. Rice.

@liamsaunt Lovely looking food. And many happy returns for your anniversary.

I have been unexpectedly out of town for a couple of days, eating very average hotel food, so was glad to get back this afternoon and do some shopping in the rain. I picked up some chicken, but little else, knowing I had stuff in the fridge that needed dealing with. I wanted some spinach, but the early birds had taken it all. I'm not going to give this a name. It is a strange mix of cultures, but I enjoyed it. Chicken chunks (not refined enough to call cubes) marinated in the usual Chinese way with Shaoxing, garlic, ginger and chilli. Cooked with toasted fennel and cumin. Then braised with chick peas, leeks and turmeric. Served with rice and wilted nothing else, on account of the spinach disappointment. Never mind. It left my mouth happy.

Another seaweed we occasionally get is 裙带菜/裙帶菜 (Mand: qún dài cài; Cant: kwan4 daai3 coi3). This is what is widely known as 'wakame' from the Japanese or 'sea mustard' in English. I've only ever seen it pre-prepared and dressed on the sushi counter of local supermarkets. I always buy it when I see it. A favourite.

A couple of late arrivals. Canavalia gladiata 刀豆 (Mand: dāo dòu; Cant: dou1 dau6*2) are what you possibly know as sword beans, although that term is sometimes used for other species. These are almost always simply stir fried. We also get the dried beans which are known as 红刀豆/紅刀豆 (Mand: hóng dāo dòu; Cant: hung4 dou1 dau6*2) meaning 'red sword beans', as the beans in the pod are - you guessed, red!

MSG is in the list of ingredients.