liuzhou

This is more of a winter thing in China, but I wanted them for something non-Chinese. That said they are essential in hotpots, malatang and luosifen here, so always easy to source. I bought a small bag of the three mixed together. 30 grams in total for ¥1 / 14 cents USD. This is less than a third. We have 桂皮 (guì pí), cassia bark; 香叶 (xiāng yè), bay leaf; and 八角 (bā jiǎo), star anise. All grown locally. In fact, Guangxi grows 80% of the world’s star anise. Here is one extraordinarily tiny star anise with my left hand for scale. It's smaller than my fingernail.

Had some pork left over from something else and a few pumpkin flowers (ditto). Souped them up with chicken stock from the freezer, garlic and ginger.

This was inspired by myself after mentioning it in passing in this post this morning. Wanted a light dinner. Too hot for anything more strenuous. Pasta with pesto (and a few olives I happened to have sitting around not contributing to anything else). Home made pesto from freezer; shop bought spaghetti. I prefer linguine but non ne avevo.

蟹黄酱(xiè huáng jiàng) Crab Sauce 蟹黄 (xiè huáng) actually means the ovaries, roe and digestive tract of the crab, but a look at the ingredients list tells me this only contains the roe. These are bulked out by ‘minced fish’ i.e. surimi, unspecified spices, sugar, MSG, artificial yellow colouring and preservatives. Despite this, I quite like it with noodles or even pasta, usually linguine or spaghetti as a sort of alternative to pesto pasta.

The Guardian has published a selection of winners of the Pink Lady food photographer of the year 2024 competition. A larger number of Chinese photographers than I expected, but had no real reason not to. I have two female friends here who are excellent professional photographers.

Chinese blood sausage / black pudding baguette.

Do you get to go back often? It is almost 50 years since I visited Sri Lanka but the memories are stiil strong. I'd love to go back.

Why do you imagine that? The water in most tourist areas is clean. The only time I've ever gotten sick from food in a restaurant in China was from ice cream in an American restaurant in Xi'an twenty-eight years ago.

I wasn't talking about iffy drinking water. They bring these things to use to sterilise vegetables and meat. Trying marching into a restaurant in China with your steriliser and solution to clean the food before the chef cooks it simply isn't going to happen. And 99% of tourists have no cooking facilities in their accommodation.

Some short-term western visitors / tourists to China bring those sterilising machines (probably made and sold much more cheaply here) and solution for babies' feeding bottles to clean vegetables. They mostly don't have babies. How or why they expect to be washing vegetables in restaurants is never explained.

Is this funny or sad? Probably both.

翘嘴鱼 (qiáo zuǐ yú, literally ‘warped mouth fish'), Predatory carp, Chanodichthys erythropterus is a new one to me. Native to rivers and lakes across eastern Asia from Mongolia to Vietnam, these are now farmed in limited numbers. They are a species of carp, usually sold at from 17 to 27 cm / 6½ to 10½ inches in length, but can grow much larger. The record is 102 cm 40 inches. Carnivorous, they feed on insects, crustaceans and smaller fishes. Tasty. Usually steamed. I can only buy them online; I guess most go to the restaurant trade. A 750g specimen shipped to me live sells for ¥110 / $15.20 USD.

ආයුබෝවන් සහ සාදරයෙන් පිළිගනිමු வணக்கம் மற்றும் வரவேற்கிறோம் Hello and Welcome! Your small island nation is one of the most beautiful I have visited and I have wonderful memories of the food. Seafood and coconut - what's not to love? Like others, I am looking forward to your participation here.

@Darienne Thanks for reviving this. It prompted me to order some besan / chickpea flour. In the past I had to order it from India, but found some in Xinjiang, China's westernmost province. India is actually nearer to me but import duties and transport make theirs more expensive. It took five days to get here from Xinjiang, but arrived this morning. Onion bhajis are on my horizon. Two 500g bags was the minimum order - no problem. $4 USD for the kilo, including delivery from 1,830 miles away.

In my account about the water where I live, I somehow forgot to mention that the city's water has been declared by the central government in Beijing to be China's cleanest for each of the last three years. What criteria they base that on, I don't know but it is a matter of civic pride.

Only partially. Like all of these pronunciation systems it take no account of regional or other accent differences. Hanoi and HCMC are often very different, but it's written the same. Chinese is written the same no matter what dialect is used in speaking. People often find themselves unable to communicate verbally, so pass notes or 'draw' characters in the air to make their meaning clear. I usually explain it by using the examples of numbers: 8 is used to represent the same number all over the world but is pronounced extremely differently from place to place. Chinese characters and Vietnamese diacritics are the same on a smaller scale.

Yes, indeed but the literal meaning is still baked. Not the 'in use' meaning.

Very. Bánh mì simply means bread (literally bánh is baked goods and mì is wheat.) Bánh is used for many things - cakes, tarts, doughnuts, pies etc. Wedding cakes are bánh cưới. The sandwich is more correctly 'bánh mì thịt' but usually abbreviated - in context it is usually obvious what is meant. Now, if the Vietnamese could just sort out their pronunciation system, it would help. Infinitely more confusing than any sandwich!

It looks the same as the one I bought in France 45 years ago, except mine is the classic orange colour. I'd need to measure mine to be 100% sure but it's in my daughter's kitchen on the other side of the planet.

I'm not a chocolate lover, never mind a chocolatier. so I very rarely venture into this part of eG. However, I thought this may be of interest to at least some of you. (That said, you may already know and I'm just miles behind the times, but no one has mentioned it that I can see.) Scientists develop method of making healthier, more sustainable chocolate

I will add to this by quoting @KennethT The same in south Asia and many other places. Always get reliable local information from qualified sources!