Jeannie

This reminds me of zou you rou ("pork from which the fat has gone") which my mum tells me is relatively healthy. You fry the belly pork in it's own fat to get rid of the fat then you dump it in ice cold water to reconstitute the fat so that it's nice and plump again. Then you steam it. This way (apparantly) the texture and taste is still that of lovely melting sticky pork fat but without the fat.

Why were hams illegal in the first place?

When I speak Shanghainese around people who've never heard it before, they sometimes think I'm speaking in Japanese! It's a lot less sing song than Cantonese or Mandarin and it's spoken faster than those two. It kind of makes sense that the pronounciations have influenced or been influenced by Japanese as it's the closest part of the mainland to Japan.

Remembered that there was a thread on making dumplings and there was a discussion about jiaozi/guotie dough. Went home this weekend and my mum made guotie. She said that for guotie (pot sticklers) dough, you have to mix the flour (just plain non-self raising flour) with boiling water and for jiaozi (boiled ones) dough you mix the flour with cold water. The boiling water helps to release the gluten and stops the pot sticklers from being too dry and brittle. I hope this tip is useful for people.

Guilt, tell me about it! My parents have got to the stage where they keep going on about how they either want to be buried near Shanghai or anywhere near me so that I could visit them depending on their mood. They are only in their 50s! They seem to think it's funny to be joking about this.

This isn't really a soya bean derivative exactly, but in Shanghai for breakfast you can have this tofu soup called tofu flowers (dofu hua) which are the most tenderest "young" tofus cooked in a hot savoury broth to which you can add chillli oil, spring onions, pickled vegetables and dried shrimp. I absollutely ADORE this and can eat bowlfuls all day. Does anyone else eat dofu hua like this? I ask because once we saw it advertised in a cafe in Chinatown here in London and we got quite excited. My mum ordered a bowl and poured chilli oil over it to the consternation of the waitress. We didn't realise why until we had a taste and it turned out that the dofu hua was cold and sweet! we deduced that in HK and Canton this is served as a desert and not a breakfast/savoury snack. Is this the case? Does anyone else eat it like the Shanghainese do?

Anyone know where the word congee comes from? It doesn't sound anything like zhou/jook or any other variation I've seen on this thread. Also on pao fan/xi fan, this is something that the shanghainese eat at breakfast. It's easy to make what with just using the cold leftover rice from the day before. I think the whole point of it is the blandness. It's not cooked with anything apart from hot water and you eat it with a bit of fermented tofu, pickles or left over dishes from the night before. I think the Shanghainese like it's blandness, I've heard various members of the family say that there is nothing more comfortable then a bowl of xi fan. They definitely make the distinction between xi fan and zhou which is also cooked in Shanghai and therefore I would not classify xi fan as "congee". GarySoup, my dad also jokes that since I've left home he has such a hard life as my mum can't be bothered to cook so he has to eat pao fan every day!

Something like "di xin" (Shanghainese don't like final "n's" in some contexts). I don't think dian xin/ dim sum in shanghai is defined as stringently as hzrt8w says it is is HK. Anything which is a "snack" is called dian xin in Shanghai, including street food. Although in banquets there is a course called dian xin served in the middle of the big dishes, these could be various savoury pastries for example savoury mooncakes. Which in Shanghai consists of a puff pastry type of casing with minced pork filling. Listening to my parents these were the only types of mooncakes originally served in Shanghai. In Shanghai, the mooncakes with red bean paste, lotus paste fillings etc are called cantonese mooncakes.

posted by mistake!

I'll never confuse you with a "Jiangbeiren," Jennie. Shanghai could use a little central heating though, IMHO. Yes I know, it is ridiculous that we are just a tiny bit south of the yangtse river and so we can't have central heating whereas those on the northern bank can! Gary, can you throw any light on the wonton discussion? Is it just the addition of egg in the skin? Texture wise, I do think they are the same though. Not sure what the egg adds to the wrapper in terms of taste and texture.

Yes, the small wontons in Shanghai are also made with smaller skins. Both wontons in Shanghai are served in soup. You can get deep fried wontons in Shanghai but they tend to be "second class"wontons if you like; as they are usually cold, left over wontons. I think they are called "rabbit ears" but I can't remember exactly as I've just been to the pub and my memory is deserting me as a consequence. And we serve the rabbit ears with ketchup! (thinking back to an earlier thread) Actually has anyone started a thread on worcestershire sauce? We use it a fair amount in Shanghai for deep fried stuff especially pork chops, we call it La jiang you (mandarin) in Shanghai "chilli soy sauce!"

.... unless they happen to hail from Wuxi. My wife is a Wuxiren, and she adds a bit of sugar to nearly every dish "to balance the salt." When I visited America years ago we visited an old family friend who is lao shang hai "old shanghainese" who emigrated to America in the 50s and 60s who soaked her dried shiitake mushrooms in sugar water before stirfrying them with sugar! I don't think they do that even in Shanghai anymore. And I think her family is from Pudong, like my dad's family, very very old Shanghainese, almost you can say the original Shanghainese as a lot of Shanghainese families are from other parts of China. For example my mum's dad is from Ningbo and she still says that she is Ningbo Ren when people push her even though she's never been there in her life. Her mother is from Suzhou, my uncle in law's family is from Guangdong etc etc. The origins of their families are still remembered even though they've lived in Shanghai for generations.

Generally speaking the Chinese palate isn't as fond of sweet things as the Western palate. Ice cream and cakes in China are a lot less sweet. When I eat Western cakes, a lot of the time I have to eat them with a glass of water.

I don't think your mum was correct on this count. True, Shanghai (and in general northern China) wonton wrappers are white. They don't call it wonton, they call it "JiaoJi". The Cantonese making of these dumplings are called WonTon. Wonton wrappers are yellow because eggs are added in making them. No flour alone will make the wrapper color so yellow. Well, maybe it's not the flour, but we certainly do call our wontons "wontons"! We have big wontons and little wontons. Little wontons are folded like the cantonese ones ie with just the ends squeezed together and they are tiny with just the smallest dab of a meat filling. These are eaten mainly as a breakfast dimsun (dianxin) The big wontons are much bigger and folded like tortellinis (which I don't think the cantonese have) and these are eaten as dianxin later in the day. The texture of the wonton skins in Shanghai are just the same as the cantonese wontons but they are definitely white, I don't know why. When you say jiaoji do you mean jiaozi? These have a completely different type of wrapper and texture, and I certainly do know the difference between the two. Also, we in Shanghai never think ourselves as part of the North, afterall we are south of the Yangtse River and don't have central heating in our homes Our culture and customs are southern, I always get a jolt of surprise when people refer to us as the North. Obviously we are North in terms of Canton but the Shanghainese are used to thinking of South/North in terms of culture and customs rather than geography. Most Shanghainese would most annoyed if you tell them that they are part of the North.

Taiwanese food is well known for it's sweetness. It's one of the defining characteristics of their food. Shanghainese cooks has also been accused of putting sugar in everything, which isn't true! although we do use it a bit more than most people. We also put sugar in some vegetable dishes too, for example, stir fried broad beans and stir fried shiitake mushrooms.