FOOD

 

Food was always an adventure.  

We shared almost all the dishes at the meals. But we were culturally-challenged at best, and it went beyond learning to use chopsticks. For example, at one early meal some group members cheerfully put food on the plates in front of them, only to discover that they were service plates--when the waitress scraped the food onto smaller plates and put them on top of the now-dirty service plates.

But plates in general were a problem. Normally at a shared meal in China people simply eat from the same plate. But the tour organizer didn't want us to do that, for fear of spreading disease, and it was clear that the restaurants had to scramble to find serving spoons and small plates for us to use.
   
Then there was the meal that included an individual “scallop tomato.” Pat wasn’t going to eat this whole tomato, stuffed with something (scallops, which she doesn't eat?). The waitress came over and saw her looking at it and meaningfully placed the knife on her chopstick rest. When Pat didn’t take the hint, the waitress patiently used the knife and fork to cut the tomato into bite-sized pieces for her, apparently thinking that perhaps Pat didn’t know how to use these implements.  
   
And many of us started by putting rice on our plates, only to learn that it was supposed to go in the rice bowls. Then, with bowls full of rice, we could never figure out where to put the soup that usually showed up. At one meal Chuck finished his rice and tried to ladle some noodle soup into his bowl. After a moment’s struggle he was surrounded: the waitress behind him watching, Rebecca on one side asking if he needed help, and Stanley on the other side efficiently chopsticking noodles into the bowl. So now we knew—it takes at least three people to serve soup.
     
We were always asking the guides what the various dishes were. Even when there was a menu, it was hard to match them up. On the other hand, some were easy to identify. Fish definitely looked like fish, with heads and tails intact. And sometimes the fish even looked happy to be our meal.
And if we didn't know what we were eating, sometimes we were given hints. For example, at the Peking Duck (or is that Beijing Duck?) banquet, the duck balls arrived on a plate decorated with little pastry ducks--although, since it was the day before Easter, we promptly dubbed them "Peeps." (Unlike Peeps, they were quite tasty.)
   
And on our last day, in Shanghai, when faced with a dish that was plainly some kind of fowl, all questions of what kind it was were quickly answered when someone found the head of the bird--yes, it was chicken. Were we supposed to eat the head? We never did decide, but no one was willing to try it.