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| Street scene near our hotel |
A highlight of Hong Kong has been the cooking classes at Martha Sherpa, who is famous for teaching the proper techniques of Chinese cookery to tourists and professional chefs. The first day we learned Schezuan wok cookery, my favorite dish being the spicy noodle with fried eggplant, and the second day was Cantonese-style cuisine. I think my favorite thing was learning how to make a crispy and balanced sweet and sour pork. Notice in the picture how the sauce coats the pieces of pork and vegetables, but there is not a pool of sauce on the plate. Good luck trying to find it cooked this way in any Chinese restaurant at home. Apparently, we like our pork to swim...Anyway, as it was dinner time when class was over, I took leftovers to Chris and after an hour of tranport through the humid streets of Hong Kong, the pork was still crispy. Amazing.
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Sweet & Sour Pork
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Cantonese prefer subtle flavor in contrast to Schezuan cooking in which firey hot burn is valued. One of my classmates was Cantonese American, and his family has a restaurant in Chicago. He was unable eat the eggplant dish, which had chili peppers, but I didn't find it too spicy. Overall, I learned that I knew very little which was correct about Chinese cooking and certainly I did not know how to use a wok properly. I felt shy and insecure, and it was quite humbling. A most challenging cuisine! I've got a lot to learn.
(Brent: the next paragraph may need to be paraphased for Violet)
We went for an early walk this morning and found ourselves in a meat market just as deliveries were being made. A truck pulled up and opened its back door, and out jumped two men. They each quickly pulled down a hanging pig, let it drop on the floor of the truck, then dragged it to the edge of the truck and slung it over their shoulder, after which they threw it on a vendor's table. Entrails tied together on a string like a necklace, hanging from a steel hook were casually tossed on the floor below the table. These men were in a hurry. The un-refridgerated truck was full of hanging pigs and the temperature outside was a balmy 90F. The floor of the also un-airconditioned market was beginning to be covered in blood and guts. As this was taking place, the vendor with his new pig and entrails was preparing for daily sausage making, setting up his grinder on the table on which the whole pig lay. Imagine the aromas, oppressive heat, moisture, and blood.  |
| Freshly butchered meat hanging in the open air, ready for customers |
Chickens across the aisle were getting their feathers ruffled as they were being prepared for slaughter, causing feathers to fly into the air just as we were walking by his stall. We instinctively covered our mouths to keep the dust from entering our lungs. At this point, we began to question the wisdom of being in this environment. Chris was splattered with runoff as a vendor was spraying down the floor of his bloody stall with a hose - Chris started gagging...and all I could think about was that movie Contagion. We got back to the hotel as quickly as we could where he showered vigorously with anti-bacterial soap. Breakfast was vegetarian.
Dear Violet,
Aunt Becky and I like to go walking in the mornings here in Hong Kong. The park near the hotel is a place where old people go to do their exercise dancing. They call it Tai Chi. Ask your mom to google it on youtube. It is fun to watch.
Love, Uncle Chris
