Food in China!!

 Hi again


This blog will try to explain how important food is in China.  During the Cultural Revolution, many people died of starvation.  Since then, having enough food to eat has been a number one focus.

Food is the center of celebrations, marriages, holidays, birthdays and funerals.  It is a huge industry!  In Fuzhou, seafood is the special.  Other parts of the country specialize in other things--hot, spicy and so on.

When you go out for dinner, the host orders.  They get there ahead of everyone else, and go to the food room.  All of the dishes sold at that restaurant are displayed around a room.  Large tanks with fish, crab and any other sea food are also there.  You go with a restaurant person and order the dishes.  Usually between 12 and 13.  Sometimes, you have a private dining room with your own wait staff, bathroom, and sitting room.  At less expensive places, you sit at a round table in a large dining room with others.

When all of your guests have arrived, the food starts coming in..and it continues to come in!!  When you see the sliced water melon, you know the meal has come to an end.

Guests are seated in a particular order.  The host sits in the middle, and the importance of the guest is in relation to where they sit.

And, if you don't have a full dish, someone will just put something into your dish, and you better eat it or they will be insulted.

What could I do--but eat, eat and eat.  It was kind of neat, but I look like a balloon now--I have started my diet today, and I need to lose it--not so easy when you get older, but I can not stand myself!!



snacks, pre wedding
snacks before dinner

getting ready for hot pot

Hot pot

Hot pot--you have a boiling pot in front of you.  You choose the meat, sea food or what ever, and put it in the boiling soup.  Hot pot.




At the wedding--food, food, food.

Bert and his son.

crab

fish balls

Home cooked meal with Didi at Tall Chen's home.

What you would choose from in the restaurant.

Choosing side dishes

Fish is very poplular

Jerry and his daughter--now there is a story here.

Snacks, after dinner when we went for a walk

Former Dong Fong Students, plus Cici

Chole was the top student in her class--there is a big story here too.

Joe Chan--a colleague born in Fuzhou, raised in Sacremento, returned to Fuzhou as a Foreign Expert to teach English.  Very interesting guy, now living in Hong Kong.



Visiting a  former students farm near Xiamen.

This is a spice grown on the farm.

Eating my fav--jian bau--with a former Dong Fong student--this guy has the voice of an angel.  He is teaching English.

Oceany is making the final order for hot pot.

We all said WOW when this was delivered--beef, goat, shrimp, salmon.


This was all hot pot!!


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