CHINESE FOOD

Evening Star, Issue 20089, 1 February 1929, Page 6

CHINESE FOOD

HABITS CHANGING AFTER MANY CENTURIES The food liabils of tlie (.'hi note people have been changing rapidly during the past two or three years, owing to the growing popularity of foreign foods. The most important of these changes is the introduction of milk into the cation's diet Milk and cheese, have always been staple food products among the Mongolians, and the Manclms have enjoyed a clabber delicacy, but milk was unwelcome in China proper nniil qui'.o recently, when foreign advertising and flic recommendations of Chinese who had lived abroad finally became effective.-. Tomatoes and asparagus arc two foreign vegetables which have become an integral part of the Chinese menu within the last few years. Canned asparagus; is especially liked when served in soups. Granges and lemons from California ere in great demand in the China seaports. Sweet potatoes and peanuts, indigeneous lo China, have been greatly improved by the introduction of foreign slock 'Together with corn on the cob, in season, they now form a cheap and substantial part of the national diet. Peanuts are also an important export. Tending against the general popularity of foreign dinners is the fact that Chinese cooking is excellent and varied, while good cooks trained in the Occodental manner are rare. As a result, many Chinese are led lo believe that all foreign cooking consists solely cf soup, fried fish, beefsteak, salad, and ice cream. Naturally such a restricted menu' cannot compare with an old-fashioned Chinese banquet of forty courses, but its effect is being noticed indirectly in the simplifying of modern native dinner parties.