3/17/2017 A Guide to the Barbarian Vegetables of China - Lucky Peach

INGREDIENTS REGIONAL FOODS TRAVEL

A Guide to the Barbarian

Vegetables of China
The vegetables in Chinese cuisine are forever branded as
Western interlopers. Heres how they got there.
By THE CLEAVER QUARTERLY

Art by CAROLYN BAHAR

The Chinese have a way of reminding foreigners that theyll never quite t in.
Because certain vegetables, fruits, and spices were introduced into the Middle
Kingdom at a time when the entire nonChinese world was considered
downright uncivilized, the plant names quite literally include the Chinese
characters for barbaric or exotic. Many are now staples of Chinese
cuisine, but are nevertheless forever branded linguistically as Western
interlopers. Here, we take a quick tour of theorigins of some of them, and the
degree to which theyve assimilated into modern Chinese cooking.

BLACK PEPPER
literally: foreign pepper
hu jiao

Black pepper in China is associated with several explorers: Tang Meng, the
secondcentury BCE envoy who discovered the Indian import in southern
markets; Marco Polo, who marveled at the sheer quantity of the precious spice

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consumed in imperial Hangzhou in the 1200s; and the fteenthcentury naval

bigshot Zheng He, whose legendary ninemasted ships brought back a
treasurys worth of pepper, enough to serve as a currency for years
afterwards.

Today: White pepper may be the norm in Chinese kitchens, but the black
peppercorn is used in Cantonese soy sauce Western cuisine, in dishes such
as blackpepper beef served over rice or spaghetti.

CARROT
literally: foreign radish
hu luo bo

The carrots that made their way to northern China from Afghanistan in the
fourteenth century arrived in vivid shades of purple, red, and yellow. As for
the orange varietal, China and the rest of the world had to wait for patriotic
Dutch growers in the 1600s to crossbreed the mutant orange strains into a
betacarotene powerhouse. Our guess is that those carrots made their way to
the Dutch colony of Formosa (i.e., Taiwan)and from there, took a short hop
across the strait to China.

Today:In China, carrots nutritional value is so highly esteemed that theyre

sometimes referred to as little ginseng. Many medicinal soups are
sweetened by boiled carrots; stirfries are enlivened by their color and crunch.
Firm and dense, the carrot is also ideal for vegetable carving and sculpture.

WALNUT
literally: foreign peach
hu tao

The most popular theory about the introduction of Persian walnuts into China
is that they were brought back by the tenacious envoy Zhang Qian (second
century BCE), who was enslaved twice by Asiatic Huns while trailblazing the
Silk Road (and escaped both times). Did he nourish his quick wits by nibbling
on these nuts? Walnuts are prized as brain food in China because of the
traditional Chinese medicine doctrine of signatures that draws a link
between the appearance of an ingredient and the internal organ it most
benets.

Today:Broken walnuts are ground into powder and cooked up as a hot dessert
soup. Whole kernels tend to be reserved for honey walnut shrimp, the Hong
Kong banquet staple.

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SPINACH
literally: Persian vegetable
bo cai (short for Bosi cai)

Some say spinach came to China via Nepal, when the emperor ordered all
suzerain states to send him their nest vegetables. Others say it arrived as a
Buddhist fasting food from India during the Tang dynasty. We like to think
the spinach emissary was Xuanzang, the famous monk whose arduous
seventeenyear sojourn to India is documented, but whose disciple and
bodyguard, known as the Monkey King, cannot be conrmed.

Today:As an appetizer, blanched spinach is either paired with peanuts and

vinegar, or else doused in sesame paste. When cooked in a wok with eggs and
vermicelli, its a very common lling for chun bing (springy crepes used to
wrap various stirfries).

WATERCRESS
literally: Occidental greens
xi yang cai

According to some accounts, watercress was one of many fruits and

vegetables introduced to Macau by Portuguese traders from the sixteenth
century onwardthe spread of the vegetables into southern China helped
spur the regions demographic boom. In fact, during the Qing dynasty,
Portugal was referred to as Da Xiyang Guo (Land of the Great Western Sea),
so it could be argued that watercress was originally named Portuguese
greens.

Today:In Chinese cuisine, this peppery green, cherished for its tonic eect on
lungs and skin, seems to show up almost exclusively in clear soups and
porridges.

SNOW PEAS
literally: Holland beans
He lan dou

Dutch horticulturists apparently developed ediblepod peas in the 1500s

and, according to a history professor at Sun YatSen University, the Dutch
eet that called at Canton in 1785 included an ocial who distributed the
seeds of the snow pea to local farmers. But when asked about the Holland

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connection, the average Chinese person will pose this question in return: Did
you know that Dutch people call them Chinese peas?!

Today:Dont fuss with fresh snow peas. They are used in simple stirfries,
either solo or with cured pork.

TOMATO
literally: barbarian eggplant, Western red
persimmon
fan qie, xi hong shi

O brave New World, that had such juicy red fruits int! The conquistadors
brought the tomato back to Europe, it disseminated in the colonies not long
afterwards. Its thought to have reached China via the Philippines.

Today:Look for it in Hong Kong dishes like beef with tomato and baked pork
chop rice. On the mainland, sliced tomatoes sprinkled with sugar used to be a
popular appetizer, but tomato scrambled with egg (as a topping for rice) is
whats ubiquitous these days. Xinjiang, a province in the northwest, currently
produces about a fth of the worlds tomatoes, so the vegetable has found its
way into the regions cuisine, most prominently in stirfried noodle dishes.

ZUCCHINI
literally: Western calabash
xi hu lu

Because its a squash, zucchinis ancestral homeland is the Americas. Which

means that you can reasonably surmise that the zucchini also took the long
route to Asia by hitching a ride on the galleons and rounding the Cape of Good
Hope. Introduced during the late Ming and early Qing dynasty, zucchini
plants came to be appreciated in China for their prolic output and for helping
to relieve the monotony of winter cabbages and radishes.

Today:Most dumpling houses oer zucchini as an option for llings,

especially when mixed with scrambled egg. In Beijing, youll nd pancakes of
shredded zucchini called hutazi, which are eaten with a garlicandvinegar
dipping sauce.

POTATO
literally: foreign mountain taro, Holland root
tuber, foreigndevil mercy roottuber

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yang shan yu, He lan shu, fan

gui ci shu

There are many accounts of the potato entering China: Russian missionaries
and Siberian traders in the 1600s who introduced it to the northwestern
regions of China; Dutch traders who rst cultivated it in Taiwan during the
seventeenth century; Ming Dynasty pirates who brought them to the coastal
provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang. We do know that the potato was later
popularized by Catholic missionaries as a hedge against faminemaybe thats
why theyre still known in some parts of Guangxi as foreigndevil mercy
roottubers.

Today:Many expats in China are nonplussed by the Chinese liking for

julienned potatoes stirfried in a vinegar sauce. Theyre usually relieved to
discover that in Yunnan, potatoes are more likely to be mashed, deepfried, or
panfried and then steamed with rice. In Xinjiang and in Chinas northeast,
the tuber also turns up in several signature stews. In Henan, stretchy
translucent potato noodles in a spicy soup are a popular street food.

SWEET POTATO
literally: barbarian yam
fan shu

Most agree that sweet potatos introduction to China was postColumbian

(i.e., via Spanish or Portuguese traders after the conquest of the Americas),
but some dreamers insist that the sweet potato had already been brought to
Asia a few centuries before Columbus, via Polynesian catamarans. (And then
theres this story: a Ming Dynasty physician tasted sweet potatoes in
Vietnam; he asked the king for an uncooked one, took two bites, and pocketed
the rest with intent to smuggle it back home. At the border, a guard noticed
the contraband but looked the other way after the physician cured his illness.)
Whats indisputable is that the governor of Fujian province procured sweet
potato seedlings from the Philippines in 1593 and ordered that they be planted
widely to ward o famine. Fastgrowing and nutrientrich, this crop has been
a victim of its own eagerness to please; once it became associated with animal
fodder and privation, it was almost inevitable that the term sweet potato
eater would be used as a slur.

Today:Along with corn, peanuts, and taro, sweet potato is used in da feng
shou, a classic northeastern steamed dish that celebrates the annual harvest.
In Beijing, the smell of roasted sweet potatoes on street corners is a delicious

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herald of winter. Purple sweet potato is increasingly popular as a lling for

pastries.

BROCCOLI
literally: Western kale ower
xi lan hua

China is no stranger to cruciferous vegetables, as its centurieslong

relationship with cabbage proves. But in selecting for bigger leaves, Chinese
farmers neglected the other parts of the Brassica oleracea plant. Broccoli was
rst introduced to southern China in the nineteenth century, but even as late
as the 1980s was unknown in Beijing. The UNDP introduced the crop to help
boost nutritional intake, and within a couple of decades, it had become a
staple at local grocer stands.

Today:In China, broccoli is usually stirfriedbut is rarely mixed with other

vegetables or proteins. At banquets, broccoli orets occasionally serve as a
decorative hedge around a heap of pricey seafood. But if youre lucky, youll
nd a Hong Kongstyle restaurant that serves an entire head of broccoli that
has been cut apart, lightly blanched, and then reassembled on a plate before
being completely drenched in a rich curry sauce.

WATERMELON
literally: Western melon
xi gua

The watermelon, rst domesticated in Africa, was cultivated in northern

China in the twelfth century. Nowadays, the markets of Xinjiang ll every
summer with massive piles of stripey green melons.

Today:In China, a good gossip session doesnt feel right unless youre
working your way through a pile of roasted melon seeds. Some watermelon
varieties are selected for maximum seed production, with the pulp a mere
afterthought. The watermelon is also prized as a canvas for food sculptors.

ONION
literally: Occidental allium
yang cong

Allium crops have been cultivated in China since antiquity, but some onion
species were brought back by Zhang Qian from the barbarous lands west of

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Han Dynasty China. Over the centuries, though, allium varietals were bred for
edible shoots and green leaves (i.e., scallion, leek), deemphasizing the bulbs.
The dense and spherical storage onions familiar to us likely only made their
way to China in the seventeenth century via the Portuguese presence in
Macau. As a relative newcomer, the onion bulb would not have been included
in the original ve pungents, the aromatics (including garlic, chives, and
shallots) blacklisted by strict Buddhists for allegedly stimulating anger and
lust. But any Chinese cook curious enough to slice up a big bulb would quickly
have intuitedfrom its aromathat this new ingredient was quite racy
indeed.

Today:Sliced onions are common enough in Chinese stirfries, especially

those involving beef or lambbut theyre very much a supporting player,
sweated long enough to lose their pungency.

HONEYDEW
literally: Wallace melon
Hua lai shi gua

Honeydew is the only ingredient on this list to have been imported to China
not by land or by sea, but by airand via Air Force Two, no less! In 1944,
Henry Wallace, FDRs vice president, presented the governor of Gansu with
seeds of the honeydew melon, which the agriculturallysavvy Wallace and
botanist friends believed would be a good crop for the droughtstricken area.
The fruits helped transform the local economy and became known colloquially
as Wallace melons. The region still hosts an annual Wallace Day festival,
where crowds gather to participate in melon tastings, gawk at melon exhibits,
and play melon games.

Today:On Chinese streets, melon is commonly sold by the skewer. Each

crescent slice is lanced onto a wooden chopstick and sold for a few cents a
pop.

CHINA, CHINESE, COOKING, PLANT KINGDOM, PLANT KINGDOM MONTH, VEGETABLES

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