Food market - Beijing

neatly layed out strawberries

different coloured corn

(Another in the catching up from China series!)

Here are some pictures of a food market in Bejing, just off Gulouwai Daijie in pretty damn central Beijing.

I hunted this one down. 

I kept seeing people coming from a particular direction with plastic bags of fruit and veg. I decided to track back along their path to see where the food was coming from. 




mini mangoes



 Eventually I found a huge market tucked away through a door or two.

I love food markets anywhere in the world but this was quite a good one! It had poultry, pork,  fruit, veg and dried goods as well as household objects.

What do I like about food markets in other parts of the world? Many many things...





 One of the main things I think is the daily lifeness of a food market. When you are in a strange town working or as a tourist its so nice to touch base with the everydayness of life through a food market.

You see people doing what would do if you were at home, and an added bonus is that because people are just doing their normal things no one notices you... everyone is just getting on hunting and gathering their daily needs and their special treats.

And you get to see what people buy and eat -  the real food that people eat everyday and prepare for themselves. 

Then there is the whole aspect of how it is layed out and sold.  Don't you love how the strawberries are presented, all in neat little rows with a decortative leaf! Better than being stuffed into plastic punnets. More markets another day.



Threshing

(Catching up from blog blocking - China)

Got loads of dried goods to thresh?  A massive crop of dried broad beans?   And a handy road?  A road is a good hard threshing ground right? So take your produce and spread it right across the road.  So what happens when the cars come?  Well, that’s easy, let the car do the threshing!  Just lay the dried broad bean stalks with pods on the road and wait.  Move the stalks around a little so the whole lot gets squashed or should I say threshed and sweep up  the loosened beans.

Dried broad beans are pretty tough so it works. The beans don’t get squashed at all, just released from their pods and the stalks get broken up into a chaff.  I wonder if the chaff gets used too?  And how?  Dug in? Composted?  Given to the pigs? 

In mid May this  method of broad bean threshing was going on all over Dali’s outskirts. I like it! Perhaps I should see what would happen if I did this in suburban Marrickville!

Blocked blogs, subversion and food quality

Saiinbu from Mongolia!  Long time no blog.  Why the silence?

Well, I have basically been firewalled whilst in China.  I am not taking it personally at all, it seems that all blog hosts are blocked lest subversive material  get circulated and locations of protest action communicated. I guess it just easier for them to block the whole lot.

I didn’t really want to start my blog about the food in China this way, but being censored got me thinking…

Talk of our fresh home-grown pesticide-free vegetable and fruit growing could be worthy of censorship. It seems that food quality is becoming more and more of an issue here.  This trip I have noticed more and more discussion, anxiety and reports of problems with the food supply in China.   I guess it is possible that the population have been sensitised to the whole issue via the milk tainting scandal that occurred a few years ago? 

Just on this trip there has been discussion of massive pesticide residues in China’s favourite beverage – tea. This includes in international brands like Lipton as well as their local Chinese brands.  Then there has been discussion about heavy metals in the water and the need to improve the water quality and concerns with the rising prices of fresh food.

So that’s the media, what are ‘the people’ thinking?

The other day at work in China while I was eating a pineapple for lunch, one of my Chinese colleagues said she didn’t know what to eat anymore.  She knew she should eat more fresh fruit but she was afraid of the pesticides.  She also said she was afraid of processed food because she didn’t know what was in it. This sounds overly anxious doesn’t it?  But this came from the mouth of a very sensible and not overly sensitive young woman, such is the anxiety.

I have seen this anxiety in Chinese visiting Australia too.  One delegation from China I was hosting took only a quick look at the scenery in the Blue Mountains and then rushed to a nearby supermarket to buy bags and bags of powdered milk to take back with them.  

A recent report about the recycling of cooking oil from China’s drains to re-use in restaurants also led to the import of huge amounts of olive oil.  Delegations returned to China with tins and tins of the stuff.  

But back to blogging…so I haven’t been able to read anyone’s blogs or enter anything onto mine. I have been able to read the odd blogs that are really websites, but  as so many of you are blogs, I have a lot of reading  to catch up on everyone’s gardens and cooking. I cant wait.

It’s such a shame, there was so many good things to tell you about the food and gardens of China. It’s funny how their censorship has made me think on the bad things ….

To catch up I will be gradually entering China-related content hoping to share some of the good things with you.