_CHINESE COOKING_
So many dreadful things have been said about Chinese cooking, that I
think it indispensable to devote a chapter to the rehabilitation of our
culinary art. I do not pretend to make your mouths water, but I should
like at least to be able to show you that my countrymen do not eat the
extraordinary things attributed to them by certain prejudiced travellers.
Our ordinary meal consists of eight dishes—two vegetables, eggs, a fish,
some shell-fish, a bird, two dishes of meat, pork and goat in the south,
and mutton and beef in the north. Besides this, a large tureen of soup is
served with the rice, which takes the place of bread at our tables, and
is our substitute for wine and tea, which are only served on very great
occasions at meal times. Food being extremely cheap, the cost of three
daily meals, similar to the one described, never exceeds fivepence per
person. A pound of meat costs only twopence halfpenny, or threepence,
whilst the price of a good fowl is sixpence, or, at the most, sevenpence.
In 1882, I embarked on board a Chinese ship at Hong-Kong, on my way home.
Not being able to accommodate myself with the fare on board, I told a
servant that I should like a chicken for lunch, and gave him a dollar
to buy it with, this sum representing the usual cost of a chicken in
France. A minute or two later he came to ask me how he was to prepare it.
“Cut it up and stew it in its juice,” I said, “and season well.” Shortly
afterwards he brought me a huge trencher, resembling a tub, filled with a
fricassee of little pieces of smoking chicken.
“What! All that?” I cried.
“Yes, sir. With your dollar I got twelve chickens, and have cooked them
as you told me to do.”
At the sight of this quantity of meat, and of the pantagruelic dish in
which they were served, my appetite disappeared, and I made him carry the
dish away, and distribute it among the servants in the kitchen. I mention
this to show how little provisions cost at home. A workman earning one
franc, or tenpence a day can keep a wife and two children in comfort, and
still put by half his earnings.
When I was at the military school, where the cadets mess like officers,
all I had to pay for my food was fourpence a day, and was so well fed
for this money that I never had any cause for complaint. It is easy
to understand the reason why things are so cheap in China. There are
no taxes at home on articles of food. According to statistics, each
inhabitant of the Empire pays two francs, or eighteenpence, in taxes per
annum, but no part of this sum represents any tax on food. Europeans
who complain that they spend far too much money in China have only
themselves to blame. I have never heard of any European who cared to live
as we live. Parisian dishes, already very expensive in this country, are
naturally trebly so in China, in spite of the fact that raw materials
cost so little. Besides, the cuisine of each country depends on its
climate. Since I have been in France I have accustomed myself to French
cookery, reputed the best of all. Whenever I return to China, and am
invited to dinner by French people, I get quite upset, and often feel
quite ill after dinner. Coffee irritates my stomach, and cigars make
my nose bleed. Now, when I am in Europe I cannot do without my coffee
and my cigar after dinner. It is not surprising, then, that Europeans
cannot enjoy life in China, persisting as they do in eating only what
suited them at home. When a friend calls on you in China to take pot-luck
with you, you usually ask him to a restaurant, and order a dinner in
his honour. These dinners usually cost six dollars, that is to say,
twenty-four shillings for eight persons. The dinner is a very complete
meal, as may be judged by the following bill of fare:—
Four plates of _hors d’œuvres_.
Four plates of dried fruits.
Four plates of fresh fruit, according to the season.
Four large dishes—a whole duck, sharks’ fins, swallows’ nests,
and some kind of meat.
Four middle-sized dishes—poultry, shell-fish, and meat.
Four small dishes or bowls, containing mushrooms, morels, which
we call ears of the forest, rice of the immortals, which is the
name we give to a kind of mushroom, and the tender sprouts of
the bamboo.
Four large dishes, containing fish, sea-stars, and mutton.
These last four dishes finish the repast. As a rule, nobody touches them,
and their appearance on the table is the signal for rising. The price of
ceremonial dinners rarely exceeds twenty dollars, or four pounds, for
eight persons. The list of dishes is a much larger one, and includes
two roasts, which are served at the middle of the dinner, together with
little pieces of bread cooked in the _bain-marie_.
A servant, armed with a very sharp carving-knife, removes the skin of the
roast, be it wild duck, goose, or sucking pig, and serves each guest with
a little in a saucer. At the same time, another servant hands each guest
a small cup, into which he pours rice brandy. I forgot to say that the
table is cleared before the roasts are served, just as in Paris before
coffee is brought on to table. Pastry is always served at our dinners,
and is brought on between the courses. With salt pastry, containing meat,
a cup of chicken broth is served, whilst with sweet pastry almond milk is
handed round. I must add that dinner always begins with _hors d’œuvres_
including fruit, and ends with a bowl of rice, which may be eaten or not,
according to the tastes of the guests. Tea is served immediately after
dinner, and at the same time each guest receives a napkin dipped in hot
water.
The diners sit at a square table, two on each side. The first and third
face the second and fourth, the sixth and the fifth face the courtyard,
to which the seventh and eighth turn their backs. The eighth is always
the master of the house, whose special function it is to fill the glasses
of his guests with wine. When there are more than eight, several tables
are used. If four tables are needed, the third and fourth are near the
courtyard, whilst the first and second are near the drawing-room. _Hors
d’œuvres_ include, besides fruit, ham, gizzards, grated meat grilled,
dried shrimps, and preserved eggs. The latter, thanks to their coating of
lime, will keep for an indefinite period; after twenty-five years they
are exquisite to the taste, having undergone a kind of transformation,
the result of which is that the yellows have become a kind of dark brown
in colour, and the whites, also brown, resemble meat jelly. I once made
some European friends of mine taste some of these eggs, as well as other
Chinese dishes, and they were delighted with them, all prejudice apart.
Once, however, a Berlin lady, after having found that our cooking
was delicious, asked the name of each of the dishes of one of our
interpreters, who, not knowing the exact translation of the technical
expression, “sea-slug,” answered that the dish in question was “sea
hedgehog,” or See-Igel in German. This was enough to disgust our amiable
guest, who refused to continue her dinner. I was sitting next to her,
and she told me that she could feel it crawling in her throat still,
which shows how great is the force of imagination. Marquis d’Hervey de
Saint-Denys gave a Chinese dinner during the Exhibition of 1867, and
Cham, the famous caricaturist, drew the menu. There were some abominable
things in this bill of fare, and the faces of the guests after they
had glanced at it was a sight to be seen. It took the marquis all his
eloquence to reassure them. I will not deny that there are people in
China who eat these extraordinary dishes, but these are the exceptions
to the rule. I repeat here, that never in my life have I seen or heard
of any one who ate cat or dog, a practice which only quite recently a
writer in the _Figaro_ accused us of. Apropos of this, I must relate
a very curious thing that befell us, when, in the spring of 1878, our
Legation first settled in Paris. One day I received a call from a footman
in livery, who desired to speak to me in the name of his mistress, a
Polish countess of very high position. This lady had amongst her pets
twelve little Chinese dogs, those hairless little bow-wows that everybody
has seen. She loved them dearly, and, being frightened lest the Chinese
colony might eat up her darlings, sent me word, considering us apparently
as wild beasts or savages, to the effect that if one of her pets should
disappear she would set fire to the Embassy building. I reassured the
good old lady, and sent her word that none of my countrymen had an
appetite for dog-meat, and that should she miss one of her pets one day
it would be much wiser on her part, before committing the crime of arson
with premeditation, to go round to the police-station or to the dogs’
home.
In short, we eat very much as you do, with rather more variety, thanks
to the productiveness of our country and of our sea. But never are
disgusting or even curious dishes seen on our tables. It is true that we
prepare our dishes in a different manner. For instance, we cut the food
up into very little pieces, in consequence of which the nature of the
dish is not to be recognised, but our dishes are none the less delicious
on that account. I could call in witness of what I assert all Europeans
who have lived in China.
Cooking, moreover, is in exact ratio to the state of civilisation of each
nation—the more developed the one, the more _recherché_ and the more
perfect the other. France is the country in Europe which was civilised
the first, and its cuisine is the most perfect in the West. So, instead
of asking us whether we are in the habit of preparing such and such a
fantastic dish, the European would do better to ask from what year our
civilisation dates. The answer to this question would at once show
him that it is absurd to attribute to us the consumption of disgusting
dishes, and that this is the work of mere imagination, vivid perhaps, but
completely in the wrong.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]