Jake Hushka- Post 8- Beijing Cuisine

Considering that most of us will be stepping outside our usual dining boundaries, I figured I would do a summary of the regional foods in Beijing as well. Below is a clip from the show No Reservation’s and Bizarre Foods, please don’t be scared by it

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ9JZRbKFt8
www.youtub.com/watch?v=Yc0KV3NvmNw&sns=em

All other research was conducted through Food Network, Travel Channel, Wikipedia, traveguide.com and About.com

As I stated in an earlier post, Shanghai cuisine seems to be a melting pot of eastern Chinese cuisine, similarly Beijing cuisine can be described as being influenced by a culinary traditions from all over China. Beijing cuisine is rooted in the broader tradition of north Chinese food and is considered the cuisine of the eastern coastal province of Shandong. The main reason for this is that the city has been the capital of China for most of the last eight hundred years. Beijing cuisine had the benefit of two major forces, which are the development of an Imperial court cuisine and being the political center of China.

The Chinese Imperial cuisine originated from the “The Emperor’s Kitchen,” which was a term referring to the cooking facilities inside the Forbidden City. The characteristics of the Chinese imperial cuisine are based on two principles; elaborate cooking methods and the strict selection of ingredients. The ingredients are often very expensive and rare. The visual presentation is also very important; therefore the color and shape of the dish are arranged incredibly vigilantly. Imperial Cuisine has evolved over time to be enjoyed by all of the country's people, characterized by complex preparation techniques, the freshest ingredients, and elaborate presentation including colorful vegetable carvings.

The second influence on Beijing cuisine is just as important as the first because it establishes Beijing as a magnet for people from all over the world, which inevitably enables them to bring their traditional foods with them. The many different cultures saturate the Beijing dining scene. The city literally has thousands of restaurants available and dining choices are unlimited. The categories include; Western, Asian, Sea food, Hot Pot, Fast-food, Muslim, Vegetarian, Cafeterias, Buffets, and Special Restaurants. Assuming that Hot Pot restaurants would be the only category that no one has heard off, you can see that Beijing can offer a certain cuisine for everyone.

To end on a good note, it is said that there are two things that you must do when visiting Beijing: One is to enjoy the roast duck and the other is to take a stroll on the Great Wall. There is simply quite nothing like a perfectly roasted duck with bronzed crispy skin and tender, succulent meat. There are literally dozens of restaurants that serve this famous dish, but perhaps the best known are Quanjude and Bianyifang.

I also thought I should add a description of the Hot Pot restaurants. There are basically two kinds of hotpot restaurants in Beijing: Mongolian style and Sichuan style. The staple of both types of hotpot is mutton (yáng ròu). The meat is usually sliced frozen so that it curls up into a tube shape. Then you place the meat into the hotpot, which is a copper pot containing a boiling soup base. After a few seconds the meat is cooked and you dip it into a sesame butter sauce. The verb describing the action of cooking the meat this way is called 'shuan'. Other shuan-ables include beef (féi níu), frozen bean curd (dòng dòu fǔ), Chinese cabbage (bái cài), bean sprouts (dòu miáo), and glass noodles (fěn sī). Spicy Sichuan hotpot has a soup base which can be described as either super spicy or mildly radioactive, but the pot is often divided into half spicy, half non-spicy soup pots. The soup base for Mongolian style is not spicy, and usually consists of some vegetables and seafood.

The conclusion from my research is that Beijing has a lot of cultural and culinary experiences to offer. I will choose to be daring and bold in the culinary side and hope to have some of you there to join me.