Things Chinese: Being Notes on Various Subjects connected with China

By James Dyer Ball

Year Published: 1893

“In the South of China, rice is the principal vegetable food, but instead of vegetables being an adjunct to the meat, as with us, the meat is taken as a tasty article with the rice, which is the staple article of diet. Either dried, salt, or fresh vegetables are eaten at nearly every meal.

The Chinese, like the French, have nominally two meals, one about 8 or 10 o’clock in the morning, and the other at 5 or 6 in the evening or thereabouts. With the poorer classes these consist of a number of bowls of rice—cooked till so dry that each grain is separate—a little pork or fish, salt or fresh, and some fried vegetables. Everything of meat kind is chopped up fine, as the Chinese would think it barbarous to cut up anything at the table, and also to enable the chop-sticks to pick it up readily. A drink of tea from the rice-bowl finishes the frugal meal. The dinner is the same as the breakfast. This then is the ordinary everyday food of millions in the South of China, and costs only about a couple of dollars a month. The more a man has, the more he expends on his food, both as regards quality and quantity, and, as a consequence, he has a more varied fare. Though nominally only taking two set meals a day, nearly everyone takes a snack about the middle of the day, it may be only a few cakes, as the Chinese clerks in the Government offices in Hongkong indulge in; it may be a bowl of fish congee, or some other tasty soup or dish from the numerous restaurants, or from some of the many refreshment stalls, stationary and peripatetic.

Some of the hard-toiling labourers, when there is a constant demand on physical strength or muscle, take a number of meals to prime them up for their work, such for instance as some of the boatmen on the rivers in the South of China, who work from daylight to sunset, and to whom five meals a day are allowed, when in work.

Chinese food, like French, does not consist of roasts, but of a multitude of made-up dishes. Peanut oil and soy are added to them, and soups and broths are much taken.

The Chinese, as far as their own food is concerned, are ‘born cooks. Among the lower classes almost any man can turn his hand to preparing the simple dishes, and in workmens’ messes it is the youngest hand (the apprentice) who has the drudgery of the cooking to do.”

Is it true that today all Chinese are born cooks?

Do you think that the Chinese are like the French?

The book can be found here.