Post by nzbc on Nov 14, 2021 21:44:51 GMT 12
A CHINESE DINNER
A CHINESE DINNER
SEA-SLUGS AND OCTOPUS EGGS An official Chinese dinner given by Chinese Government officials in honour of the latest U.N.R.R.A. arrivals in the Shansi Province, is described by a Wellington girl, who is secretary to U.N.R.R.A. workers at Tai Yuan Fu. " We started the meal with tiny cups of tea. ’ she writes. “ Chinese tea, of course, isn't a bit like ours. It is very weak, not drunk with milk, and is very highly scented. You can see the little tea flowers in the bottom of the cup. There is not much flavour to it. There were about 20 guests at the dinner part}'. One or two of the men wore the old-style Chinese garments, long, loose-flowing coats of ankle-length over trous=rs. They also had their hair dressed in strange ways. We all sat at a round table, and were provided with chopsticks, which I found hard to manage with the type of food. they serve. “ First of all they brought in about three bowls of what would be the equivalent of our hors d'oeuvres. Everybody stretched into the middle of the table, took a little of each, and placed it on their plates. „„ ~ " This was repeated about 20 times as we were served just so many different dishes. Some of them were appetising to European guests, others were not. Octopus eggs and sea-slugs came into the latter category', and I turned a little pale when I saw the Chinese downing them with great glee. Their sea foods, however, are very tasty.. We had shark fc fin soup, some sort of chicken, jelly-fish, and countless other strange dishes. The difficulty was that everything was floating in liquid, and to sort solid from liquid is no easy task with chopsticks. “About halfway through tne meal a sweet dish was brought, in an almond jelly that looked like cubes of junket floating in whey. I thought that, being a sweet it signified the end of the meal, but it seems that the Chinese always eat sweet things in the middle as more meat and vegetable dishes followed, then, lastly, a bowl of rice. Hot towels to wipe oneself down finished off the dinner procedure.”
OTAGO DAILY TIMES, ISSUE 26256, 13 SEPTEMBER 1946, paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19460913.2.8.12?items_per_page=100&query=chinese+dinner&snippet=true