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| Buddha pears. Photo: WENN.com |
A Chinese farmer been tinkering with modified pears since 2003, and this year he's reportedly grown 10,000 edible Buddhas. But are they too cute to eat? Tell us what you think in the comments below!
Posts with tag China
Pears Shaped Like Baby Buddhas
A Chinese farmer been tinkering with modified pears since 2003, and this year he's reportedly grown 10,000 edible Buddhas. But are they too cute to eat? Tell us what you think in the comments below!
Louisiana Law - 'Is My Crawfish From Around Here?'
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| A bulk order of Louisiana crawfish. Photo: nola.agent, Flickr |
Louisiana crawfish advocates have finally discovered -- after years of unsuccessfully appealing to economic interests -- that the quickest way to consumers' hearts is actually via their (unsettled) stomachs.
The state legislature this year enacted a law requiring restaurant owners to disclose whether their crawfish is Louisiana-raised. Bill sponsor Fred H. Mills, Jr. -- a pharmacist whose district includes Breaux Bridge, better known to Cajun gourmands as the "Crawfish Capital of the World" -- credits the law's passage to a major tactical shift.
"Everyone was upset that Chinese seafood was being disguised as Louisiana seafood, but the law just never could get any legs to it," Mills says. "The difference this time was we didn't talk about commerce. We talked about public safety."
The campaign against imported crawfish, after the jump.
Continue reading Louisiana Law - 'Is My Crawfish From Around Here?'
A First Growth Bordeaux ... in China?
It's official: The wine world is truly global. First growth Bordeaux estate Chateau Lafite is developing vineyards in China, according to a Decanter magazine exclusive.
When the French began planting vines in California, we felt validated. Then some of them moved into Chile and Argentina, and they probably felt validated. But China? It seems as if the last frontier has finally been conquered.
I blogged my doubts about Chinese wine during the Olympics last summer, and Marc at China Wine Tours was quick to say there's good wine there -- you just have to find it. Just a guess, but I'm thinking if anyone can make world-class wine in China, Lafite is at the top of that list.
Pork Floss - Ingredient Spotlight
No, I didn't shave a Viking's beard. That's pork floss. What? Yes, pork floss. Known as rousong in Mandarin, it's exactly what it sounds like – dried sweetened roast pork pulled to separate the fibers and spun until it has the texture of crispy cotton candy. And it's awesome. It's got the same flavor profile as teriyaki beef jerky - a little bit sweet, a little bit spicy, a lot salty and a lot meaty.
Pork floss buns - fluffy, sweetish rolls topped with pork floss and filled with mayonnaise cream - are a big thing in Singapore and Malaysia. Believe me, they're much nicer than they sound - the comforting flavors of meat and mayo, with an incredible blend of crunchy, soft and creamy textures. Chow Times has an article about the various uses of pork floss, from a topping for rice or congee to a grilled cheese sandwich filling. My personal favorite use is in a Vietnamese-style baguette sandwich, with pate (I substitute sliced turkey), lettuce, cilantro, vinaigrette and mayo.
You can find tubs or bags of pork floss at many Asian groceries. If you're really lucky, they'll have fish, chicken or shrimp floss as well.
Celebrate Chinese New Year With Chinese Beer
For many Americans, the idea of Chinese beer may seem as far-out as Chinese democracy (the movement or the Guns N' Roses album). Some countries -- Ireland and Germany, for example -- we heavily associate with beer drinking, and others, like China, we do not. Even at Asian restaurants, less discriminating drinkers can be hard-pressed to determine the country of origin of different Eastern beers on the menu. Maybe I was just a "dumb American," but when I was younger, I didn't put much thought into the difference between my Sapporos and my Tsingtaos.Well, for the record, Tsingtao is by far the most prevalent Chinese beer in the U.S., (Sapporo, of course, is from Japan) and the marketing minds down at the Tsingtao Brewery believe they've found the perfect event to help hammer that point home: Chinese New Year, which begins today.
To celebrate the "Year of the Ox," Tsingtao enlisted the help of certified Chinese Master Chef Martin Yan to create four Chinese dishes that utilize either Tsingtao Lager or Tsingtao Pure Draft as an ingredient. Personally, though, I'm more about drinking beer than cooking with it, so I was happy to see Chef Yan also took a crack at two beer cocktails.
You can see all of the recipes (as well as some additional Chinese New Year celebration tips) on Tsingtao's website here or find the mixing instructions for Chef Yan's Ginger Beer Fizz beer mixed drink after the jump...
Continue reading Celebrate Chinese New Year With Chinese Beer
The five seasons of Chinese eating
In China, they have an extra season.
Spring, Summer, Late Summer, Fall, and Winter make up the five seasons of the Chinese calendar; corresponding with the five Chinese elements and a number of their healing philosophies.
According to my knowledgeable friend Lora:
"Each season is connected to a set of organs in the body. Corresponding foods that are fresh in each season are meant to cleanse, detoxify, and heal those organs. When we eat the same diet year-round without paying attention to seasonal foods, we ignore our bodies' needs to support and properly heal organs, which leads to lots of health issues (obesity, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, etc.)."
So. Here's what you should eat right now:
Flooded restaurant draws crowds
Floods did not keep people away from a restaurant in Xiangfan, China. In fact, the floods not only brought in the water, they brought in the people. According to Ananova, "The owner said he was prepared to temporarily close the restaurant after the heaviest rains for 50 years brought floods to the city. But he had a change of heart when he heard how the eatery's new wet look was bringing in the customers."
I wonder if they have a no splashing rule.
If this could actually happen in the U.S. with all of our health codes, I could imagine owners taking the wet look one step further with Hooter's-style servers in in wet bikinis. Judging by the photo, though, it looks like it is business as usual in Xiangfan, just with a pool of water on the ground.
Fortune cookie questions answered
New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee traveled the world to crack the case of the fortune cookie's cryptic origins, hunt for the infamous General Tso and track chop suey back to its creator. Turned out, many of the answers were closer to home than she'd ever imagined.
The author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food served up her favorite Chinese food facts, myths and mysteries to AOL Food, and then she took your red-hot questions on Slashfood. Here's how Jennifer 8 Lee responded.
Q: What makes you pick a particular Chinese restaurant from all the ones around it?
A: Well, I tend to like Chinese restaurants that cater more to Chinese people rather than to an American palate. They may both serve General Tso's chicken, but you can look at a Chinese menu and know if they expect a more Chinese clientele. For example, cold appetizers -- especially jellyfish – is a giveaway. Lamb dishes are also ore Chinese. Anything with whole fish, and certain kinds of noodles: cold noodles, dan dan noodles.
GreenDaily in 60 seconds: Applebee's and a lack of abundance
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- Freaky but factual: Chinese animal parks selling tiger bone wine as tonic
Green Daily in 60 seconds: Bugs in cans, BioBags and bad burgers
- Do plants have rights? Yes, if Switzerland has anything to say about it
- A sweet BioBag discovery
- Some organic food options for your furry friends
- Brits throw about about 1/3 of all their food
- Want to volunteer on an organic farm? Here's how
- Vegan bodybuilding: yes, it exists
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- Bizarre food news: China grows huge food in outer space; ready-to-eat bugs
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- Grow your food in a box
Can watermelon help improve athletes' performance?
In Japan, the "flavor of the month" isn't barbecue, or citrus, or licorice, it's...citrulline.
Sound strange? It's an amino acid found in large amounts in watermelon, and it's being touted as a performance enhancer to the Olympic athletes in Beijing, China. It widens blood vessels, allowing for improved circulation, as well as increasing levels of nitric oxide, as well as breaking down lactic acid, (which, as our readers have gently reminded me, is not the scary substance we once thought it to be).
L-Citrulline has long been available in supplement form, but the Japanese are seeing how far they can market it, putting it into sports drinks, sports bars and even gum.
But mainly, it's just another excuse to eat a huge, juicy slice of watermelon.
via [inventorspot]
French truffles are in trouble
Said to have aphrodisiac properties, this fragile species is suffering from drought on Southern European farms and will continue to suffer if predicted temperature increases come to fruition.
But as Southern farms are suffering, some Northern plantations are thriving from the increase in temperature (truffles are very sensitive to both frost and drought). But by the end of the century, scientists predict that in Toulose, France, temperatures will exceed 95 degrees F on 25-55 days out of the year (currently, it's only that hot about four days out of the year).
Ferrero Rocher won a copyright lawsuit in China
There is a huge piracy problem in China. Lots of western companies find that they can't sell their product in China because there is already a Chinese clone of the product. This was a big problem for Ferrero Rocher, that is until recently.The chocolate maker just won a long-fought lawsuit in China's Supreme Court against a Chinese company that copied Ferrero Rocher's famous, gold wrapped pralines. Montresor, the Chinese chocolate maker that was copying Ferrero Rocher, was ordered not only to stop but also to pay a token fine of €50,000.
A lot of people see this as welcome news. It could mean that China may be ready to adopt more fair marketing practices. I am all for local competition to global brands, but I think a copy cat company shouldn't be allowed to just piggy back on a famous product. The name brand put a lot of work into the brand that they've built. Like it or hate it, I think a company should profit on its own merits. Good luck, Ferrero Rocher.
Pet food makers regularly taste their own product
For the folks at The Honest Kitchen, quality control means tasting your own product - even though it's marketed for the four-legged crowd.
The company's employees attend weekly meetings - often with their dogs poised by their sides - where both humans and animals carefully taste both individual dehydrated bits of the organic dog and cat food mixture, as well as the final product, to make sure the pets are getting nothing but the best.
The company got the OK from the FDA to use the term "Human grade pet food" on all of its labels. According to a rep from the company, the food is "probably a little bland by most human standards," but compared to what they imagine ordinary pet food to taste like, "really quite delicious!" (That answers the next obvious question: do the testers taste their competitors' food, too?)
Even the packaging is appealing and atypical for animal food - multicolored boxes with enticing names like "verve," "force," and "embark" that aren't a far reach from the packaged granola available for humans. They also make treats and supplements.
I'll admit, it sounds a bit odd at first, but after the recent horrific incidents of dogs becoming ill from tainted dog food, it's nice that a company takes this much care in producing a quality, safe product for their best buds.
A new, er, old variety of peaches
A peach farmer in New Zealand has been growing a new variety of peaches for a couple of seasons now. Well, the variety is new to the English speaking world, I guess. The flatto peach has been growing in China and across Asia for thousands of years. In fact it is supposedly one of the oldest varieties of the fruit. It has a flat bottom and flat top, so it's not round like to variety of peach that I'm used to. The flatto also is said to have a superior flavor and juiciness. That sounds great!
The grower, Kevin Paulin, says he's never had this much interest before. Apparently people have been been seeking him out to ask about his new crop. No word yet if this will reach American markets. The peaches have barely begun appearing in New Zealand stores. It's still pretty new outside of Asia, so it may take a while. Does anyone know about this variety of peach, and if it is available outside of China and New Zealand?
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