During our stay in Beijing, (when I wasn’t eating) I spent most of my free time alternating between sightseeing in the unforgiving summer heat, watching world cup games in the air conditioned haven of our hotel room, or rummaging through guidebooks and goggle for great restaurants. However, in our final days we made two truly great decisions that resulted in some of the most memorable insights into China’s culinary and built landscapes that I’ve been exposed to thus far.
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THE WALL
Our friends - who also happen to be Bay Area planning buffs currently resident in Beijing - invited us on a field trip to a small village situated next to a unrestored stretch of Ming Dynasty era Great Wall. Now I’ve already raved about the meal we enjoyed out of the organic garden of our hosts the Chens, but I wanted to take the time to write a bit out our encounter with the Wall itself.
Notoriously flooded with tourists, Badaling and the other officially restored sections of the Wall (I’ve heard) can offer visitors an incredible glimpse through time into what the structure probably looked like at one point, and all in the midst of China’s breathtaking scenic vistas. This is one way to engage the built environment and history.
Another way to experience a historic structure like the Great Wall is to examine it in the context of its dynamic landscape.
Mr. Chen has been climbing the mountains behind his village, where the Wall snakes over peaks and drops down valleys, since he was a kid. Today he will take visitors along on his backyard hike, whacking down bush and fixing a well-worn but constantly overgrown trail towards the crumbling stone remains of the Wall.
Cracked, crumbling and covered in weeds, we traced the Wall’s path for hours and learned that what remained was all original Ming Dynasty construction. Many of towers and base structures were remarkably well preserved.
And where they weren’t, Mr. Chen explained, it was the mark of political and social changes over time: aerial raids in the 1940s during the Chinese Civil War between the Communists and the Nationalists demolished large portions, and the growth of surrounding villages also resulted in the depletion of stone from the Wall, as it has been used to construct their homes and other buildings.
During our hike we had the incredible fortune of not seeing anyone else. We had the entire landscape to ourselves. A hiker’s greatest wish come true. Mr. Chen, who has probably been up that mountain more times than I’ve watched a sunset on the Pacific Ocean, stood with his back to the Wall staring out over the rolling green mountains and belted out: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… I joined him, calling out into the wind and to the Wall, and wished that I would remember to appreciate just where I was far more often.
The trail of the Wall was steep going up and steeper yet coming down. The sun was merciless and I fashioned an unflattering yet effective headgear to shield my sun-stroke prone head. The bugs wouldn’t relent and I’m pretty sure I took down more than one very scary spiders web with my face. And yet, the morning was charged with an energy and fascination for that Wall that I can’t imagine replicated in any official tour.
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THE WOK
Okay, let me just be perfectly frank and admit that until very recently I didn’t have the first clue how or why to use a wok. I mean, I guess I just didn’t grasp why to grab for the wok when you could just as well cook up your veggies in a frying pan. Well, then I met Chunyi, whose cooking class was, simply put, a personal revelation.
I went to this class knowing full well that I knew less than nothing about cooking Chinese food. I say less than nothing because I bore the false assumption that the addition of soy sauce and/or oyster sauce was the key to Chinese cooking. Thankfully, I took this day long course - which included a market visit, a detailed lesson on quality seasoning, a hands-on five-dish prep and cooking class and of course lots of tastings!
At the local market I got a walk through and explanation of how to shop at the spice counter, fresh doufu (tofu) and noodle counters, meat counters, and the produce aisles where mysterious looking gourds and green veggies had previously stumped me all too often.
Armed with the knowledge of a slightly less confused consumer, I was then turned onto a brief how-to lesson in seasonings. Soy sauce, vinegar, and rice wine being the main subjects. Buy the high grade stuff: that seemed to be the take away lesson.
Next we went onto chop chop chop…garlic, ginger, leeks, tofu…de-seed dried chilies and pick out peppercorns. Oh, by the way did you know you can easily peel ginger with the back of a cleaver? Definitely my new favorite trick.
Then came the wok. I was nervous, but Chunyi made the wok seem entirely approachable, smoothly coating the interior with oil and swiftly stirring in the ingredients, each with their own timing. Adding the liquids only by pouring them onto the spatula, so as not to over-season the meat or veggies, was an excellent tip that I now use on the daily.
I’m very happy to say that after this fabulous day in the kitchen class, I am now a confident wielder of a wok and cleaver, and furthermore soy sauce is now just one contributor on the varied list of ingredients I’ve been using. Some of the most fun I’ve had in my kitchen since Chunyi’s class, has been in experimenting, re-learning, substituting and improvising of course when I realize I’ve forgotten to restock on green beans and throw in broccoli instead…or buy the wrong kind of tofu and end up making a entirely different dish altogether.
