ABSTRACT
As with Chinese music, food can sometimes be misunderstood. After my first night together with my future Chinese wife I had my usual corn flakes for breakfast (readily available at Carrefour and Metro markets). She looked at the pile of yellow crunchy mush in my bowl, scowled, and said, “What’s that?” I crossly responded “cereal,” then ventured to ask what she was having for breakfast, and her answer was: “Food!” (Mandarin Chinese have a tendency, when acquiring English, of punctuating the final consonant with an extra flat “a” or “ah” sound. It’s rather endearing, actually: fooda!) I have witnessed firsthand what New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne once observed: that all Chinese food has five basic ingredients: ginger, garlic, oil, vinegar, and soy. No cereal anywhere. (It would be necessary, these days, to add a less laudable sixth ingredient: MSG. This chemical, while originally developed by the Japanese, is almost impossible to avoid in China—in restaurants, at least).
