Chinese Food Experience: The Analysis of Food Ingredients

Name: Ran Wang

WRIT1133-27, MWF 12:00

Prof. Eric Leake

05/10/12

988 words

The Analysis of Food Ingredients

Staple food is an indispensable part in human’s life. In certain location, things are dominated by certain cereals: rice in Asia, wheat in Europe, sorghum and millet in Africa, and maize in America. Last weekend, I had a wonderful time eating the Chinese food in Denver. Actually, different parts in China have different dietary habits; Such as most northern people in China think the rice is the staple food, but the people who are living in southern China like eating noodles. In the restaurant I went to, I had a great chance to eat southern Chinese dish- Rice noodles combination. For this dish, it uses Asian specialist ingredients: rice noodles. Also, there are lots of side ingredients in it: such as beef, pork, shrimp, fish ball and Chinese sour pickled cabbage. In this essay, I would like to analyze the most important ingredient in this dish – rice noodles.

“About 60 percent of the agricultural workforce is involved in producing rice, and China produces and consumes about a third of the world’s total.”(68) As the author Latham, A. J. H explains in the book Rice: the primary commodity, rice is the most important food in China; also, it occupies the dominate position in Chinese life. Meanwhile, rice has a long history in China. Firstly, China was a major rice importer before the Second World War; most rice was coming from Thailand and French at that time. When the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, china tried to produce the rice by itself. But there was no proper agricultural research system. Then, with the development of this epoch, Chinese economy had changed from speeding phase to a more stable phase. So Chinese had enough economic strength to develop the agricultural research system. Finally, China started to produce and consume the rice by itself and this development of agriculture went very well. At the same time, the noodles also are an important staple food in China. Just as the author said, “Both rice and noodles are eaten in many parts of China, and as wheat is cheaper than rice, noodles can be substituted when rice crops fail.” (68) So, both rice and noodles are important staple food in China, and there is a special intimate relationship between two of them.

Talking about the rice noodles, it is the noodles made with rice and rice flour. Also it is the Asian characteristic food, though the shape, size and style of rice noodles are referring to western country. The shape of rice noodles is like the pasta， as well as the Asian ribbon noodles, and the way of making rice noodles is very special. A website which is called “wisegeek” analyzes, “In Asia, rice noodles are classically made by soaking and grinding rice to create a paste, and then rolling out the paste and cutting it.” Besides, I learned something after reading the introduction part of rice noodles in this website. Sometimes, the producers add the mung bean flour to make rice noodles. This explains the phenomenon that some rice noodles have a little bit green color. Also, using the mung bean flour will change the consistency, and will make the rice noodles get more tasty and nourishing. Moreover, I learned why people use Asian recipes to cook rice noodles instead of western ways of cooking pasta. Because the rice noodles is like the Asian thin noodles which is not only very thin but also flexible; to make sure the noodles will not turn mushy when it overcooked. From this situation, Asian recipes work better.

On the other hand, after I seeing another source in a different website which is called “foodsubs,” I found there are a lot of types of Asian rice noodles. Each of them has a different name. For example, rice flake noodles, rice stick noodles, rice vermicelli, thin rice sticks, wide rice noodles and river rice noodles. The one that interests me most is the rice vermicelli; which in Chinese is named “mi fen”. This article in the website also demonstrates variable ways of cooking rice vermicelli. “These [the vermicelli] are used throughout Asian in soups, spring rolls, cold salads, and stir-fries. They're similar to bean threads, only they're longer and made with rice flour instead of mung bean starch.” After reading this resource, I found there is not just one kind of dishes using the rice noodles; what I ate is called rice noodles combination, it is just one way to cook rice noodles. Maybe other countries can use the rice noodles to make other dishes as well. But the common thing is that no matter in which country, all rice noodles are using the mung bean flour to change it consistency, and to make it tastier and more nourishing. It is similar with last website article, and it reinforced that mung bean plays an important role in making rice noodles.

In conclusion, before reading these articles, I only know the rice noodles are very tasty but I did not know how to make it or the relationship between rice and noodles. Afterwards, I learned a lot about rice noodles production and history. Actually in the Song dynasty in China, the rice noodles were called “rice cables,” which could be dried to make a good gift to other people in festival. Rice noodles are popular across China and even the entire Asia. The rice noodles can be heated, cooled, stewed in soy sauce, even fried. If I can get a chance to eat other Asian countries’ food, I will try some other different dishes that are made by rice noodles.