Tasty Explorations of the Chinese Food Market

In the West, we usually go once a week to huge fluorescent-lit supermarkets with hundreds of cereals, packaged meat, kinds of milk. Here in China, the bustle, the colorful fruits, the hanging ducks and sweet, fragrant spices open a whole new experience to Beijing's tourists.

The folks down at The Hutong, a cultural center in Beijing, aim to take a bit of the suspense out of the market by educating small groups of tourists on what it's all about.

Andrea Hunt has more:

The vibrantly colored piles of vegetables are enough to awe any tourist's hungry eyes. Sure, most people are familiar with tomatoes, cucumbers or green beans. We have those too. But even something as common as eggplant can come in unrecognizable shapes, sizes or colors. An item totally foreign to the Western eye.

To the hungry eyes of a tourist, it's an exotic new culinary world that begs to be explained. The Hutong's founder Australian Mark Thirlwall says the tours originated from his own fascination.

"Culinary market tours is about allowing people to understand what people are buying in local Chinese markets. So, for example, when a lot of people go to Chinese markets, they see it's a whole array of various things and funny looking vegetables and various condiments and spices. It seems very obvious to many people, this question of what is it and what's it going to do if I eat this particular thing. It's really helping people to identify and understand these various ingredients according to traditional Chinese medicine concepts and how that affects them. This was really based primarily on the premise of something that I wanted explained to me."

Other people want it explained too, which is why the tour is so popular. Sandra Bryant from Canada is here in Beijing for the week with her daughter and was hoping to get some insight. The Hutong's Sophia Du is showing them around today.

"We came on the culinary tour to get to know a little bit more about some of the foods we've been eating."

They are led through the stalls of scales and vegetables surrounded by busy early bird shoppers. One of the concerns tourists like Bryant have with markets is hygiene. Her daughter Rachel has been traveling around various Asian countries and has been pleased with this Beijing market.

"This market is much cleaner than most of the ones I've seen in Southeast Asia, and seemingly more organized. Maybe because it's inside not outside where most of the markets are that I've been to."

The first stop is the tofu stand. Tofu is one of those especially tantalizing treats in China a lot of tourists don't know much about. Non-tofu connoisseurs may be familiar with the sticky, tasteless pasty block back home. Here, Sophia explains the unimaginable variety .

There is flat, ribbon-like rippled bean curd. And firm, cylindrical, sliceable tofu and dishes of delectably marinated forms.

It's not just diversity; it's about finding something new in a familiar food. Cucumbers are generally a standard favorite in salads or veggie platters in the West. The ones here, however, aren't plump and fat. Instead, Sophia pulls out a deep green and extremely long, thin one covered with little sharp spikes.　

"Here is a Chinese cucumber. When you see the cucumber like this, it's very fresh, with a little flower here. If it's a big cucumber like this, it will be on discount."

And then there are items most tourists can hardly recognize.

"This is a lotus root. Lotus root, you may have, have you tried it? It's very nice. You just slice it, it has little holes inside."

A popular turnip-like vegetable, the lotus shows up in many a dish, but it looks much different whole.

And then there is the meat section. The meat display is either impressive or shocking to tourists. Potentially unfit for western vegetarians, it's literally possible to buy any part of the pig, chicken, duck or cow. Next to the meat section is a large cauldron with pieces of pig. In front, Sophia explains the various parts ready to be weighed.

And eggs? They are here too, but in all sizes and colors. And not all from a chicken.

For Chinese locals, wandering around a market might not sound so intriguing. But novelty lies in the eyes of the curious. In fact, Rachel Bryant says other tourists on Tripadvisor website highly rated this culinary tour.

"We haven't done that much yet, but I think I agree, so far. It's nice, because it's someone who speaks English well and can describe things well to people who aren't Chinese, which is nice. And we're doing the cooking class now. So, we'll see if it's the number three thing to do."

After wandering around the market, the Bryant's have already found some items that they are eager to try later. In particular, there is a tasty looking hot Chinese pancake with egg and chives.

In simple culinary explorations like this, tourists can uncover some of the mysteries behind the vast, exotic world of Chinese cuisine.

For CRI, I'm Andrea Hunt.