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Food
Feeding the hungry giant (Part 2 of 2)
How will China, a nation with 22% of the world’s population but with only 9% of the world’s arable land, continue to feed her people?
< BACK to Feeding the hungry giant (Part 1 of 2)
A wet and salty treat
"Daddy, what are we having for dinner?" we asked. My mother was in the hospital and my eight-year-old brother, my father, and I were on our own for food. What could three people who did not know how to cook, cook? We’d never made anything more than simple sandwiches.
The answer came in a box from the Korean grocery store.
How Wen Jiabao likes his noodles
Fearing political unrest due to runaway inflation, China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has made scapegoats out of noodle makers.
"China has 1.3 billion people. When you multiply a small problem 1.3 billion times, it becomes a huge problem." Wen Jiabao, China's Prime Minister, made that statement two years ago. Today he has his hands full dealing with exactly such a problem.
If you knew ramen like I know ramen
Around 300 AD the Chinese made wheat flour noodles. They never patented the idea and the humble noodle travelled east to Korea and Japan with the spread of trade and Buddhism.
Vegan? Here, have some leaves
Does eating a special diet mean that you have to take your kitchen with you in a cabin bag? It is time for people with specific food requirements to stand up and be counted.
Recently, I took a luxury cruise where I spent almost every day going hungry, and later, a cooking class where I ate like a prince and learnt something about being on a special diet while travelling.
Lemons
Lemon works wonders, let me count the ways.
Question: What do you give an ill lemon?
Answer: Lemonade.
Jokes aside, lemon juice has for centuries aided the home doctor in curing ills like indigestion, bad breath and sore throats.
Yam I am
Not just a flavourful addition to the cooking pot, Chinese yam can cure both men's and women's ills.
10 things you don't need to know about wasabi
1. Most sushi bars, even those in Japan, serve imitation wasabi – powdered horseradish, mustard seed and green food colouring, mixed with water – because authentic wasabi is expensive.
2. Real wasabi is grated from the root of the wasabi plant, which grows naturally in the mountains of Japan.
Waiter, there is a pullet in my soup!
One of the oldest and richest cuisines in the world has now become blah, thanks to the lingo police.
All right, hands up, those of you who know what a pullet is. Good if you do. Otherwise China’s new state-mandated menu, meant to make your life easier, will have you scratching your heads in utter confusion.
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Another Point
An imaginary factual blog of General David Petraeus, Commander, United States Central Command