Food so fresh, it's alive and kicking

Two little, beady eyes stared at me from under a drooping coxcomb.

No, I wasn't in the farmyard, facing down the local rooster, but at a rather upmarket restaurant where my chicken still had its head on.

For many foreigners, the sight of a meal coming to the table with a face still on it can be rather daunting. I have to say, even after all this time in China, I'm still not that keen on the idea.

So when I asked why this was the case, I was told it was so that I knew it was fresh!

There have been other times when the freshness of food has been a disturbing to me, such as the time we went out to dinner at a restaurant on the outskirts of Tianjin. It specialized in beef, and a new shipment arrived just as we did.

I don't mean that cryovac bags of beef were being unloaded from a truck. Instead, a herd of cattle were being unloaded.

That night I ordered the chicken.

For a few months I was addicted to a baked fish dish - served smothered in onions, capsicum, and mushrooms, studded with cloves of garlic and whole chillies - slowly roasted on the table over a charcoal burner, the ingredients suffusing together to form a heavenly tasting combination.

And it was always the freshest fish I'd ever had - but for a long time, I couldn't work out why.

Unbeknownst to me, my companions would go off, pick out a likely looking piscine from a tank where upon it was weighed, whacked over the head with a stick and sent off to the kitchen.

It doesn't get fresher than that!

In these days of pre-packaged, pre-portioned meals being available in supermarkets, it's nice to know that you can still get food that's incredibly fresh.

Ellen and I are fiends for a good Chinese hotpot. There's something about the smell of ginger and other spices bubbling away in the simmering stock to really make you sit up and think about the importance of eating fresh.

For my birthday, we went to our favorite hotpot restaurant, and ate ourselves silly. As the various dishes were all almost finished, Ellen told me I had to eat noodles - it's traditional, a symbol of long life ahead.

By then, I was as full as an egg. I didn't think I could eat another thing.

Until that is, a young man appeared to make the noodles.

He took up a piece of dough and began to stretch it, working it into a wide ribbon. Then he began to quickly work the dough in an almost rhythmic dance, drawing the dough into longer and longer arcs, until the fine strands of noodles were formed.

Even though I wasn't hungry, after such a spectacular display of fresh food preparation, I wolfed down the results of his work and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Fresh food abounds in China. It's in the little stalls along the roadsides, where the farmers sell their harvests with the soil still clinging to it - or the eggs are still warm from the chickens.

As someone who loves to cook, it's just paradise. Trying to make dishes with sad, tired ingredients is just soul destroying - not to mention that your food just won't taste as good when served.

So, in a way, it's reassuring that your Beijing Duck arrives with the head and beak intact, or the chicken dishes stare back at you. They're showing you that your meal is wonderfully fresh!