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Editor's note: Harold McGee, the pioneering explorer of the science of food, whose seminal On Food and Cooking back in 1984 changed the way chefs and restaurants approach cooking, had a breakneck tour of restaurants in Beijing earlier this month. The New York Times writer, whose column The Curious Cook examines and debunks myths of the kitchen, took some time after his lecture at the Capital M Literary Festival to talk to China Daily reporter B.W. Liou about his experiences in China's capital.
What impressed you most about your visit to Beijing?
The immensity of the public spaces and the density of life on the side streets.
On your tour of restaurants around Beijing, how many places did you eat at in one day, and what made a lasting impression?
I didn't note down all the street stalls that we stopped at for chestnuts, skewers, bing, egg tarts (KFC!), milk custards. About a dozen. I loved it - it was fantastic to be taken from place to place, neighborhood to neighborhood, and get so many tastes in the course of a few hours. I especially liked the first restaurant, a Shanxi place specializing in all kinds of noodles. The oat noodles were a first for me.
What was the tastiest dish you had in your tour? The strangest?
I would say the tastiest local food I had was luzhu. (Luzhu huoshao is a traditional street dish in Beijing that combines pork offal, sometimes fried tofu and tough pieces of bing in a hearty, dark stew). Really savory and straight-up meaty rather than funky despite all the innards. The strangest was probably douzhi (a breakfast milk made of beans), both the main ingredient and the flavor (a cross between sauerkraut and tripe). I liked it though, and never really had anything I considered foul.
Have you read about the recent re-surfacing of gutter oil in some Chinese restaurants? Why is reprocessing cooking oil bad for your health?
Oil molecules break down in cooking due to the high heat and the food's moisture, and the breakdown products take a toll on the body - they may not make you sick right away, but they do long-term damage and can cause chronic health problems.
In San Francisco where you live, most restaurants are southern Chinese. Should people compare the Chinese food there to the Chinese food in Beijing?
I now understand why it's not fair to compare them - we don't have the same ingredients, the same eating public with really broad tastes, nor the same intense competition among thousands of restaurants. Of course, the same is true of Mexican or Japanese restaurants.
Did you go shopping here for anything for your kitchen?
No - all the eating lefts no time for shopping!
How was the literary festival?
I enjoyed the festival very much, particularly meeting people from all over the world. I spoke about the historical connections between science and cooking in the West, and the current "modernist" movement in restaurants that makes use of science and technology for its program of constant innovation.
How do you explain the "bloody" egg purchased by a Qingdao woman recently in which the egg manufacturer claimed it was due to a mother hen menstruating?
Hard to say for sure, but the white is laid onto the yolk as it travels down the oviduct, and then the shell is deposited on top in the uterus, so one of those tubes was probably inflamed or injured and leaked blood into the egg as it formed.
Many who are not aware of the use of science and technology in disciplines such as molecular gastronomy have called it elitist. Do you think the practice will be accepted in China?
China is a big country, so I'm sure there will be chefs who will try out various aspects of experimental or modernist cooking. Several people told me of someone in Hong Kong doing just that.
Contact the writer at brianliou@chinadaily.com.cn.
(China Daily 03/25/2012 page4)
