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Tomatoes in the Chinese kitchen and even more for export

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The tomato belongs to a large group of plants of the nightshade family. Its cousins include potatoes, aubergines and bell peppers, all popular ingredients in China.

No one can pinpoint the exact dates these vegetables were introduced to China, but the general consensus is that they came through both the overland and maritime trade routes. The national output of fresh tomatoes for 2017 is estimated at more than 56 mln mt.

There is a chicken dish cooked by the Uyghurs in the north-western entry point of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region that combines almost all of them. Known as “big pan chicken” or dapanji, it is a rich, tomato-based stew with chunks of potatoes, lots of onions and plenty of bell peppers. That probably gives us a hint on the early beginnings.

Good ingredients are treasured by Chinese chefs who often go out of their comfort zones to seek them out. Foreign imports such as potatoes are now staples, and the chili pepper, too, has been naturalised.

The tomato’s brilliant colour and natural umami flavour have made it another essential ingredient. In fact, the classic sweet and sour dishes of southern China now depend mainly on the tomato, where it used to be the hawthorn fruit that coloured and flavoured in the past.

It used to be harvested only in summer, although it is now available all year round, thanks to bigger, better greenhouses and a countrywide logistics network that connects north to south and east to west. Xinjiang is currently by far the largest production region of tomatoes in China. This product has become so important, that China has started investing in tomato production in neighbouring Kazakhstan.

The northern Chinese mainly consume tomatoes raw, in thin slices liberally covered with caster sugar. More than a few Europeans have to grow accustomed to eating sweetened tomatoes. The most favoured hot dish with tomatoes is tomatoes with scrambled eggs (xihongshi chao jidan), which is everybody’s favourite. I used to travel in China with a Dutch client who was not a lover of Chinese stir fried dishes, but he did like scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

Tomatoes are now used to stuff dumplings, pairing with such stronger-tasting meats like beef and lamb, and is cooked down to a sauce for hand-cut noodles. It is not only used to accompany noodles, but is actually worked into the noodles themselves, like spinach.

The love of tomato-flavoured stews in north-eastern China can also be traced to the Russian influence of the past. For certain older generations, the only Western restaurants in the capital at that time served Russian food. For them, Russian food meant a strongly tomato-flavoured borscht, a hearty tomato and beef stew and minced-meat-stuffed cabbage rolls slowly stewed in a thick tomato sauce. That was the pinnacle of gourmet eating in restaurants with names like Old Moscow, or Kiev.

Times have changed. Modern Beijingers still love their tomatoes, but they are more likely to consume them as pizza sauce or over spaghetti. Modern chefs, many coming from overseas, have also introduced other new ways of eating tomatoes.

Tomato paste

The top industrial tomato product is tomato paste. If your mind connects tomato paste with Italy and Italian cuisine, you need to update your settings. China, in particular Xinjiang, has the world’s prime production region for tomato paste for a number of years. Several Italian companies import it in bulk an can the Chinese product in Italy, to export again as a ‘typically’ Italian product. However, the exports of tomato paste have been dropping, partly due to adverse weather conditions and partly to regional protectionism that is on the rise globally. China has exported appr. 852,000 mt of tomato paste in 2017. That is considerably lower than the top year 2011, when China exported 1,128,459 mt.

Tomato-based ingredients

Although exported could increase again, the Chinese tomato processing industry needs to look for tomato-based ingredients with a higher added value. One such product is lycopene. It is offered as a dietary supplement claiming to aid the prevention of cardiovascular diseases and prostate cancer.

A good indication of the current situation of any food ingredient in China is looking at the participants of the Food Ingredients China (FIC) 2018 trade fair (March 22 – 24, Shanghai). The following table shows exhibitors of various tomato-based products at that fair.

Product number
Sun-dried tomatoes 1
Dehydrated tomatoes 1
Tomato paste 3
Tomato powder 7
Lycopene 9

It seems that suppliers of tomato paste or dried tomatoes do not regard FIC as their typical trade fair. However, FIC is clearly the place to look for tomato powder and lycopene.

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.

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The Chinese sense of strawberries – candy among fruits

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On this Valentine Day, it is appropriate to post something about what probably is one of the most romantic fruits: the strawberry. It’s hard to imagine why the apple is the “forbidden fruit” of lore, when the voluptuous and fragile strawberry is so much more tempting. Strawberries are temptingly red and sweet. The are an all time favourite flavour for ice cream, candy, cake, pie and other sweet treats.

3,449,000 mt of strawberries in 2020; up 5.3%. Moreover, higher production of fresh strawberries will back further development of the strawberry processing sector in the country. It is estimated that China’s frozen strawberry production will increase by 15% year-on-year to 150,000 mt. Beijing’s Changping region is a major strawberry producing region in China.

The 7th International Strawberry Symposium was held in Beijing in 2012. The following video gives an impression.

Strawberries are regarded as a delicacy. Hence, each strawberry is treated with extreme care in China. The following picture shows how a grower wraps each single strawberry separately.

As regards exports, China’s fresh strawberry exports are insignificant due to high shipping costs. The following table shows the Chinese exports of frozen strawberries during the past few years

Year Exports (mt)
2020 (1-10) 5594.6
2019 3678.2
2018 2584.4
2017 2283.0
2016 1575.4

These figures show a steady growth.

For imports, only less recent figures are available.

Year imports (mt)
2014 7,131
2013 8,076
2012 7,429
2011 5,511
2010 8,276

There seems to be no clear proportion between imports and exports.

The following video is less slick than the one shown above, but gives a direct insight in a Chinese diced strawberry plant.

Strawberry as ingredient

Strawberries are rarely used by the food and beverage industry as whole fruits. They are usually processed into powder, jam, pulp, etc. While such products are mainly supplied to industrial clients, Youlian Food (Longhai, Fujian) also markets its freeze dried strawberry powder in 50 gr packages to consumers that like to bake strawberry flavoured cakes.

Youlian

The Food Ingredients China (FIC) trade fair, March 23 – 25, 2016, included 6 exhibitors with strawberry-derived ingredients.

Ingredient number
Juice 3
Powder 2
Frozen 1

I have shown an example of a strawberry flavoured milk beverage in an earlier post. In this post, I will list a few other examples of strawberry flavoured foods and drinks. Also see the vinegar strawberries in my post on vinegar-based foods and beverages.

Meijing brand Strawberry sugar free candy

CandyTuoyuan

Meijing Food Co., Ltd., Shanghai

Ingredients:

strawberry powder, additives (liquid maltitol, citric acid, food flavour, acesulfame-K, ponceau 4R colour).

Although strawberry powder is used, both colour and flavour require enhancement with additives.

Laobute Strawberry Flaky Pastry

Laobute

Quanjia Food Co., Ltd., Beijing

Ingredients:

Crust: wheat flour, butter, food additives(maltitol, xylitol(2%)), eggs, skimmed milk powder.

Filling: wax gourd, additives (maltitol), strawberry pulp, veg oil, water.

The interesting aspect of this recipe is that wax gourd (donggua) is used to create a fruity mouth feel, which is apparently not accomplished by the strawberry pulp by itself.

Mengniu Strawberry Milk

MengniuStrMilk

Mengniu Dairy, Huhhot, Inner Mongolia

Ingredients:

water, fresh milk, coconut milk, crystal sugar, HFCS, strawberry cubes, food additives (CMC, citric acid, lactic acid, sodium citrate, aspartame, sodium cyclamate), food flavour

This is a good example of a Chinese formulated dairy drink in which milk is but one of the many ingredients. The brand name Zhen Guoli translates as ‘Real Strawberry Cubes’. That may be true, but it is a far cry from real milk.

The following two pictures show a few strawberry flavoured foods on the Chinese market in 2022. The first is a mix of products and the second shows exclusively strawberry milk. Real strawberries may not be used in all these products, obviously.

 

Funny combinations

Chinese can come up with funny combinations of flavours. Baozang launched a Cheese Strawberry drinking yoghurt late 2019. An influencer praises the combination of the ‘fermenting cheese flavour and the sweetness of the strawberries’. Why not?

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.

Guoba – from nuisance to delicacy

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Many of mankind’s finest delicacies have been discovered by accident; sometimes literally. Cheese has probably been discovered when milk had been stored in a calf’s stomach sufficiently long enough for the rennet in the stomach to produce curds.

Problems cooks, professional or at home, often meet when preparing starchy foods in a frying pan is that part of it sticks at the bottom of the pan, forming a relatively hard layer that proves tough to get rid up. Scrubbing it is the only solution.

However, as long as the stuff that is stuck at the bottom is not too black and burnt, it can actually be very tasty. The physical-chemical reaction produces a whole range of aromachemicals that please the taste buds and the nose (though perhaps less so the eyes).

A waiter in a Spanish restaurant in Rotterdam once told me that the rice stuck at the bottom of the pan is the part they like best of their national food paella.

Pan is guo in Chinese and to stick ba. The phrase ba guo, getting stuck to the pan, is a negative cooking term. However, Chinese have also developed a liking for rice fried that way, and those two words turned around, guoba, have become the designation of a tasty snack.

Guoba as a dish

Guoba is a form of rice that is actually scorched or hard cooked to change its colour and texture. Guoba is popular in many forms of Chinese cuisine, particularly in Sichuan cooking. It is known by many names in different areas of China and surrounding countries, and may even be found worldwide in areas where Chinese cuisine is presented and appreciated.

GBnatural

Initially, guoba was made by burning or heavily cooking rice to the bottom of a wok or pot. When the cook took out the rice, the leftover rice was used in various dishes. Later, demand for this sort of rice dish led to the commercial preparation of blocks of this crisped rice.

Any kind of Chinese dish can be served with guoba. Some common forms of this scorched rice food include sweet and sour dishes, as well as other international Chinese favorites like lo mein, chow mein, or other dishes. The usual choices of meat, seafood, and vegetable elements like tofu and bean curd apply to many guoba dishes.

One thing that guoba offers to cooks is the chance to include a different kind of presentation based on the shape and texture of the rice. Cooks can serve the guoba, with heavy sauces or other elements, in blocks, or crumble the rice onto the plate. The scorched rice stands up to all sorts of innovative culinary uses, which makes it popular in many restaurant kitchens, especially where innovative aesthetic presentation is a part of the culinary strategy.

Another form of this food is a “sizzling rice soup” that has become common in some parts of the world. This is not the usual form of the food, so some cooks, even authentically Chinese ones, may not be aware of the use of scorched rice in this particular soup. The general use of the scorched rice in a thinner soup or broth is another way that the rice can be served for a contrasting taste experience.

Snack

Regular readers of my blog will already have noticed that Chinese are masters in re-creating modern snack food (or in their own terminology: leisure food) from traditional dishes. This is also the case with guoba.

Already in the 1980s, Chinese snack makers launched small squares of guoba with various flavours as the Chinese alternative to the Western potato crisps. When I was stationed in China for my company, we regularly served guoba with the aperitifs when entertaining Dutch or other international guests. The all loved them.

ShGuoba

The first picture shows a package of guoba produced by Xishilai Food (Shanghai) and come in: chili, beef, five spices and BBQ flavours. The ingredients listed:

Rice, maize, vegetable oil, salt, crystal sugar, MSG, spices, additives (food flavours, rising agent, antioxidant).

GBerge

The alternative is onion-flavoured guoba produced by Sha’erge (Crazy Brother) from Dongguan (Guangdong). It has black rice as one of its ingredients, which is advertised as ‘black pearls’ or ‘the king of rice’, due to its nutritional qualities. The producer claims that this product contains vitamins A and B as well as calcium, potassium and magnesium. Ingredients:

Rice, black rice, refined vegetable oil, soybeans, starch, eggs, shortening, refined pork fat, salt, MSG, onion spices.

It had been relatively quiet on the guoba scene in terms of new developments. However, Wolong Shenchu (Divine Cook) from Hunan province launched a new type of guoba in 2018: Wolong Guoba.

The crackers look more slick than the first products and they are marketed in a high-end position, as if it is a very traditiional Chinese product. The ingredients list:

Rice, vegetable oil, chili, Sichuan pepper, spics, salt

This is definitely a healthier formulation that has cut on fat and MSG.

A rising star in this market is Shuijun, established in 2014 by a very young entrepreneur Zhang Yulong (then 26 years old). He had studied at the Nanjing Auronautics University, where he was trained to be an interior decorator. However, he decided to open a restaurant and while learning about the catering business, he invented Shuijun guoba aided by a couple of friends and co-entrepreneurs. The Shuijun range of guoba includes varous meat and seafood flavours.

Guoba as market for flavour mixes

Some flavour houses have already discovered the guoba industry as a separate market segment and have develop special seasoning mixes for guoba. Beijing-based Shanwei Puda Food supplies 4 types: five spices, beef, BBQ and cumin. The ingredients list provided for the cumin mix is as follows.

salt, sugar, MSG, spices, cumin powder, food additives (not specified)

The manufacturer advises a dosage rate of 4% -6% of the weight of the end product.

Innovation: peanut guoba

Guoba has already developed as a generic type of snack in the Chinese food industry. The concept is now further stretched to guoba made from other raw materials than the traditional. Zhenyuantong (Huzhou, Zhejiang) has launched a peanut guoba. The ingredients list reads as follows:

White sesame seeds, peanuts, maltose syrup, flour, vegetable oil, coconut meat, coconut milk powder, salt.

PeanutGuoba

The company also produces: melon seed guoba:

Melon seeds, crystal sugar, flour, vegetable oil, salt.

and:

White sesame seeds, crystal sugar, flour, vegetable oil, chili oil, salt.

Haochijia has developed a type of instant noodles based on guoba packed in a cardboard cup. Add boiling water, wait a while, and you can enjoy guoba as it is served in a restaurant.

We are eagerly awaiting the following product to add to this post!

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.

Train food in China

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Trains are a vital means of transportation in China. Although domestic air travel is as common in China as in the US nowadays, the Chinese government keeps investing huge amounts of money in updating the railroad system and new trains. China already has the world’s largest high speed rail system.

Heavily packed

Chinese train travelers are usually heavily packed. However, at least half the load they carry onto the train is not their actual luggage, but food, and drinks. Entire loaves of bread and hole packs of sausages, cartons of hard boiled eggs and instant noodles, obviously, baskets with apples, and other fruits; and tea.

The tea comes in the form dried leaves. You bring your own mug as well and as soon as you have settled in, you place your mug with a handful of tea leaves on the small table in each compartment. Every Chinese train comes with a number of boilers. A train attendant will pass by about every half hour with a thermos flask with boiling water to fill your mug, again and again. If that is still not enough to satisfy your thirst, you can go to the boiler yourself to fill your mug, or perhaps your own small vacuum flask. One helping of tea leaves is usually enough to get you through the day.

After settling in on their seats or berths, and after getting their first infusion of tea, the next collective activity of Chinese train travelers is unpacking. No, not their pyjamas or playing cards, or whatever they could use for entertainment, but food. In no time, the small tables almost collapse under the heavy load of ham sausages, eggs, water melons, fried chickens, biscuits, tangerines. Every food you can name is there, as well as a few items you may not be able to name.

One of the Mongolian's cabins. Smelly mongolian food strewn about. Gross.

All that eating is bound to create waste: sausage skins, eggshells, watermelon seeds, and skins, chicken bones. A lot of that ends up on the floor. However, the train attendants will take care of that as well. After a round with the thermos flasks, they soon return with their brooms, to sweep the leftovers of their hungry guests to a waste bin at the end of each wagon. It takes getting used to for the beginning Western train traveler in China.

Train food

All this long distance train travelling has affected the Chinese food industry. I dedicated an earlier post in this blog to ‘leisure food’, a typical Chinese food category. Of course, these foods are consumed in all means of transportation, but trains certainly have the edge.

Instant noodles have risen to top position. They are cheap, convenient and tasty. As all trains in China provide hot water, instant noodles have become the most popular hot food on a train, because they can be made anytime.

While instant noodles are the typical staple foods during long haul train rides in China, snack food in small packs are the ideal dishes to add some flavour to the relatively bland noodles. Beef jerky, various parts of the duck, steamed chicken feet, dried bean curd, any nut or seed you can think of, pickled vegetables like zhacai, as long as it comes in a palm-size pack, it works for train travelers.

TrainFoodVar

If soaking noodles in hot water is too time consuming for you, you can opt for a liquid staple. Canned porridge in China usually contains nuts, dried fruits and grains, and is sweet flavoured. Young passengers will like it and adults can take it as dessert.

The second favourite activity of Chinese train travelers is sleeping. A full belly makes you sleepy. However, the refreshing activity of tea can be a spoilsport here. A good alternative for train travelers who want to kill a few hours by sleeping is beer. You will find a few cans of beer in the luggage of many Chinese train passengers. And when your last can is empty, you can usually buy more in the dining carriage.

Other moments to replenish your food and drink stock are the stops at stations. Trains will stop for a few up to ten minutes, which usually gives you just enough time to buy a few cans of beer, some freshly steamed buns (mantou), or a bag of peanuts.

Frui for sale on the platform

Dining carriage

Spending such a long time in a restricted space, is bound to become tedious sooner or later. You can chat with your travel companions, but the moment will come that you have exhausted all topics you may want to discuss. You can play cards, read, listen to music, but it all will become repetitive.

There are three peak events to look forward to on long Chinese train rides: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is not because they are such a culinary tour de force. Neither is it because you are hungry. You have spent most of the time that you are awake eating, and there are few opportunities to burn calories. Still, few people skip a meal, simply because meals are served in the diner, so you finally have an occasion to walk and get some exercise. And you can sit on a chair, instead of a berth, or one of the small fold out chairs in the corridors.

TrainDiner

A typical train meal consists of a bowl of lukewarm rice and a couple of greasy dishes. You usually get more flavour from the foods that you brought yourself than from what you get served in the diner. However, with the modernisation of the Chinese railway system towards the world’s largest high speed train network, the production of train food is also updated. The following picture shows a cold-chain packed meal produced by the Beijing Railway Service Company, with an expiry time of 72 hours.

RailFoodBox

The following video gives an impression about how train meals are served in China.

To summarise: eating and drinking on Chinese trains is not a haut cuisine experience, but it is one of the best occasions to experience a symphony of all aspects of Chinese food and culture.

High speed trains driving change

As of late july 2018, 27 high-speed train stations are providing a pilot food-on-demand service to passengers, who can pre-order food from a selection of the outlets at the stations. The service serves as an apt response to the meal box monopoly. Complaints about the expensive, tasteless meal boxes offered on high-speed trains are not rare, and many passengers prefer to take instant noodles with them or else not eat at all while traveling by train. So the takeouts-on-demand that can be ordered via China Railway Corp’s website or its app two hours before the train is scheduled to arrive at a selected station could be a savior to those hungry travelers who have no interest in the meal boxes. The pre-order service costs as much as that offered by popular food delivery apps like Eleme, except the delivery fee is around RMB 8, which is slightly higher than in cities.

High speed trains continue to change the relationship between trains and food in China. The top season is undoubtedly the period before and after Chinese New Year, when migrant workers in big cities are returning home to celebrate China’s main festival with their close relatives. A dining carriage director with the China Railway Nanchang Group recalls the changes during the past few decades. In the early 1980s, flavoured peanuts and lard cakes were among the very few snacks sold on trains, and they were highly sought-after. Trolleys were introduced in the 1990s and it became a booming business thanks to the large volumes of passengers. One trolley could sell RMB 10,000 worth of goods during one train trip, though most passengers still favoured cheap snacks. Now Starbucks coffee and Haagen-Dazs ice cream sold on high-speed trains are also welcomed by passengers, though their prices are much higher than traditional snacks like melon seeds. Bottled mineral water is also best-seller, at least on slower trains, and passengers are willing to dig deeper into their wallets for better brands. Water priced at  RMB 5 sells better than the RMB 2 ones.

Special train meals

Some Chinese railway authorities have started looking at Japanese companies specialising in train food. These are packed easy to heat meals that can be offered to train travellers, much like airplane food, but slightly simpler in terms of logistics. The following photo shows how a railway-related company in Qingdao (Shandong) is preparing train dishes.

Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation.