One aspect of the influence of the nationalist trend (guochao) on the Chinese food and beverage industry is the innovative use of traditional ingredients. I believe this trend will continue to be a major factor for several years to come. I have posted on individual ingredients before. This post bundles the essentials of the earlier ones and adds a few ingredients that I have not yet reported on in an integrating post. You can use this information to help you localise your product.
Ingredients
A number of ingredients can be regarded as representative of Chinese food, giving it a particular flavour, colour or texture. No report could be long enough to discuss all ingredients, but I will introduce what I regard as the most influential, or phrased differently: traditional ingredients that most frequently occur in novel foods.
Products
A nation as huge as China and with a history as long as that of China is bound to have a broad range of traditional manufactured foods. They have been produced as handicraft products for ages. Some people specialized in making clothes, others in pastries. The introduction of industrial production and economies of scale affected the food industry probably even more than other industries. Industrial production lengthened the time between production and consumption, which could affect the organoleptic aspects of the food.
A related influential factor was that in certain periods in modern Chinese history, the Chinese tradition was regarded as an impediment for modernization. Some groups of people started regarding a Western lifestyle as a condition for modernization. The latest of such a period was the last decade of the 20th and the first of the 21st, when ‘mcdonaldization’ seemed to become a real challenge for the Chinese tradition. The turnaround came in the second decade of the present century.
Brands
On the marketing side, the Chinese food industry had started developing its own national brands in the course of the 20th century. This continued after the foundation of the PRC. Most of these brands found it hard to compete with foreign competitors after the latter entered China from the early 1980s. Some perished, while others were acquired by foreign investors who (sometimes deliberately) let them die a quiet death, in favour of the own international foreign brand. One spin-off of the nationalist trend was the renewed interest in these old national brands. Some Chinese investors bought up the rights to the brand to put them on the market again. The challenge for them was to redesign the product in a way that it was still acceptable to older consumers and equally so to the younger generations.
Symbols
The renewed interest in the own national tradition includes symbols used in various ages. Symbols are mainly used in the design of the packaging, but can also influence the shaping of certain products.
AOC
A large number of the products referred to above are linked to a certain region. Chinese local governments are finding out the benefits from registering an AOC status for their local products. The national government has created a such a possibility already a number of years ago, but is now taken seriously by more and more local governments. China and the EU have even signed an agreement for the mutual recognition of such designations of origin.
Syncretism
Although Western ingredients and foods are obviously not part of the Chinese tradition, Chinese food scientists regularly use them to renew traditional Chinese concepts to create syncretic novel foods. A good example can be found in my blog on ‘Chinese tiramisu’, a combination of Chinese ingredients that resembles tiramisu.
Bamboo is known worldwide as a raw material for furniture and other household items. More recently, bamboo fibre has appeared as a material for clothes. However, the relatively soft bamboo shoots are an ingredient in Chinese cuisine. Dried bamboo shoots have a bright yellow colour and tender meat. They are rich in nutrients like protein, cellulose, and amino acids. They fit the requirements of the modern consumers: low fat, low sugar and high in dietary fiber. Bamboo shoots are also rich in trace elements like calcium, phosphorus, iron, carotene, vitamins B1, B2, and C. According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), bamboo can increase appetite, prevent constipation, cool and detoxify. It is a pure natural health food that is popular among consumers. China is one of the largest producers of bamboo in the world.
Industrial processing of bamboo started in the 20th century in the form of canned bamboo shoots or packed shredded bamboo shoots.
Some regions in China are well known for high quality edible bamboo. Local governments have discovered that it is a potential money maker and started supporting the planting and processing of bamboo in their region and more recently applying for AOC status. The Tianmu Mountain region in Lin’an, Zhejiang, province is such region. Its fame dates as early as 400 years ago.
Novel foods, lyophilized bamboo juice powder and bamboo dietary fibre.
Water chestnuts are named for its chestnut-like shape. However, not only the shape, but also the taste and functions are similar to real chestnuts. The water chestnut’s skin is purple to black, the flesh is white, crisp, sweet and juicy. Even eaten raw, it makes a delicious treat. People in China’s North sometimes refer to it as ‘southern ginseng’. Water chestnut can be regarded as both fruit and vegetable. It is a popular seasonal product. The following pictures show them as you buy them and peeled.
The water chestnut is attributed medicinal qualities in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). It is rich in protein, dietary fibre, carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E and trace elements such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium, which can prevent infectious diseases and improve the quality of the body. Water chestnuts contain puchiin, which is an antimicrobial substance. It can effectively inhibit the growth of bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus and escherichia coli, and can also play a role in lowering blood pressure. Water chestnuts are used in Chinese cooking. You typically buy them raw and peel and slice them.
Like the bamboo shoots in the previous section, the processing of water chestnuts as canned food started in the 20th century.
Novel products: water chestnut drinks, water chestnut + yumberry flavoured Greek style yoghurt.
The sweet potato is a staple food. It is mostly white to yellow/orange, but there is also a purple variety. Baked sweet potatoes were sold in the streets of northern cities as a warming snack. Dried sweet potato slices are also sold as snack food.
Still, someone has found the sweet potato worth the effort of making it a branded product (AOC status). A notable company is Tianyu Tuber in Zhengzhou, Henan province. Tianyu was founded in 1993 and has grown into a company with 760 employees and four subsidiaries. The company also operates the Tianyu Sweet Potato Research Institute and the Henan Sweet Potato Starch Research Institute and helps cultivate a sweet potato test field for the China Agricultural University.
Novel products: sweet potato crisps, sweet potato flavoured snicker bars.
The lotus is a known as a beautiful, sometimes mystic, flower. However, several parts of the lotus plant are eaten in China. The bright green shoots hidden inside the lotus seeds are intensely bitter. They are collected, dried and used in infusions meant to clear the heat from tired bodies. They are a traditional cure for pimples and acne as well, and young girls wanting a clear complexion willingly drink the bitter brew. The seeds, however, are sweet and nutty and are eaten fresh, straight from the pod, or dried and preserved. They are rehydrated and cooked in stir-fries and in soups both sweet and savoury. The nuts are also ground into a sweet paste that is used in Chinese cakes and pastries. The most important edible parts of the lotus are the pods, eaten sliced, and roots. Traditional processed products from lotus are lotus powder and glass noodles.
One way of giving these traditional products a new image is making them into snack food by adding flavour. An example of an innovative product is Liangpin Puzi (Bestore)’s ‘spiced lotus pods’. The ingredients are: lotus pods, sugar, chili pepper, salt, chicken powder, MSG and spices.
A Chinese food ingredient less known in the Western world is the yam (Dioscorea polystachya) literally called ‘mountain medicine’ (shanyao) in Chinese. It is sometimes called Chinese potato or by its Japanese name nagaimo. Eating Chinese yam (first scrape off the hairy peel) by itself is an acquired taste. They have a slightly hot flavour, different from the heat of chili peppers. China has produced 48,189,000 mt of yams in 2019; good for 65.37% of the total global production.
Unlike most other yams, the Chinese yam can be eaten raw (grated or sliced). However, Chinese still usually cook yams, as they are much less interested in eating raw food than their eastern neighbours in Korea and Japan. The most common way to consume Chinese yams is cooking chunks of yam in rice congee. The yam adds texture to the congee, while the congee helps neutralising the sharpness of the yam. Dates are often added for their fruity sweet flavour.
Novel foods: yam is used as an ingredient in several products on the Trends page of this blog: Black sesame walnut mulberry powder, Oat meal crisps, vegetable explosion (vegetable crisps), etc.
Goji berries belong to the nightshade family, which means that they are related to potatoes, tomatoes and eggplant. China is one of the largest producer of goji and within China, the Northwestern provinces of Ningxia and Gansu are combined good for about 2/3 of the national output. The berries have been used in TCM for centuries, but interestingly. They have become popular among Chinese only recently as a result of the growing interest in goji among Western health conscious consumers.
Novel products: goji + longan tea, snack goji.
haji (sea buckthorn; Hippophae rhamnoides) is an indigenous fruit of North China. China is good for 90% of the world output of this fruit. It has been used as an ingredient of various foods and beverages in China for some time but is still not very well known abroad.
Shaji have a high content of vitamin C, about 15 times greater than oranges. The fruit also contains high contents of carotenoids, vitamin E, amino acids, dietary minerals, β-sitosterol and polyphenols. Seabuckthorn oil is a good source for omega-7 fatty acid.
Shaji fruit can be used to make pies, jams, wines, etc. Novel products: superfine seabuckthorn powder, seabuckthorn tea, dried seabuckthorn fruits to be added to a cup of tea or glass of spirits (baijiu).
In fact, the date should be the first ingredient in this report, as it is the TCM fruit used most widely in the Chinese food and beverage industries. China is the absolute leader in the production, processing and consumption of dates. Most dates are traded and eaten in dried form, which keeps well. There are several varieties of dates, but this section mainly deals with red dates.
A number of processed foods made from dates also exist for centuries. An example is the date cake (zaogao). They are produced as regular cakes, but due to the use of fresh dates, they are not only sweet but also moist. They are a great alternative for someone in the mood for a snack between meals.
As dates are a recognized TCM ingredient, one way of designing innovative products is combining dates with other such products, e.g. ejiao, a kind of gelatine derived from donkey skin.
Other novel products from dates: Jujube Coffee, date flavoured oat meal.
Until recently, millet was known as a an old type of coarse grain, something that poor people eat. Then modern health-conscious consumers, perhaps stimulated by the interest in coarse grains in the West, started eating all kinds of ‘forgotten’ vegetables and staples again. Millet was one of those revived cereals.
It was deemed lucrative enough for a company to developed a branded millet. On February 27, 2019, nine companies were selected as members of the Shanxi Province Millet Industrial Alliance which is a 28-member organization. Several regional millet brands (AOC status) such as Changzhi millet, Yangquan millet, and Wangxiang millet, have been established in recent years, bringing greater economic benefits to local farmers. Members of Shanxi Millet Industrial Alliance are encouraged to carry out marketing campaigns like developing supermarket displays and outlets selling millet. The ingredients listed on the package are: millet, palm oil, rice, corn starch, salt, spices, MSG.
Some companies started research to investigate if millet could be used as a new ingredient for existing products. Guoba is a traditional product made from boiled rice roasted to a crisp. Sun (Shanxi province) had already developed this product as a ready-to-eat snack in the 1980s. The company has recently launched a version made from millet.
Goji is not the only Chinese superfruit in this report. The yangmei or yumberry may be less well known outside China, but is at least as important commercially. Yumberry is the commercial name for the yangmei berry, a fruit of the wax myrtle. The fruit has a high antioxidant activity and high vitamin and mineral content. Yumberries look a little bit like raspberries with a sweet-sour flavour similar to cranberry and pomegranate. because the trees have a high tolerance to pests and diseases, they are often grown organically or with few pesticides applied to them.
Juice is the obvious traditional commercial product made from yumberries, but it is also used as an ingredient. Earlier in this report, I introduced yumberry flavoured yoghurt with water chestnut pieces to add a crunch. Other novel products include: yumberry flavoured ice cream
Swiftlets, or sea swallows, build their nests from saliva, stuck to steep rocks on the seaside. They have been used in TCM for centuries. They are harvested in China, but the best quality comes from Thailand. Chinese commonly use them to aid recuperation from debilitating illnesses because of their easily digestible glycoprotein and other nutrients. Bird’s nests are usually prepared as a soup, often sweetened with rock sugar. Bird’s nests used to be only available for the affluent, but with the increase of the average income of Chinese consumers,
A few companies have tried to cash in on the high-end image of bird’s nests by developing health beverage with nests as the active ingredient.
Yanzhiwo is leading in this field. The name of the brand literally means ‘nests of swallows’, although the company has opted for Yan Palace as the English brand name. It is marketing its drinkable bird’s nests cosmetic food.
Novel products: bird’s nest beverage.
It may a surprise to find such a common product as tea in this section. However, it is a very Chinese plant, consumed as an infusion since the beginning of history and it is also used as an ingredients in various foods in recent years.
The top non-beverage version of tea is matcha powder. It is an old Chinese product that became popular in the West through Japanese matcha flavoured products. The popularity in Western pastries inspired Chinese food scientists to follow suit and of course, tea flavoured biscuits and cake appeal to Chinese who are used to drinking lots of tea.
Tianfu is a tea processor that became famous by adding various tea-flavoured foods to its product range, which it is marketing nationwide one of China’s through its own chain of stores.
Sesame is an annual herb found mainly in tropical and some temperate regions of the world. Sesame seeds are an ancient species that has been cultivated for more than 5000 years. According to legend, it was introduced to China from the Western Regions during the Western Han Dynasty. Sesame seeds are one of the main sources of edible oils in China, with an oil content of up to 45% – 63%. Sesame seeds are rich in protein and unsaturated fatty acids, which have a high nutritional value. At present, domestic sesame is mainly used for the production of sesame oil, and its processing technology mainly includes water substitution, pressing and the enzymatic process, of which water substitution method is China’s traditional sesame processing sesame oil method. The water enzymatic method is a new extraction process with good prospects.
Novel products: sesame coffee.
Again: this is only a selection of ingredients and their use in novel products. Contact Eurasia Consult for detailed information and tailor made advice.
Peter Peverelli is active in and with China since 1975 and regularly travels to the remotest corners of that vast nation. He is a co-author of a major book introducing the cultural drivers behind China’s economic success. Peter has been involved with the Chinese food and beverage industries since 1985.
Peverelli on Chinese food and culture 