Wondering Wednesday: What's the food like?

We get asked so many questions about what daily life is like in China! Its hard to know where to even begin. So, I thought I'd take one day each week to answer a question about our life or shine some light on a cultural difference here. What are you wondering about this Wednesday? Leave a comment or send me a message or email and I will try to answer your questions.

This weeks Wondering Wednesday thought: Food.

There are so many questions about food! Lets try to knock out a couple. First, lets play myth busters. There are actually no fortune cookies in China. That idea was actually created in California and most Chinese people have never heard of such a thing. Second, the chinese food that you would typically find in America is much different than what you would find in China. There are no egg rolls, sugar-coated peanuts, or General Tso's Chicken.

My family loves chinese food. We eat local food about 95% of the time. We live in the Sichuan province where we are all about keeping it spicy! We love that the dishes all have so much flavor. I love vegetables. I have found that Chinese cuisine offers so many more types of veggies (green pumpkin, garlic stalks, and so much more) and ways to prepare them. While I'm not much of a meat eater, Philip and Bella certainly are. Most dishes in China are made with pork. Occasionally dishes are prepared with chicken, but even some dishes with chicken in the title are actually pork lol. Beef is really quite rare. Rice, of course, or noodles are served along with almost every meal - even breakfast. Fruit is usually eaten as a dessert or sweet treat, NOT a healthy side option haha.

Does Bella like the food? Oh my... yes! As some of you know, Bella's weight as always been somewhat of a concern for us. In the states, we were sent to specialists and hospitals for testing because of her low weight. Little did we know the answer was for us to move to China. She has always been a great eater, but she has gained over 5 lbs in the 4 months we have been here! She is now our 20lb turkey. She actually prefers Chinese food to American food. When we do cook western food, we usually have to cook Chinese food especially for her. She even likes the really spicy stuff. Recently we were eating dinner with a big group of friends. A joke got started that the test of who was the real man at the table would be who could handling eating this pepper. Then I realized that I had mistaken the pepper everyone was talking about for a green bean! I had given a spoonful to Bella and she had been snacking on them with no problems! hah! She even loves all the crazy flavored Chinese snacks. From hot and sour fish soup flavored cheetos to cucumber lays, she likes it all.

What foods do we miss the most? Bad question to ask a pregnant woman. :) There are two things that do not, or rarely, exist in Chinese cooking: dairy and sweets. Dairy is probably the hardest for me. I love all the southern comfort foods. But many chinese people have trouble digesting lactose. So milk, cheese and butter are not used to cook with very often, if at all. These ingredients can also be hard to find or expensive. And sweets. Oh how we miss our sweets! Chinese dessert tends to be either very bland or fruit. In fact, when we asked a Chinese friend how to best prepare desert for Chinese guests they said to take whatever our recipe said was the right amount of sugar and at least half it. We can find oreos, M&Ms, and chocolate bars. But other than that we don't have much of a selection for candy and desserts.