CHAPTER XXVIII
CHINESE COOKING
So many dreadful things have been said about Chinese cooking, that I think it indispensable to devote a chapter to the rehabilitation of our culinary art. I do not pretend to make your mouths water, but I should like at least to be able to show you that my countrymen do not eat the extraordinary things attributed to them by certain prejudiced travellers. Our ordinary meal consists of eight dishes—two vegetables, eggs, a fish, some shell-fish, a bird, two dishes of meat, pork and goat in the south, and mutton and beef in the north. Besides this, a large tureen of soup is served with the rice, which takes the place of bread at our tables, and is our substitute for wine and tea, which are only served on very great occasions at meal times. Food being extremely cheap, the cost of three daily meals, similar to the one described, never exceeds fivepence per person. A pound of meat costs only twopence halfpenny, or threepence, whilst the price of a good fowl is sixpence, or, at the most, sevenpence.
In 1882, I embarked on board a Chinese ship at Hong-Kong, on my way home. Not being able to accommodate myself with the fare on board, I told a servant that I should like a chicken for lunch, and gave him a dollar to buy it with, this sum representing the usual cost of a chicken in France. A minute or two later he came to ask me how he was to prepare it. “Cut it up and stew it in its juice,” I said, “and season well.” Shortly afterwards he brought me a huge trencher, resembling a tub, filled with a fricassee of little pieces of smoking chicken.
“What! All that?” I cried.
“Yes, sir. With your dollar I got twelve chickens, and have cooked them as you told me to do.”
At the sight of this quantity of meat, and of the pantagruelic dish in which they were served, my appetite disappeared, and I made him carry the dish away, and distribute it among the servants in the kitchen. I mention this to show how little provisions cost at home. A workman earning one franc, or tenpence a day can keep a wife and two children in comfort, and still put by half his earnings.
When I was at the military school, where the cadets mess like officers, all I had to pay for my food was fourpence a day, and was so well fed for this money that I never had any cause for complaint. It is easy to understand the reason why things are so cheap in China. There are no taxes at home on articles of food. According to statistics, each inhabitant of the Empire pays two francs, or eighteenpence, in taxes per annum, but no part of this sum represents any tax on food. Europeans who complain that they spend far too much money in China have only themselves to blame. I have never heard of any European who cared to live as we live. Parisian dishes, already very expensive in this country, are naturally trebly so in China, in spite of the fact that raw materials cost so little. Besides, the cuisine of each country depends on its climate. Since I have been in France I have accustomed myself to French cookery, reputed the best of all. Whenever I return to China, and am invited to dinner by French people, I get quite upset, and often feel quite ill after dinner. Coffee irritates my stomach, and cigars make my nose bleed. Now, when I am in Europe I cannot do without my coffee and my cigar after dinner. It is not surprising, then, that Europeans cannot enjoy life in China, persisting as they do in eating only what suited them at home. When a friend calls on you in China to take pot-luck with you, you usually ask him to a restaurant, and order a dinner in his honour. These dinners usually cost six dollars, that is to say, twenty-four shillings for eight persons. The dinner is a very complete meal, as may be judged by the following bill of fare:—