What’s in a Lotus: The Lotus Festival in Beijing’s Purple Bamboo Park

In Tibetan Buddhism, lotuses feature prominently. For example, one of the oldest and most important early masters (8th c.) is Padmasambhava/Pema Jungnye, which means “Born from a Lotus,” as he is said to have been reborn in the heart of a lotus after having been burned to death on a funeral pyre. Buddhas, Bodhisattavas, and great masters are often depicted sitting on lotus seats and young consorts are described as being like a perfect, eight-petaled lotus. Lotuses regularly appear in Tibetan paintings (thangka) and sculpture and decoratively on furniture. You can even buy plug-in lotus lights for your home shrine. Because lotuses grown from the mud in water into beautiful flowers, lotuses also represent the mind of enlightenment coming forth from the confusion of ignorance.

Padmasambhava (photo from bhutanjournals.com)

Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, sitting on a lotus seat (photo from heidicries.com)

A thangka depicting Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion (photo from ebay.com)

Despite feeling pretty familiar with lotuses in this context, until this last month, I had never really fully appreciated them. Thankfully, our neighborhood park, Purple Bamboo Park, is currently holding a lotus festival. I can’t seem to stay away and have already taken four boat rides through a large section of the lake that is almost completely filled with blooming lotuses (a water field!). The slow moving boats hold around 15 passengers and a single rower navigates through the narrow passage of water left open. The boat meanders past blooming pink and white blooms pushing up from large green leaves. Sometimes you can even see a family of ducks or coupling dragonflies in the cavernous area shaded by leaves and blossoms.

Rowing through the lotus passage

One of several boats offering rides through the lotuses

Heading under a pretty bridge

Lotuses abound

a water field of lotuses

lotus boats waiting for passengers

a slow boat ride

One day as I was entering the park, I noticed a man selling what looked like a type of green fruit (I thought it might be similar to a sweetsop). The next day I decided to buy one, but found that they were being sold in tied-together bundles of three. Still having no clue what they were, I asked Sophia’s Chinese teacher, Qing Qing, and found out that they were lotus stalks with fresh lotus seeds. The seeds require effort to eat, as she showed me how first you have to remove each seed from the pod, peel off two different layers, and remove the bitter green interior before you eat it. While the texture reminds me of a nut, similar to a raw almond, it actually doesn’t have a lot of flavor.

Lotus pods for sale!

Lotus seeds: whole, cut open, peeled, green interior stem, dried

Like many foods in China, the lotus seed has warming or cooling properties, but it depends on which part of the seed you eat.  Qing Qing told me that the bitter green stem inside the seed is the only cooling component of the lotus and it can be dried and made into a tea. When the raw lotus seed is eaten alone, it has warming properties that can help with nervousness and sleep problems. The dried seed (the green interior is removed from the top before it’s dried) can be made into a sweet drink by combining the seeds, crushed dried white wood ear mushrooms, and rock sugar with hot water and leaving overnight. Drinking it helps nourish yin and reinforces body fluid.

After I learned where the seeds came from, I went back to the park and suddenly became aware of the seed pod and began noticing that as the petals of the flower opened more broadly, it became visible in the center. As the leaves fall off, the seed pod is left standing amidst the other blooms.

a lotus flower next to pods

a pod in the center of a lotus

Now I seem to be seeing the seed pods everywhere. For example, last Friday I took Sophia and Isabel to Beijing’s 798 Art District, a former electronics factory complex built by the East Germans that has been re-purposed into a large area filled with galleries and cafes, and we went to a couple of galleries. The first one we stumbled upon featured copper work. If I hadn’t recently encountered the lotus seed pods, I probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to a whole room of copper lotus stalks and seed pods in various states of growth and decay.

Copper lotus pods at a 798 gallery

and more copper lotus pods

The one part of the lotus I’ve been familiar with for awhile, but have never cooked with yet myself, is the root. To me, crunchy, sliced lotus root with its white meat and beautiful pattern of holes, is the best food to cook in a hotpot. I love how it soaks up the flavor of the broth and tastes better and stays crunchier than a potato.  I’ve also had it in stir fries and in a soup with pork ribs, where it’s a great addition.

Lotus Root photo borrowed from: http://www.joyharari.com/tag/lotus-root-remedy/

Thanks to our proximity to Purple Bamboo Park, I’ve come to appreciate the depth of the China’s relationship with the plant.  Not only is there a great appreciation of the beauty of the flowers (as there is for Tibetans), but little of the plant is actually “wasted,” as medicinal (and food) uses have been found for the lotus’s roots and seeds in both fresh and dried forms (the petals, leaves, and stems are also used in other Asian contexts).  To me this epitomizes the rich depth of Chinese cuisine and medicine and its millennia-old relationship with plants (and animals) to uncover a myriad of uses and tastes.

-Pam

My Adventures in Extreme Eating, Beijing Style

Deep-fried scorpion

So far so good

As is apparent from my two other posts on food in China (Food in China and the Challenges of Limited Palates and How the Sichuan Peppercorn Led Me to Learn to Cook Chinese Regional Cuisines), I love trying and learning to cook new food (I’ve been able to take five cooking classes, including, most recently, Hunan and Yunnan Vegetarian) and have loved that aspect of my life in Beijing. I’m happy to report that my family (at least the kids!) have become slightly more adventurous eaters over the last six months. While Manu still has no desire to travel around the city with me seeking out unusual ingredients and tastes (three of our four dinners out sans kids over the past six months have been at restaurants featuring contemporary, creative European cuisine), I’ve been fortunate to have made a wonderful friend, Xu Er, who has been happy to accompany me to explore some of Beijing’s stranger offerings.

Our first night out was inspired by my friend, Lindsay, who sent me an article about eating rabbit heads in China that appeared in the NY Times in April, asking me if I’d tried them yet. I have to admit that at first the idea didn’t actually appeal to me, but after I read about how tasty they were and that the rabbits are part of spicy Sichuan cuisine, one of my favorite regional styles, I asked Xu Er if she’d like to come with me and, having never tried them herself, she agreed. The heads are not very large and you have to break them apart, sucking and using your chopsticks to get all of the meat out (eyes and brain included!), but the flavor is quite rich and spectacular. Although we tried both the five spice (a blend of cinnamon, star anise, cloves, fennel seeds, and Sichuan peppercorns) and the spicy, both of us thought the spicy route was the way to go.

Popping in an eyeball

Xu Er enjoying a head

5 Spice & Hot rabbit heads

Success!

We also ate this spicy Sichuan tofu and organ soup – gotta love the chilies!

Checking out the teeth

Our next foray into the unusual was to try “stinky tofu” (臭豆腐 Chou Dou Fu). I’d occasionally smelled it on the street when the scent something like a very moldy, drippy, smelly (delicious!) cheese wafted my way (I chose to dwell on the former image rather than on other possible associations, such as old shoes), but hadn’t had a chance to actually try it. We went to a renowned stand in the Houhai (lake) area, which, fortunately, was right across from a place that boasted serving traditional Beijing snacks. After we picked up our tofu, Xu Er chose a number of other dishes and snacks she thought we should try, including fried durian (炸 榴莲 Zha Liulian), a yogurt-like cheese with red bean (奶酪 魏 Nanlai Wei), and filled sausage (炸 灌肠 Zha Guan Chang). The stinky tofu was tasty, but the smell is more potent than the taste, I thought (after having eaten some serious cheese, I found stinky tofu to be less intense).  One dish that Xu Er loved (she insisted that we each get our own bowl, as she knew she’d want to eat a whole bowl herself), featured intestine, kidney, and stomach in a soup with a wheat cake (卤煮火烧 Lu zhu huo shao). While I’m not usually a huge fan of most organs (liver aside), I’d recently read a book, The Last Chinese Chef, by Nicole Mones, that elucidates the profound thought and intentions behind Chinese cooking (against the backdrop of an engaging, fictional story). I remembered that one of the important principles is texture. When I ate the soup and its organs with that idea in mind, as none of them were particularly flavorful, the experience was better than I’d have thought and for the most part I appreciated the organs as a conduit for bringing out the flavor of the rich, dark, meaty broth.

An array of food for us to try!

The stinky tofu master

Intestine ready to add to the soup!

Fried Durian (left) & Hot&Sour Rice Noodles being served up

The soup with the organs is dark with cilantro on top

Although Xu Er and I went out for a couple of other Chinese meals with more conventional ingredients, our last adventure in the unusual was the most dramatic, as we went to the touristy Donghuamen Night Market, where many non-Beijing foods and snacks are available, which is especially appealing to tourists looking to challenge themselves (many of the specialty items are traditionally eaten in the south, but they’re always available at this market). We had a great time walking past the entire line of lantern-lit stalls before making our purchases. Two of the most unusual things we tried were pigeon on a stick (tasty, but a little dry, not like the velvety pigeon Manu and I ate at Temple Restaurant, Beijing) and deep fried scorpion, which was more crunchy than anything else. A few of the things we saw, but didn’t try, were: large black spiders; large black scorpions; starfish on a stick; snake on a stick; large centipedes; and sheep testicles, also available on a stick (maybe next time…).

Xu Er contemplating the pigion

A pigeon in Wangfujing lights

I skipped the spiders

Deep-fried scorpion

So far so good

Crab-filled dim sum

snakes, cocoons, and spiders in back, centipedes in front

starfish anyone?

check out those big, black scorpions!

Lamb testicles on a stick just didn’t make the cut that night

cute, dessert dim sum

Rows of lanterns light the night market’s stands

Thinking back over the past months, two other foods that I tried for the first time stand out as being particularly good: horse meat and bullfrog. We had horse, which was cured and served in thin slices, at a Xinjiang (the far, northwest autonomous region) restaurant with our friend, Iliyar (and family), who’s from the region. I found that the meat reminded me a little bit of Spanish lomo, but dry, rather than oily-moist. Bullfrog surprised me. I’d read that Chairman Mao loved to eat bullfrog with hot chili peppers, a dish popular in his native Hunan province, known for food even spicier than Sichuan’s, but was not drawn to try it. Then I was at an Imperial style (known especially in the last dynasty, the Qing, for gathering and perfecting the best dishes from all over China) restaurant with my friend, Betty, who remembers eating frog as a child when her family visited Hong Kong, and told me that it’s often served to children because it’s an easy meat to eat.  She was happy to order it, so we ate the tender chunks of white bullfrog meat with hot red and green chilies (what a pretty combination!). It’s true that the flavor of frog is a bit reminiscent of chicken, but the texture is more like seafood, reminding me of squid.

Bullfrog with chilies

Pretty, tasty snails at “My Soup”

During these last six months, my appreciation for Chinese cuisine has deepened a lot, and I know that I’ve only scratched the surface. Understanding some of the philosophy behind Chinese cooking, I’m eager to continue to try more foods that I’d not have thought would appeal to me and I’m hoping to have more opportunities in the future (maybe we’d even live in China again for awhile). And maybe one of these days I’ll even get up the nerve to eat one of those chicken feet I always see people munching on in the street.

P.S. You may be interested in checking out this article (http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/articles/blogs-beijing/the-dish-bj/beijings-weirdest-and-wackiest-food/) about Beijing’s strangest food offerings, including penis hotpot (of various animals), which is supposed to enhance virility!

-Pam

Food in China and the Challenges of Limited Palates

I love food. I love to try all different types of food. If I’m on the street in Thailand, I can’t wait to try all the spicy, interesting looking dishes and the fresh juices and exotic looking fruits. In India I want to taste all the chaat and samosas in the street and each dish served with roti in the local dhaba.  In Bhutan I’ve tried to taste every version of ema datse (chilles and cheese) to discover the subtle differences of flavor. In Spain I want to taste every tapa and each type of fish and seafood. In China, I am delighted to have available a huge array of foods to taste and regional cuisine to experience. If I see something new to taste in the street, I can’t bear to walk by without purchasing even a very small portion to try.

Chesnut Cake sold on the street

Eating soft-shelled crab on a stick at the Changdian Temple Fair

Street Food in our Neighborhood

As we have moved into a neighborhood surrounded by restaurants of various Chinese regional cuisines and food of minority groups, I am elated. I can’t wait to try it all (I’ve just got to wait for this Spring Festival to pass so that all the restaurants will re-open!). The problem, however, is my family. Manu and I are on opposite ends of the food spectrum in terms of valuing trying new things. He knows what he likes and sees little reason to expand his palate. His simple Mediterranean taste has served him well for almost forty years and he believes that trying new things is overrated.

Then there are the kids. Isabel seems the most open to trying new things, probably mainly because she hasn’t developed the toddler pickiness yet that she’ll inevitably exhibit. Although both Sophia and Dylan are into separate, plain food (meat, vegetables, and starches should all be with limited spices and without sauces), Dylan’s a little more open to trying things in sauces (which could get him far in China). Sophia, on the other hand, is very good at making faces that say, “you think I’m going to try that?” when a new food item is put in front of her (as the older sister, she has a powerful impact on Dylan’s opinions, so I have to remind her over and over again to limit her vocalizing).

We’ve been cooking either lunch or dinner at home each day to make sure that the kids eat at least one balanced meal that we know they’ll eat. The other we’ve usually eaten out. Sometimes the kids have only eaten rice (but they’ve gotten more practice eating it with chopsticks!). My concern, though, is that they start figuring out how to try things, as they’ll soon be in school for up to 9 hours a day (we may take them out some days early to do other activities) and will be eating lunch there (we don’t have the choice to not pay $60/month for each kid to eat the “balanced and nutritious” meals they told me would be served). I keep reminding Sophia and Dylan that they will soon be eating at school and will have to be willing to try more things, or it is very likely they’ll be famished by the end of the day (and probably beside themselves with hunger on the walk home).

Today we were out for a walk around lunch time and Manu asked where I wanted to eat. He was eyeing the Pizza Hut and the KFC (both of which are appealing middle-class establishments in China) on the main drag in front of Minzu, but he responsibly kept his ideas to himself. On the other hand, I thought it’d be good for the kids to get another experience trying new foods, so I suggested a local fast-food noodle chain called “Xiaodou Noodles” (the kids love pasta and I thought it probably wouldn’t be too hard to find something they would eat). As soon as we looked at all of the pictures of the food, most of which appealed to me, I had my doubts. Still, we ordered two bowls of noodles with veggies that looked relatively plain. When it arrived, Sophia made the usual face and it seemed she may eat nothing at all.

I reminded the kids again that they were going to be at school eating Chinese food in two weeks and that they really better learn to at least try what was offered. Dylan tasted the lightly sauced noodles first and had a positive reaction, and my little speech must have touched Sophia a bit, because she took the tiniest bite, with trepidation. Surprisingly, she found it acceptable and they both ate enough to feel satisfied. They were so occupied with their own meal that I don’t think they observed how few bites Manu was taking or that when we got home he warmed himself up a slice of pizza.

I’m determined to pass on to our kids my sense of the value of trying foods across cultures, as I think it’s one of the important ways we can understand another society through what foods, flavors, and methods of preparation are considered important and why. I’m aware that my efforts might gain little traction, but I’m hoping that at least one of our three children will come to appreciate food as I do.

Pam