Make a trip to China without the benefit of the cuisine is equivalent to going to the Maldives without practicing scuba diving: it's a waste! Here is a very personal opinion, though ... many gourmands, gourmets, and divers will probably agree with me.

Who likes to eat the entire Asian region is a crucible, a melting pot of flavors in which to dip your finger to explore other dishes and other fragrances.

I stayed in Yunnan Province last October after a unique experience in a traditional restaurant - and not popular with Chinese tourists - in Beijing, I was eager to compare the cuisine of a province with that of another. In Lijiang, a city declared World Heritage by UNESCO, I approached the kitchen of a sudden the northern Yunnan, mixed fragrances Tibetan.

A specialty attracts visitors in many restaurants in Lijiang: soup rice noodles. The legend tells of a young bride was delivering a meal every night to her husband preparing for an examination imperial destiny to better focus the student was isolated on an island in the middle of a lake. Every night, she tried to make the soup did not have time to cool before reaching the lips of the man to feed. One day she had the idea to cover his steaming soup with a thin stream of oil and heat preservation of the broth. The soup of rice noodles Guoqiao was born!

In Yunnnan I spent several culinary experiences, but my first surprise was to find a large number of restaurants offering dial soup with various ingredients exposed to the eyes of the customer for the sidewalk if you're a vegetarian (do) you do miss anything. And for a little fun of their stomachs after a few spicy feasts, it is particularly valuable to be able to handle chosen by the greens (leaves of all kinds), various noodles, slices of meat cut, especially in October and the avalanche of fungi Indians who make up your drink. Once you are seated at a table, a big pot on the burner will be filed at the same table and the ingredients put into the clear broth. Simmer one minute, the time to drink your green tea, and enjoy.

In the streets of Lijiang are stalls and shops selling dried yak meat that will surprise you. As the biltong in Southern Africa (dried and spiced beef, kudu or meat) or Australia (Beef or kangaroo or ostrich, ...), dried yak meat is sold by weight or vacuum bag to take home. Sweets do not get bored with the Chinese tourists who throw themselves on it!

The dried yak meat, is Tibetan, is accommodated with different flavors: spicy or not (or should I say inedible or not), its brown color may turn bright red as chorizo of Andalusia.

But it is leaving to go to Yunnan province in Tibet that I had a unique experience while I was chatting with the guide who accompanied me for the day, I told him my various attempts in restaurants in the city, and I lamented not being able to taste a kitchen that seemed formatted for tourists arriving in hordes in the streets of this historic city commercially overfished. I noticed that I enjoyed sharing a meal at a real Chinese Yunnan.

No sooner said than done, exchanged a few words in Chinese with the driver, and here I am suddenly in the middle of a village of tobacco farmers on the banks of the Yangtze!

Happy as a kid, I received from the parents of our driver very happy to welcome a French woman who wants to taste, who wants to see who wants to learn.

In less than ten minutes, the time to do the rounds of rice stores and tobacco barn, and I joined my hostess, who had begun the work. In a room darkened by twenty-five years of fire and smells different, I look around and ask questions, I laugh with my facial expressions as I try to communicate without an interpreter with the woman. It must be fifty years, no longer all his teeth, but for me the most beautiful smile ... (see his picture on my gallery here ).

Then she peels, cuts, chops with a dexterity that leaves me envious. When it puts the fire under a wok I started filming and she immediately takes it more seriously: she cooks ...

On his left a huge cauldron of water quivers gently in a fire that I feel more than I see. She consistently throws peelings and vegetable waste in the water for the broth ... the pigs (I would learn later). At right, the two gas rings allow it to fry by controlling the flame while her husband warmed rice behind us, in another large wok over a wood fire on a concrete slab.

Very glad I thought of filming while I was not accustomed to this way of shooting with my new Canon 500D camera, I do not regret it today, even if the images are not a absolute clarity (although I have not yet assimilated the zoom system, it will explain!). But at least you can admire the woman's natural dexterity with chopsticks to beat an omelet and turn it into an omelette blown eyes once thrown into the wok! Look swell the eggs, it is impressive ...

Within twenty minutes we were seated in the courtyard of the farm, and with a speed accentuated by the son said our driver, who had three hours of road ahead (and he was to repeat in reverse to get home, so home them). The knees flush with the table, I like them dug into bowls placed in front of us and I enjoyed every bite.

Hmmm ... maybe not.

In reality, there is a dish that I had a hard time appreciating: cuts of meat more gray than pink bathing in a broth with a claret aroma that reminded me of boiled tripe. When I asked what it was, even though it was obvious that the meat was pork, my guide had an amused smile, "You're not obliged to eat you you do Europeans not that. "

It does not take more to tickle my pride traveler who already tasted a lot of oddities in the world. And then I wanted to show that we Europeans are not all equally suspicious of the stranger in our plate.

- "I can taste it anyway?"

It is for my guests, they laugh together, but my landlady stands up to hand me the bowl with both hands, according to the customs in China that makes you give and receive with both hands. When asked to dip into the bowl of meat, I'm a little embarrassed by the handling of very thin rods tipped and I take only a sliver of what looks to finally boiled tripe. But with a texture of pig ears. Or that of a ham tan? ...

I taste, I mentally illico class in the "I tried it, I will not take no more" and I thank nod supported a "very good!" To enjoy this good woman. She has a nice smile, scolds her son seemed to say "you see, she likes it!" And then slides my guide: "Europeans usually do not eat: this is the boiled pork stomach.

GLURP. I could have gone the exact word!

I smiled bravely raised eyebrows with look very concerned, and I immediately dug a portion of fried rice with vegetables to get the taste of meat persistent gray.

But now, even if I did not like this feature, I will keep this shared lunch in a Chinese firm unforgettable. When I left an hour later my backpack was stuffed with green apples just picked from the tree towering in the backyard. I almost win any beauty peppers and a handful of chestnuts filled my pockets, "for the road".

And then I brought a small video that makes me smile every time I look. And pictures that keep me warm inside when I found their faces and their eyes.

I admit I'm not fallen under the charm of Lijiang, probably because I was disappointed by the excessive exploitation by the government of a historic yet classified by UNESCO. But we must go to if you go to Lijiang in Yunnan: be brave, get up at dawn and go into the streets paved before 07:00 in the morning, before employees begin to open stores of all kinds. On small stone bridges spanning the river and to the facades of carved wood, you'll no doubt feel catapulted China into the twelfth century.

PS: learn my article on the hotel Banyan Tree in Lijiang, a truly magical place to discover urgently on my other blog . And if you can sleep a few nights in this haven of peace that is the Banyan Tree Lijiang, you'll be the happiest of travelers ...

This article contains the keywords: Chinese food , video , travel China , Yunnan

This article was published March 14, 2010 at 11 am under 06 min in Asia . Follow the RSS comments.