Introduction To Woks

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

The "cooking craze" for gourmet meals and exotic cooking at home has
finally arrived, states a feature article of TIME magazine of
december 19, 1977. The "cooking craze" rampage has caused homemakers
to purchase thousands of Chinese woks across the country. From the
sensuous pleasures that these people have derived from dining at top
quality Chinese restaurants across the nation, the zeal for Chinese
food has reached a popularity that surprises even the most seasoned
Chinese restauranteur. Few of these wok purchasers know much about
wook cookery, but most express a desire to learn how to cook well in
one. Hence, the reason for writing this booklet.
The author has spent some ten years teaching Chinese cooking both
formally in a university classroom and informally to various consumer
groups. This booklet was written in response to the numerous
questions that she has been asked within the last two years. The
basic instructions and recipes have all been used by her many
students.
One should have a desire to know something about China and its foods
before seriously embarking upon cooking stylistic dishes of its
cuisine. It lends greater fascination to know how some of these
dishes were developed and gives one a slight insight into Chinese
customs and culture.
The country of China, now known as The People's Republic of China, is
the largest country in the world by population, with 800,000,000
people. It is the third largest country in the world by geographical
area. Probably the best known feature of Chinese culture and
civilization is its cuisine. Chinese restaurants are found in almost
all large cities of the world.
Chinese cuisine has been at a high stage of sophistication for
countless centuries. This is evidenced by Confucius when he wrote in
his "Analects" during the sixth centure, B.C., that he liked his meat
minced fine and his rice polished white. Regional cooking styles have
existed in China for at least a thousand years. Even foods described
in poetry by the Sung Dynasty poet, Su Tung Po (1037 to 1101 A.D.)
are not much different from the ones consumed today. There are extant
descriptions of court banquets at Hangchow of the Sung Period (907 to
1279 A.D.) that consisted of 40 to 200 courses and were served over a
period of one to three days. To serve all this food, the "elite" of
this period used gold, silver, jade and all types of porcelain
dishes. Some of these wares are presently on display at the Peking
Museum.
Since it is impractical in our society to strive toward ancient
Chinese court life, we can nevertheless strive to become sopisticated
gourmets. Some students are quite content to learn some Chinese
dishes and add variety to their diets. To become an accomplished wok
cook, it is not essential to use truly Chinese ingredients. Some
students do prefer Chinese ingredients, but the author has found that
most beginning wok cooks could not readily find the time to go to a
Chinese grocery store. Because of this inconvenience, this initial
booklet is designed to utilize ingredients that are readily available
in a large supermarket. Recipes utilizing true Chinese ingredients
can be found in another booklet, "Advanced Wok Cookery", by the same
author.
China has had a long legacy of high civilization, and it has long been
recognized that man must exist harmoniously with society and nature.
Even today, despite increased technology in agriculture and animal
husbandry, nature still creates its catastrophes; hence, the Chinese
reverence for good food, well prepared. If one has only one life to
live, then at least let it be pleasant as possible for one's duration
on the Earth.
File ftp://ftp.idiscover.co.uk/pub/food/mealmaster/recipes/cc-wok.zip

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