Food Culture of Hong Kong - Essay Example

Food Culture of Hong Kong Hong Kong is a coastal island, located on the Southern side of China, which evolved from a fishing village, salt mining area and trading center to become a strategic military port and a financial center, acquiring a per capital income, which is the sixth largest in the world. During the opium war, which resulted from the imbalance of trade between Britain and China in 1842, the Island became a British colony since it was Britain that won the war. The Island remained in the hands of Britain until 1997 when it returned into the possession of the Chinese empire (Mathews, Lü & Ma, 2008). Other than a short period when the island was under the hands of the Japanese, it has been under the British rule and has grown from its first state to become a great industrial and manufacturing center with many foreign firms relocating to the island. The people of Hong Kong attach great importance to food and express these in many places, including websites and even on Facebook and Twitter. The city has been aptly referred to as the culinary capital of Asia due to the diversities of foods and dishes that are found on restaurant and family tables of Hong Kong. The food culture is one that they attach great importance to what they eat, and take great care in picking it (Anderson, 2005). For example, iced lemon tea is a very common drink in restaurants and it comes in different prices pertaining to the amount of ice or sugar the customer would like, many taking into consideration that a great amount of sugar will make one fat or that more ice will have the customer drinking more water than the lemon tea. The people of Hong Kong are very meticulous in their food display and arrangement, attaching great detail to each food category. A certain type of food arrangement can even be some smaller divisions derived from the main division but have some changes in the ingredients. A type of dish called the ‘Shao Mai’, for example, is made of pork and shrimp wrapped in a thin white layer of flour and displayed in a steamer basket, but however, there are smaller dishes of the same made of purple rice or a very traditional dish of ‘Shao Mai’ made of quail’s eggs as the wrappings (DeWolf et al, 2010). This latter dish has existed through the ages but is becoming outdated, becoming replaced by the other two. The people of Hong Kong generally have no fixed time for eating and, thus, will be found eating very early or very late. The working culture due to industrialization and manufacturing makes them very hard working people who put in a lot of overtime. For example, they leave work late at 10 p.m (Cwiertka & Walraven, 2000) and have dinner at that time and a late dinner at 1.00a.m. Some restaurants in Hong Kong operate during the night so as to cater for these late dinners which has been created by this day and night working culture. People will be in restaurants taking what is referred to as early breakfast at 2.a.m. There is the habit of eating many meals above the normal 3 meals per day, with many having late breakfast at 10 to 11a.m and afternoon tea between 3 to 4 p.m. This afternoon tea is very common, thought to have been influenced by the colonial period by Britain where afternoon tea is very common, with a saying common by the people of Hong Kong used to talk about ‘3.15 afternoon tea time’ (Cwiertka & Walraven, 2000). There are many types of dishes that are unique and will be found in restaurants and hotels of Hong Kong. The ‘stinky tofu’ is one of such dishes with a strong stench that emanates from the process of fermentation that it undergoes during preparation, making the stench linger in the mouth for a long time after it is eaten but many of the people of Hong Kong love the strange dish (DeWolf et al, 2010). Chicken feet are also another dish of the people of Hong Kong, and though they would sound weird in other parts of the world, the art of cooking of the chefs of Hong Kong make them melt in the mouth as they are eaten, with only the art of spitting the bones out the mouth needed. The beef brisket is a part of beef that is not very common in many parts of the world but which is very common in Hong Kong where one will find many joints stewing it in large pots and serving it with noodles. Roast pigeon is another Hong Kong delicacy, prepared by braising in soy sauce, rise wine and star anise before roasting them to a crispy state (Albala, 2011). The people of Hong Kong are also known to consume large amounts of fish balls, with a simple Goggle maps search revealing many joints that serve this snack in the streets of Hong Kong, with the ‘apple daily’ estimating that the people of Hong Kong consume 37.5 million fish balls per day, with many people having a favorite place where they eat their snacks, putting into consideration how they are prepared from place to place. Another dish is the Swiss chicken wings with the story about its name saying that a foreigner who appreciated the dish and asked what it was called, but the waiter mistook ‘sweet ‘for’ Swiss’ and because the wings were from Switzerland, the name Swiss wings stuck (Cwiertka & Walraven, 2000). Another dish that is loved by the people of Hong Kong is the sweet and sour pork, known as ‘gu lo yuk’. The traditional original is made with vinegar, plums and hawthorn candy making it acquire a scarlet color and the sweet, sour taste from which it derives its name. This has changed though with current trends with many people preparing it using ketchup and coloring. Cow offal and innards are also as famous and mostly in the street food culture that is common in Hong Kong, just like fish balls (DeWolf et al, 2010). The sale of dishes in the streets like tripe, lungs and cow intestines with mustard and sweet sauce to accompany the dishes also are a common feature. The food culture of Hong Kong has been influenced by other countries, due to its being an international industrial and manufacturing center to where many cultures from all over the world have relocated and invested. Because of being a British colony since the 1800s, the food culture, just like other cultures, has been greatly westernized. Culturally, the people of Hong Kong have used chop sticks while dining, but due to the western influence, the use of western utensils like forks, knives and spoons is very rampart, even though they are used alongside chopsticks and other Chinese methods of eating. Because of the requirement of different utensils for different dishes, it is common to find a drawer under the tables in restaurants so that customers may freely use the most appropriate utensil, showing the influence of different cultures (Albala, 2011). One will find the people of Hong Kong having congee which is rice porridge, streamed bun or dim sum at breakfast which are Chinese style foods and it’s common also to see others having western dishes for the same breakfast like sausage, fried eggs and even sausage which are alien to Chinese culture. The Chinese are very economical when it comes to food matters and so they can be found eating meat parts that are commonly considered as waste in other cultures in the world, and these dishes will be found in posh restaurants. Offal or tripe from cows, pork and goose intestines are all common dishes or are incorporated in other dishes on a very large scale. The people of Hong Kong like a large display of the food they order in line with the price you pay. The pricing of food in many restaurants is set to incorporate all a person can eat since the customers enjoy a lot of food on the table and also to share it with friends, and so it is common to see tables with a lot of food on them (Cwiertka & Walraven, 2000). The high cost of food and food products and the rising cost of rent have made the restaurant and hotel business very competitive, coupled also with the different and peculiar tastes of this culture. The hoteliers and restaurateurs have, thus, to be creative in their menus and have to decorate their premises in order not to lose customers in this competitive culture. Queuing outside restaurants is very important fro restaurant and hotel owners because they denote the popularity of their premises, with the possibility that a restaurant can be tagged in the press as ‘Recommended restaurant’ in food magazines, thus, including business scope. The People of Hong Kong attach very great importance on the cleanliness of food and utensils, thus, one will find many customers in restaurants who will do a little more washing of their utensils even though the same are clean, just as a habit (Civitello, 2011). When many are given a cup of tea freely in small restaurants, which is a common practice before their meals, they do not drink it but put their chop stick, forks and knives in it to clean them, showing how cleanliness has pervaded the food culture of the people of Hong Kong. Many types of the foods eaten today in Hong Kong were also eaten in the past, though as has been noted earlier, there has been the introduction of foods from other cultures due to interaction with them as Hong Kong grew from a fishing village to the great city it is today. Rice and rice related dishes and corn have existed and are common in Chinese and, thus, Hong Kong dishes from the earliest of times. Meat products like pork, beef, poultry and other birds were available but had a prohibitive cost that made the average family unable to afford them. Vegetables like ‘yau choy’ and ‘bok choy’ were also available in the past as are also commonly eaten today and so was dim sum, which is one of the commonest dishes today (DeWolf et al, 2010). The introduction of western cuisine into the culture, for instance, sausages, eggs and eating methods, has only occurred due to the introduction of other cultural practices due to the changing trends of the city. Western style food been found to be popular with the younger generation of the people of Hong Kong and restaurants and food joints that prepare delicious western cuisine will be found all over Hong Kong.  Branches of McDonald’s and Burger King are found in many corners of Hong Kong, and they are just as competitive as those that serve Chinese cuisine (Tourism in Asia, 2012). Office workers are the most common customers of these latter restaurants and food joints, whose limited time for eating is conveniently served by eating the snacks available in them. Hawkers are a common feature in many large and even small cities, and Hong Kong is no exception, with food hawking a common feature along the streets and in designated food markets. The most popular dishes peddled by hawkers are beef noodles, wantan noddles and fish balls and soy bean curd (DeWolf et al, 2010). Hawking is done both by licensed and unlicensed hawkers in Hong Kong and has been a cause of friction by the government and the hawkers. This is because if unchecked, food could turn into a serious health hazard, since many hawkers are the poor and unemployed who cannot ably meet the stringent hygienic needs required by health authorities. They also cause a lot of congestion on the streets because of the lack of proper arrangements since some are not licensed and they compete for the most vantage areas to peddle their wares. Though they are a blessing to the financially handicapped, the disadvantages ought to be addressed owing to the importance of maintaining proper health standards due to the risks like food poisoning involved. The people of Hong Kong, all the same, have a great demand for hawkers due to the affordable prices of their food and the fact that they can cheaply price them since they do not have many problems, like rent, to consider in arriving at the price. Street food is very popular in Hong Kong, and many people take all their meals from the streets (Albala, 2011). This is also demonstrated by the fact that they are to be found in many places all over the city of Hong Kong. References Albala, K. (2011). Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia. California: ABC-CLIO. Anderson, E. N. (2005). Everyone Eats. New York: NYU Press. Civitello, L. (2011). Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Cwiertka, K. & Walraven, B. (2000). Eating Hong Kongs Way Out. In Asian Food: The Global and the Local. Surrey: Curzon Press. DeWolf, C., Ozawa, I., Lam, T., Lau, V. & Li, Z. (2010). 40 Hong Kong Foods We Cant Live Without. Cable News Network. Retrieved on May 21, 2012 from: http://www.cnngo.com/hong-kong/none/40-things-eat-hong-kong-coronary-arrest-820489 Kagda,F. & Koh, M. (2008). Hong Kong Volume 15 of Cultures of the World Cultures of the World. Hong Kong : Marshall Cavendish. Kittler,P. G., Sucher, K. 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