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By Root 744 0

Sunday is a way of life for many families, and the thickness of the dumpling skin and the colour of the green vegetable are all part of the discussion. Office workers debate the choices of the Michelin Hong Kong and Macau guide, while armchair gourmands post hundreds, even thousands, of restaurant reviews on www.openrice.com,a foodies’ website. Food is so much more than a necessity in Hong Kong. It’s a tangible and tantalising piece of its culture, a means through which a people who have had little say in the larger matters of their home and future explore the world and express themselves.

HISTORY & CULTURE

The modern history of Hong Kong begins with the First Opium War Click here, but the roots of its cuisine go much further back. The local inhabitants who dwelled here ate what they could herd and grow or catch from the sea. Certain ancient food traditions from these peoples remain, most notably walled village cuisine (see the ‘Dah Wing Wah’ boxed text on Click here), including the ‘basin feast’ (poon choy). The story has it that the last emperor of the southern Song dynasty (AD 1127–1279), fleeing from the Mongols, retreated to a walled village in Hong Kong with his entourage. The villagers, lacking decent crockery, piled all kinds of food into a large basin to serve the royal guests (see Basin Feast, opposite). Poon choy has become a dish for festive occasions in the New Territories ever since.

The British Crown Colony maintained its stability and prosperity for most of its 150 years. Many of the best mainland cooks, especially those from Guangzhou, eventually found refuge in Hong Kong. Given the colony’s resources to play around with, they strived for the best and the most exotic, making Hong Kong the ‘real’ Guangzhou.

With the declaration of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, floods of immigrants from Shanghai, Peking (Beijing) and Sichuan came looking for safety, jobs and a new life. Shanghainese cuisine with its preference for sweetness and wine became an instant favourite. The arrival of these immigrants turned Hong Kong into a melting pot of Chinese regional cuisines, and the rest, literally, is history.

DINING LOCAL

Dim Sum

Dim sum (dím sàm) are Cantonese tidbits consumed with tea for breakfast or lunch. The term literally means ‘to touch the heart’ and the act of eating dim sum is referred to as yum cha (yám chàa), meaning ‘to drink tea’.

In the postwar period, yum cha was largely an activity of single males, who met over their breakfast tea to socialise or exchange tips about job-seeking. As these first-generation migrants settled down, yum cha became a family activity.

Each dish, often containing two to four morsels steamed in a bamboo basket, is meant to be shared. In old-style dim sum places, just stop the waiter and choose something from the cart. Modern venues give you an order slip, but it’s almost always in Chinese only. However, as dim sum dishes are often readymade, the waiters should be able to show you samplings to choose from.

Soy Sauce Western

‘Soy sauce Western’ (si-yàu sai-chaan) is a cuisine that emerged in the 1950s featuring Western dishes of eclectic origins prepared with a large dollop of wisdom from the Chinese kitchen. It’s believed to have been popularised by Tai Ping Koon, a restaurant founded in Guangzhou in the Qing dynasty by the sous-chef of a foreign trading company. The first Hong Kong branch of the restaurant was opened in 1935.

Tai Ping Koon created a new cuisine by tweaking Western recipes, such as replacing dairy products with local seasoning to appease lacto-intolerant Chinese stomachs and putting rice on the menu. But the new invention soon met its nemesis. After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, tens of thousands of White Russians sought refuge in Shanghai, where they opened cafes specialising in what came to be known as Shanghainese–Russian food. And in 1949, it filtered into Hong Kong.

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BASIN FEAST

There should be roast rice-duck and pan-fried prawns on top

Order of the classes are clearly laid out in layers

But the poking chopsticks gradually