Sweet Dishes in Oriental Cuisine
Oriental cuisine is very popular and appreciated because of its succulent aromatic dishes, stir fried meats and vegetables and delicious shrimp recipes amongst others. But there are other precious little treats that not that many people in the west know about: the wonderful sweet dishes.
In Chinese cuisine in particular, the sweet dish does not conclude a meal but indicates the end of one series of dishes and the beginning of another. They provide a welcome pause and refresher in the long march of a banquet. Some of the sweet soup will be nothing more than warmed or chilled orange juice or cherry colored sweetened water, with a few small, sweet filled dumplings floating in them.
After the main meal come four rice accompanying dishes called Fan Ts’ai with a very plain soup. These dishes are meant to settle the stomach after the rich and savory dishes which have gone before. With the arrival of the Fan Ts’ai, drinking, which is carried on between and during all the previous courses, ceases.
In order to provide a contrast with the preceding quick fried and heavy dishes, the rice accompanying dishes aim at extreme simplicity. If congee (porridgy rice) is served, there should be at least two side dishes of salted or pickled foods to accompany it.
Among these plain rice dishes, there would be a soup, vegetable dishes and some plain meat dishes, or an assembled dish. Marrow soup, cabbage soup flavored with dried shrimps, plain fried spinach, bamboo shoots with Szechuan picked cabbage, mixed vegetables with fried bean curd, shredded pork scrambled with egg and tree fungi, plain fried tile piece fish, or tip out pickled pork. If Peking duck was served earlier, the carcase of the duck will have been simmered with plenty of cabbage to make a duck soup. Indeed, the duck soup is one of the classics of a banquet.
All the dishes in this final series are calculated to be in direct contrast to the elaborate dishes that would have gone before, though sometimes one feels rusticity and plainness are carried to unnecessary extremes. Nevertheless, gourmets and people who seem to make a profession of eating will still make considerable inroads into the bowls of rice and vegetables even so late in the meal.
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