Wine is in the middle

I had been thinking that an interesting business to get into in China could be wine importing
(maybe interesting for me to think about and for someone else to do…). Wine is becoming increasingly popular in China. However, I have had a few glasses of wine from some high-end people, and I couldn’t tell if it just wasn’t that great, or if it just really did not pair with the food it was being served with.

Since China seems especially open to European styles, I thought maybe this would lead to the eventual acceptance of cheeses and normal bread (not cake-bread…) as being important to pair with the wines.

Then I found out that food pairing isn’t really a concern for Chinese wine-drinkers.

At the Women’s Day dinner, we had gotten on the topic of raisins -> California -> wine, so I asked Wang老师 about wine in China, and how people paired food with wine (the Asian flavor palette strikes me as a little difficult to mix wines with).

“Wine is in the middle,” Wang老师 said, “Beer is too weak, and the 白酒 is too strong.” (白酒, bai2jiu3, white rice wine, famous for noxious potency – a good explanation: Baijiu, on Shards of China)

“Does anyone try to pair wine with food?” I asked.
“Oh no!” she replied in good humor, “It doesn’t matter!” (没关系！ -mei2guan1xi)

Two-buck Chuck could make a fortune here.

International Noodles

Gu老师 came back from the fancy hotel buffet to the table with a small plate of noodles. “Oh look,” Wang老师 pointed them out. I had been asking earlier how to say “popular” (I have forgotten again) so that I could say These noodles aren’t very popular. At the buffet, I had found a seemingly-untouched dish of 中式炒面 zhong1shi4 chao3mian4 – Chinese-style fried noodles (chow mein) in the midst of all the fancy foreign food – fruit, soups, sushi, etc. She’d laughed and told me the Chinese-style noodles were too normal, too common. Everyone wanted to come here to eat the fancy, exciting food!

Someone asked Kraytul once, “What do people eat for supper in the United States?” After thinking for a moment, he replied, “Foreign food!”
It seems the same is true in China!

Gu老师’s noodle plate actually contained some of the Chinese-style noodles as well as strands of spaghetti mixed in. “Ha!” she joked, “国际炒面！” International Noodles!