A city with a 3,000 year history, and the country¡¯s capital for over 800 years, Beijing holds the promise of plenty of cultural amazements. As the blessed inheritors of this strikingly splendid city, we come to show other people its treasures: architectural wonders, the beautiful Peking opera, refined handicrafts, cultural relics¡
And that is the position in which I find myself this mid-spring day, as I take Cathryn, a Qingdaonese, to a leisure stroll to try the traditional Beijing Xiao chi, a rarer and rarer treat for visitors of the ¡®New, Great¡¯ Beijing.
People in the city always say that Beijing Xiao chi is a bit like a touchstone, an easy way to test whether one is a real Beijinger. It is kind like goose liver to French, or spaghetti to Italian. It is a food made with unique local flavors, part of the old Beijing culture. Neither of us being native Beijingers, we eagerly wished to be ¡®tested¡¯.
Among a handful of Beijing Xiao chi restaurants in the city, Longfusi Street in Dongsi area counts itself one of the oldest and most recognized paradises of Beijing Xiao chi. Backtracking 500 years, the site where Longfusi Xiao chi now stands was a Buddhist temple. A regular temple fair later emerged just outside the temple, with peasants, vendors, craftsmen, nobles, ambassadresses all coming, weaving through the crowds, for shopping, dining, attending a vaudeville performance, or simply for fun. A large, deep Chinese-style gate standing in front of the place today is a reminiscence of its past glory.
This temple fair is gone about 3 decades ago, but along came the Longfusi Xiao chi which shelters the food stalls from the ancient fair. People sometimes come all over the town for a Xiao chi treat. And the word is still carrying weight.
The restaurant is not yet engulfed in the rush hour as we enter the elegant, green-colored storefront. The restaurant is not much of what we had imagined along the way, but the environment still evokes a feeling of Old Beijing. Customers order not from a menu on your table, but from the food signs on the walls. Waiters and waitresses respond with a native Beijing accent. And the rhythmic calls keep flowing in the air.
Beijing ¡®Xiao Chi¡¯ is a general term that covers a variety of foods to eat as a light meal or a snack. Beijing ¡®Xiao Chi¡¯ comes in a hundred of varieties probably. In the past the foods were normally made on the spot. Nowadays they are prepared in advance.
The variety of dishes here is amazing. To name but a few, they have Pea Flour Cake (Í㶹»Æ) and Rolling Dunkey(¿´ò¹ö) for sweets, Mung Bean Milk and Chao-Mian Soup for soup lovers, and Sesame balls for dim-sum fans. As we move from stall to stall to choose, Cathryn, with lights in the eyes, playfully comments that she will eat the whole place up.
I can easily understand her excitement. She moved to Beijing from Qingdao in coastal China a while ago, but she never had visited either Longfusi or Jiumen Xiaochi, the most renowned two Xiaochi restaurants in the city. A Beijing snacks fan herself, she had been eager for a Xiaochi experience like this.
A kind, round-faced waiter comes up and asks us what we would like to order. Having a sweet tooth, I go for the signature Pea Flour Cake and the ancient Rolling Donkey made from glutinous rice and date sauce. Rolled Dates Dough is also something I will not miss. Kathryn is a soup lover, and she orders the Chao-Mian Soup and Beef Chips. As we find our way to a table, each of us holds a tray stocked up with foods.
The foods are not delicately dressed up, they don¡¯t have beautiful names. They are patronized by the commoners since hundreds of years, and I would say they are the greatest feat a Beijinger can have. Throughout history, be it as breakfast, supper, or dinner, Xiaochi has become a part of every Old Beijinger¡¯s life. Recorded history even mentions that a Qing emperor once glided away from his palace for a Xiaochi treat.
I don¡¯t waste time to dig in. The yellowish, sugar-iced Pea Flour Cake tastes sweet and smooth, and cools me down when I swallow it. Then there is a faint smell of vanilla on the lips and in the mouth. There is actually a story about the Pea Flour Cake: once upon a time during the Qing dynasty, a Pea Flour Cake vendor was selling the food on the street. His incessant loud cry disturbed an empress who was on an inspection tour. The empress was angered by the ¡®insult¡¯, but after tasting the vendor¡¯s Pea Flour Cake, she was so impressed by the food that instead of punishing the vendor, she offered him an post in the imperial kitchen in charge of making Pea Flour Cake for her.
Cathryn seems to be charmed by my Rolling Donkey. The food got its weird name from the process to make it. Rolling Donkey, or ¡®Lv Da Gun¡¯ in Chinese, is made with rice paste, and rolled with date sauce. After being chopped into bun-shaped pieces, the food is then sprinkled with sesame flour. To make sure the sesame flour coats the entire surface, the little buns need to be turned over and over, just like donkeys roll in the dirt. The food is a little sticky, but the taste is great.
It does not take long for the Xiao Chi to win us. As we are about to finish our meal, we are already planning to come back often. Not only because we both like the amazing foods, but also because they are becoming rarer and rarer in the city.
In the relentless push for development, some of the recipes and skills are lost as more and more Xiao chi makers give up their ancient skills to switch to other businesses. The good news however is that an effort from the government is under way to help Xiao chi businesses.
As we leave, both we give a last lingering look to the Longfusi Street, counting ourselves now amongst true Beijingers.
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