There are banquets, and there are banquets. We were at a Chinese banquet over the weekend and I thought maybe I should blog about it. It’s wonderful that everywhere in the Chinese diaspora, we’ve preserved well the custom of dining and banqueting.
In Chinese tradition a banquet can be for hundreds of guests gathered for one celebration but there are also banquets for small groups of 10 people or fewer. Not all banquets are formal. Some are attended by people casually dressed, eaten under large, temporary tents. Others, even for a group of 10, are held in posh, private rooms.
When Ted and I first lived in Guangzhou in 1982, the officials from Fayuen, his village, held a banquet to honor his parents and us. Those were the days when people still wore Mao jackets and average monthly income was less than US$40 a month. There were only a few tables in the room, the chairs were rickety and the table cloth was crinkled and stained but they offered us their prized dishes. That was my first introduction to exotic food, this time double-boiled pangolin soup. A pangolin is like an anteater and probably a protected species now. This was the era where high end dining was frowned upon as bourgeois and many people wondered if Chinese cooks, many of whom left the country or had their profession changed, might lose their art.
When we lived in Guangzhou a second time, in 2000, China had started its economic boom and with it expensive dining was revitalized. Private function rooms got plush and were ornately decorated. Their carpets got thicker, their walls got redder, their paintings more exquisite and their dining tables (even for 10 diners) got huge! Now they were serving baby abalone, sharks fin and cordyceps ( a kind of worm, very expensive) soup. Thankfully, there was none of this at Sunday’s banquet.
We Chinese celebrate with banquets from birth to death. Banquets for the one-month birthday of the beloved newborn. Banquet following the funeral where an empty seat is left for the loved elder who has passed. Wedding banquets, anniversary banquets, birthday banquets where 60th birthdays are especially auspicious. Family banquets for friends and loved ones. Then there are official and business banquets — in Chinese communities, employers give banquets to their staff during Chinese New Year. And of course there are banquets to treat business colleagues. State banquets, the list goes on.
Set standards
In every Chinese banquet, these traditions are standard. Every Chinese banquet is seated at a round table for up to 10 people. The courses come one after the other, one dish at a time. One dish placed in the center and shared by all 10 diners. Typically, the banquet is a 10-course meal, following a fairly standard order. It starts with a cold dish, you can expect a soup (maybe third or fourth course), prawn or lobster, a steamed fish, a vegetable dish, a meat dish. There is always chicken, a whole chicken with the head and tail showing. (Pay attention to where the head points: either to the host or to the one who is going to get fired, I forgot which is which!)
Banquets usually end with fried rice or fried noodles (for birthday banquets.) As children we never liked that all these eight earlier delicious dishes came without any rice to eat it with. The idea is that rice is a filler and when you are hosting guests, you serve them the best thing and not fill them up with carbo. Then there is dessert. A 10-course dinner is a lot of food; and you have to pace your eating. But we manage to eat it anyway. Be ready to roll out of the banquet hall completely stuffed.
Typically, a great selection of food is based on offering a variety of different kinds of meat, poultry, seafood, vegetables. It is also important that different techniques of cooking–stir fry, braising, deep fry, steamed, boiled–have been explored. Also, the color in the presentation of the food is important.
The banquet we went to was in Gaithersburg, MD. You decide if their course selection is authentic Chinese, or if it’s been influenced by American Chinese taste and practice. I thought the red cloth over the white in table decoration was a nice touch. Welcome to a Chinese Banquet, American style.
Please…no comments (or maybe, yes, please post) from my people in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Singapore. Remember in Asia we have those mass-produced banquets too. Yes, who can forget those fabulous banquets where we are dined and deliciously pampered? In those, we are spoiled with exquisite food amidst fine table settings, where servers serve each course and change your dish after every course, and then stand at the side ready to fill your cup of tea after each sip and leap to your needs to make the dinner perfect. Hey, they are even ready with a shawl if you get too cold.
As I said, there are banquets and there are banquets.
The 10-course dinner on Sunday came in this order:
First course. Typically this is supposed to be a cold dish. We had chicken skewers. The guest next to me asked where the peanut sauce was.
Second course: Crab balls. No comments.
Third course: Tofu soup. Hey, the waiter is wearing a vest and bow tie!
Four course: Lobster…two lobsters!
Fifth course: Crispy Fried Chicken, another favorite. I couldn’t find the head. Guest next to me asked if I wanted the tail instead. Usually the whole chicken is laid out looking like a spread out chicken. This is what we got. It was quite tasty.
Sixth course: Shrimp With Sesame Seed.
Seventh course: Braised Mushroom with Green Mustard Leaf. Very popular dish.
Eighth course: Steamed Fish. Good job! Dish needs a good wipe.
Ninth course: Fried Rice. My bad –I forgot to take a photo of Fried Rice.
By this time, who could eat another bite? The people at the next table next had left to mingle with other guests. Guest next to me had been putting food aside because she didn’t want to waste. So I chipped in and helped.
Doggy bagging is such an American practice and so acceptable here. At these banquets, Chinese restaurants just hand you Styrofoam boxes to take whatever you want with you. Luckily there was a young woman at our table willing to take everything–no cooking for her for a week!
Ted’s complaint is that they never bring bowls for the Fried Rice. Maybe they don’t expect people to eat. I do like it that they are so good about bringing out boxes for people. I wonder what Singapore servers will say to that.
Tenth course: Sesame Balls, my favorite Chinese dessert. And sliced orange, which is a bit lame by Asian standards but at the end of 10 courses, we’re too stuffed to complain.
