The Chinese have a way of reminding foreigners that theyll never quite t in.
Because certain vegetables, fruits, and spices were introduced into the Middle
Kingdom at a time when the entire nonChinese world was considered
downright uncivilized, the plant names quite literally include the Chinese
characters for barbaric or exotic. Many are now staples of Chinese
cuisine, but are nevertheless forever branded linguistically as Western
interlopers. Here, we take a quick tour of theorigins of some of them, and the
degree to which theyve assimilated into modern Chinese cooking.
BLACK PEPPER
literally: foreign pepper
hu jiao
Black pepper in China is associated with several explorers: Tang Meng, the
secondcentury BCE envoy who discovered the Indian import in southern
markets; Marco Polo, who marveled at the sheer quantity of the precious spice
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Today: White pepper may be the norm in Chinese kitchens, but the black
peppercorn is used in Cantonese soy sauce Western cuisine, in dishes such
as blackpepper beef served over rice or spaghetti.
CARROT
literally: foreign radish
hu luo bo
The carrots that made their way to northern China from Afghanistan in the
fourteenth century arrived in vivid shades of purple, red, and yellow. As for
the orange varietal, China and the rest of the world had to wait for patriotic
Dutch growers in the 1600s to crossbreed the mutant orange strains into a
betacarotene powerhouse. Our guess is that those carrots made their way to
the Dutch colony of Formosa (i.e., Taiwan)and from there, took a short hop
across the strait to China.
WALNUT
literally: foreign peach
hu tao
The most popular theory about the introduction of Persian walnuts into China
is that they were brought back by the tenacious envoy Zhang Qian (second
century BCE), who was enslaved twice by Asiatic Huns while trailblazing the
Silk Road (and escaped both times). Did he nourish his quick wits by nibbling
on these nuts? Walnuts are prized as brain food in China because of the
traditional Chinese medicine doctrine of signatures that draws a link
between the appearance of an ingredient and the internal organ it most
benets.
Today:Broken walnuts are ground into powder and cooked up as a hot dessert
soup. Whole kernels tend to be reserved for honey walnut shrimp, the Hong
Kong banquet staple.
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SPINACH
literally: Persian vegetable
bo cai (short for Bosi cai)
Some say spinach came to China via Nepal, when the emperor ordered all
suzerain states to send him their nest vegetables. Others say it arrived as a
Buddhist fasting food from India during the Tang dynasty. We like to think
the spinach emissary was Xuanzang, the famous monk whose arduous
seventeenyear sojourn to India is documented, but whose disciple and
bodyguard, known as the Monkey King, cannot be conrmed.
WATERCRESS
literally: Occidental greens
xi yang cai
Today:In Chinese cuisine, this peppery green, cherished for its tonic eect on
lungs and skin, seems to show up almost exclusively in clear soups and
porridges.
SNOW PEAS
literally: Holland beans
He lan dou
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connection, the average Chinese person will pose this question in return: Did
you know that Dutch people call them Chinese peas?!
Today:Dont fuss with fresh snow peas. They are used in simple stirfries,
either solo or with cured pork.
TOMATO
literally: barbarian eggplant, Western red
persimmon
fan qie, xi hong shi
O brave New World, that had such juicy red fruits int! The conquistadors
brought the tomato back to Europe, it disseminated in the colonies not long
afterwards. Its thought to have reached China via the Philippines.
Today:Look for it in Hong Kong dishes like beef with tomato and baked pork
chop rice. On the mainland, sliced tomatoes sprinkled with sugar used to be a
popular appetizer, but tomato scrambled with egg (as a topping for rice) is
whats ubiquitous these days. Xinjiang, a province in the northwest, currently
produces about a fth of the worlds tomatoes, so the vegetable has found its
way into the regions cuisine, most prominently in stirfried noodle dishes.
ZUCCHINI
literally: Western calabash
xi hu lu
POTATO
literally: foreign mountain taro, Holland root
tuber, foreigndevil mercy roottuber
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There are many accounts of the potato entering China: Russian missionaries
and Siberian traders in the 1600s who introduced it to the northwestern
regions of China; Dutch traders who rst cultivated it in Taiwan during the
seventeenth century; Ming Dynasty pirates who brought them to the coastal
provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang. We do know that the potato was later
popularized by Catholic missionaries as a hedge against faminemaybe thats
why theyre still known in some parts of Guangxi as foreigndevil mercy
roottubers.
SWEET POTATO
literally: barbarian yam
fan shu
Today:Along with corn, peanuts, and taro, sweet potato is used in da feng
shou, a classic northeastern steamed dish that celebrates the annual harvest.
In Beijing, the smell of roasted sweet potatoes on street corners is a delicious
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BROCCOLI
literally: Western kale ower
xi lan hua
WATERMELON
literally: Western melon
xi gua
Today:In China, a good gossip session doesnt feel right unless youre
working your way through a pile of roasted melon seeds. Some watermelon
varieties are selected for maximum seed production, with the pulp a mere
afterthought. The watermelon is also prized as a canvas for food sculptors.
ONION
literally: Occidental allium
yang cong
Allium crops have been cultivated in China since antiquity, but some onion
species were brought back by Zhang Qian from the barbarous lands west of
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Han Dynasty China. Over the centuries, though, allium varietals were bred for
edible shoots and green leaves (i.e., scallion, leek), deemphasizing the bulbs.
The dense and spherical storage onions familiar to us likely only made their
way to China in the seventeenth century via the Portuguese presence in
Macau. As a relative newcomer, the onion bulb would not have been included
in the original ve pungents, the aromatics (including garlic, chives, and
shallots) blacklisted by strict Buddhists for allegedly stimulating anger and
lust. But any Chinese cook curious enough to slice up a big bulb would quickly
have intuitedfrom its aromathat this new ingredient was quite racy
indeed.
HONEYDEW
literally: Wallace melon
Hua lai shi gua
Honeydew is the only ingredient on this list to have been imported to China
not by land or by sea, but by airand via Air Force Two, no less! In 1944,
Henry Wallace, FDRs vice president, presented the governor of Gansu with
seeds of the honeydew melon, which the agriculturallysavvy Wallace and
botanist friends believed would be a good crop for the droughtstricken area.
The fruits helped transform the local economy and became known colloquially
as Wallace melons. The region still hosts an annual Wallace Day festival,
where crowds gather to participate in melon tastings, gawk at melon exhibits,
and play melon games.
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