Authentic Chinese Food

In January we hosted a student from China for a week and it was a perfect opportunity to cook some real Chinese food. Bau Hon cooked us a meal of rice and vegetables that was so simple and delicious. It was just white rice with some carrots and peas. That's it. No fancy soy sauce, no deep fried tofu, no oil, no garlic or onion or sweet and sour sauce.

And it tasted great! I mean really great. The vegetables weren't overcooked so they tasted like they were still alive. The food wasn't weighted down with a bazillion flavors, so we could actually taste what we were eating. I really kept thinking Bau Hon was going to add something else to it, but she just kept it very simple with no apologies.

I realized how Americanized our "Chinese" food is in this country and how much healthier we would be if we tried to eat food that is more authentic to a particular culture. As vegetarians we would pass on some of the more - ahem, interesting - meat products that are eaten in China!