Far yet Close: Breakfast on the street

I have written earlier about Hot Pot and other dinner habits during our July trip in Yunnan with Jinlin. When it comes to breakfast, the cultural differences between the western world (including Finland) and China are perhaps even greater.

In Finland people eat breakfast at home. If they are staying away from home at a hotel, they eat breakfast at the hotel restaurant. In China, much more of everyday life happens "on the street" and this often includes breakfast in one of the thousands of tiny street-side restaurants all around cities. Most of the hotels at Zhengzhou and other to cities we stayed during our trip do not even have a restaurant of their own because there are so many breakfast restaurants everywhere. Contrast this with Helsinki city centre where all restaurants are closed before lunchtime with the recent exception of Mac Donalds selling their Mac Muffin breakfast. But I must say that advantages of street-breakfast are clear: prices are cheap, no shopping required, no dishes to wash, no mess at home.

Jiǎozi pans and eggs in Lijiang

Typical breakfast items include steamed dumplings (饺子, Jiǎozi) with some meat or vegetable filling. Jiǎozi are collected to metal or wooden pans with holes in the bottom. The pans are then stacked to high stacks on top of boiling pot so that steam is passed through the whole stack. This allows simultaneous cooking of great number of Jiǎozi with very little space and simple equipment. When a client buys Jiǎozis, one pan is taken from top of the stack and the remaining stay in the hot steam.

Eggs, dumplings and soy-sauce

Jiǎozi have very tasty filling and this is enhanced with various dipping sauces like soy-sauce. Quite same can't be said of the rice porridge or congee that is another common breakfast item. Quite watery, it has only mild sweet taste in its base form. Another common sweet side dish are the bread sticks that are cooked in oil like doughnuts. Their Chinese name (油条, yóutiáo) means literally oil strips.

But the most tasty breakfast item by far on our journey was the noodle soup. I and Jinlin both like noodles and noodle soups come in huge variety in China. Nor are they limited to lunch and dinner but are available as a common breakfast course. A breakfast noodle soup can have dozens of different hacked ingredients from meats to vegetables to tofu to spices in addition to the soup base and the noodles themselves, bringing very rich taste. And with ample concentration of crushed chillies, it can be very hot both as in high temperature (热, Rè) and as in very spicy (辣, Là). Really kicks your body up for action of the day! :-)