A Vegan Epic

Tonight on the way home I bought a couple pounds of mushrooms, a head of broccoli, a red onion, almost a kilo of pea shoots, and two green peppers, all for less than $2. The supply of vegetables seems inexhaustible, and for this I feel really fortunate. Protein sources are a different matter. I sometimes eat fish or eggs when I'm with company, but by myself I'm essentially vegan. The only good vegan source of protein available at most shops is tofu, which comes either wet or dry (smoked). These are great, but I think I remember hearing somewhere that it's good to vary your protein intake and in any case not to rely too much on soy. One time I bought some black beans at the grocery store, but the black beans here must be strange mutant beans; after at least five hours of boiling they were still crunchy.

And so it was that one day a few weeks ago I decided it was time to try making seitan, the legendary wheat meat. The first thing I did was head to the grocery store for some vital wheat gluten (wheat flour purified so only the protein/gluten remains). Supposedly, seitan was invented by vegetarian Buddhists in China thousands of years ago. So vital wheat gluten has to be a staple on every grocery store's shelves, right? I went to at least three different places, and no one knew what I was talking about. I looked up the translation for vital wheat gluten on every site I could find, and still got nothing that anyone recognized. Then I got a tip from another expat that I should try the vegetarian restaurant in one of the Buddhist monasteries. I had been there once before, and at the front of the store there was a vegetarian-oriented grocery section that I'd forgotten about. I biked there for dinner one night, and indeed, they were selling seitan and other fake meats in vacuum-sealed plastic bags and in a freezer. But these were already made. What about wheat gluten flour? I asked. Blank stares. Dejected, I sat down in a comfy chair to order my delicious vegan dinner.



Fake fish with mushrooms and spicy peppers, Sichuan style.

I was about ready to give up when I remembered that there was an alternative. When I looked up seitan recipes before, they sometimes mentioned an alternative recipe that involved more work to make the seitan from regular wheat flour. I had always ignored that part, but now I returned to it. Surprisingly, the recipe was easy and the first batch turned out reasonably well. But although wheat flour is not impossible to find like vital wheat gluten, it is also not a staple item in Chinese grocery stores, which meant I had to buy it from the much more expensive imported goods shop. Luckily, the second time, I tried the same recipe on white flour, and it worked!

An advantage of making seitan from regular flour is that it's cheap. One challenge with making seitan this way, however, is adding flavor. Using vital wheat gluten, you just mix soy sauce, garlic, nutritional yeast, or whatever else into the dough, and the seitan is automatically delicious. Making it from normal flour, however, requires washing the dough until all the starch comes out, which leaves a ball of raw gluten. It's hard to integrate new things into this ball, so the flavor has to come from cooking. This recipe is my first attempt to address that.

Simple DIY Seitan Soup - No Oil!

1. Make Seitan from regular or wheat flour.
2. Chop copious amounts of garlic and ginger, in a 2:1 ratio.
3. Boil some water--not too much.
4. Add the garlic and ginger, an onion, a tomato, a lot of soy sauce, and the seitan.
5. Simmer for at least an hour.

For all of the amounts, use your best judgment! When I made this I wasn't sure if it was going to end up being soup, or just flavoring stock for the seitan. I didn't chop the onion and tomato, but just cut them in half. As a result the broth stayed clear, and the onion and tomato pieces were more substantial.

While I was washing the seitan, I saved a couple bowls of the starchy water, which was so cloudy I would have thought it was milk. And I used it for another recipe:

Extremely Simple Vegan Cream of Mushroom Soup

0. Make seitan from flour and save some of the milky starch water.
1. Dice a lot of garlic and onions, and a lot a lot of mushrooms.
2. Sauté the garlic and onions in a pot with some vegetable oil for a minute or two.
3. Add the mushrooms, turn down the heat, and cover. Wait until the mushrooms cook down and the contents of the pot are substantially liquid.
4. Add the starch water and salt to taste. Cook for another couple minutes while the starch thickens.

Lately I've been pining for the fare at the Wayward Cafe, so I made a tofu scramble for lunch today.

Tofu Scramble v.1





(as usual, amounts are just approximate)
- one block of tofu, chopped into 32 cubes
- two tomatoes, chopped
- four large cloves of garlic, diced
- 2 teaspoons Herbes de Provence
- 2 teaspoons turmeric
- 1 teaspoon hot pepper
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- toast

1. Sauté the garlic in the vegetable oil for only about 30 seconds.
2. Add the tofu, hot pepper, and turmeric, stirring quickly at first so it doesn't stick.
3. Stop stirring and turn down the heat. Cook for several minutes, or until some of the moisture from the tofu has evaporated.
4. Add the soy sauce and stir again. The tofu cubes should start to break into chunks of various sizes, so that it looks slightly like scrambled eggs. Cook for another minute or so.
5. Add the tomatoes and Herbes de Provence, stir regularly and cook for another few minutes.
6. Eat with toast, or, if you're in Chengdu, put on top of one of those naan/pizza dough things from the Uighur restaurant down the street.

have not yet learned Sichuan cooking

Japanese-esque Eggplant:

- 1 eggplant, cut into cubes or your favorite other shape
- 1 green onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
- soy sauce, several tablespoons
- vegetable oil
- water, several tablespoons

One great thing about living in Sichuan is that it's cheaper than ever to experiment with cooking vegetables.

The flavor of this dish surprised me (you can tell because I'm posting the recipe on my blog). I can't put my finger on it exactly, but it reminds me of the sauce that usually comes with tempura, or maybe miso soup a little bit. I think it might be the combination of green onion and soy, and the sweetness which I'm guessing is the result of the way the soy sauce and eggplant are fried. Something like that. I almost never measure things, so I can only give rough amounts and times. If anybody wants to actually try making this, just use your best judgment. I hope you do not regret it!

Directions:

Mix the soy sauce and water and set aside. Heat a frying pan on high. Add a liberal amount of vegetable oil once the pan is hot. Add the garlic and stir immediately to make sure it doesn't stick. Add the eggplant and do the same thing. Keep stirring the eggplant around the pan until it soaks up all the oil, and then wait until it starts to brown on one or two sides. The pan should now be dry (because the oil is all soaked up) and extremely hot. Before the eggplant actually starts to burn too much, pour in the soy-water. There should be enough of this that it fills the whole pan to the depth of a millimeter or so, although a lot of the water will quickly evaporate. Wait for about a minute. Sprinkle the green onions on top. Wait for another minute or whatever amount of time feels like a minute. The eggplant should have cooked down a lot by now. Stir everything for another minute or so, or until you think everything is done.





And below is a picture of the outside of my apartment building (my door is the second on the left). It's a nice place to live because even though it's close to the main streets, you go through a gate into this sprawling courtyard space (this photo shows one corner of it) where it's much quieter. As you can see, people like to hang up their laundry outside, and there's a little "park" in another part where old people often play cards at a little table. Speaking of which, today on the yellow ginkgo-lined side street just outside of this apartment complex (opposite the busy street), there were at least seven green felt tables set up in a little open-front tea house (which is really just three walls and a ceiling), on the sidewalk, and even in the street, where old people were playing Mahjong (má jiàng). I've seen this setup before, but I think the number of tables today was a record. My goal is to one day sit down at one of those tables and play with them. But so far I have been unsuccessful in finding a Mahjong teacher, and I do not have enough confidence in my Chinese--not to mention my Sichuanhua--to try to learn the rules from them.

I finally relented and got a QQ account...

As you might have noticed, I haven't been posting very much recently. I think that as my schedule starts to become more "regular" and I stop going on spontaneous adventures all the time, there's less that I feel compelled to share. It might have something to do with being in the same place for a long enough time (three weeks today). Actually, I haven't spent very much time just exploring; my travels around the city have tended mainly to have specific destinations that I can't sacrifice on a whim.

On Monday I met up with Diana and David again at the campus of their school, the Southwest Minority Nationalities University (or something similar). The university actually has two campuses--one near the city center and one about a half-hour drive south--and there's a shuttle bus that goes between them. I missed the last shuttle bus before dinner time, so I took a taxi. The campus seems a little bit isolated, but on one side there are a few commercial streets, so that's where we had dinner. The restaurant's chairs and tables were small and unremarkable, the walls were bathroom tiles, and the entrance was a garage door. None of this was out of the ordinary. By contrast, the food was tasty and interesting. The two dishes I remember the best are spicy mushrooms with peppers, and something that might have been called "beehive corn", which was a giant knot of sweet, crunchy, porous, yellow material with a nucleus of corn kernels, all doused in vegetable oil. Speaking of hive insects, I was looking at the jars of variously colored baijiu on the counter near our table and saw one with a picture of ants on it. Diana and David tried to explain it to me, and if I understood right, this particular type of alcohol is flavored with fermented ant mush.





After dinner we went back to campus and they taught me how to play snooker.





Another thing that happened this week is that I started an internship at Chengdoo magazine, the first English language magazine in Chengdu. So far I have been given the task of compiling a weekly news review for the magazine's blog (which I am more than happy to do, because it forces me to stay well-informed about local news), I've helped distribute magazines a little bit (which is great for getting more familiar with the geography), and I've done a few other miscellaneous things. I think I have already learned a lot.

I've also found a few odd jobs, but I'm still searching for a part-time teaching opportunity. Wish me luck.

Happy Hanukkah!

in and around Chuan Da.

火锅，谢谢你！还是，是我的免疫系统？

I think that hot pot did me in. By yesterday morning I felt the same way I felt the morning after arriving in Chengdu, right before I got sick for a week. However, yesterday was too important to worry about such trifles as personal health.

Around noon I rode my bike in the general direction of the free market that Bob took me to. Instead of finding it, though, I bought the vegetables I needed at a little vegetable shop on a quiet street somewhere. It was the only shop I passed that didn't have dead animals hanging in the doorway. For six tomatoes, three onions, four peppers, and a bunch of cilantro, I paid about $1.50.

In the evening I had an apartment-warming party of sorts. I finally made the burritos, but they were only a moderate success. The avocados weren't ripe yet, and after soaking overnight and cooking for five hours the black beans were still hard in the middle. I don't know what's wrong with them (or with me). But the Spanish rice was fine, and the grilled peppers and onions were good. And one of my friends, Sharon, brought some sweet potatoes. I don't really have enough furniture yet, but by pulling together my three chairs, my footstool, and the couch, we had enough seats for everybody. It was great to finally have guests, and it made my apartment feel more like a living place.

It was only after everybody left that the virus really hit me. But I went to bed with the heater on full blast, and, amazingly, this morning I felt fine. This was a miracle, because today I had meetings with two English students (one for the first time). The cold has started to come back a little bit tonight, but it's not nearly as bad as it was last night.

I biked across campus several times today. Most of the leaves don't change colors here, but there are some streets lined with beautiful yellow ginkgo trees. There is actually one street like that right behind my apartment, and throughout the day it's crowded with little groups of people taking pictures of each other in front of the changing leaves.

The campus of Sichuan University is big. Due to some strange feature of the street plan, the cardinal directions seem to rearrange themselves at will. More than once I have had my sense of direction completely fooled. Because campus is too large to walk in a reasonable amount of time, and because bike theft is so common, pedicab drivers congregate at the main gates. They can bring you anywhere on campus for about 25 cents.

There is a degree of contrast at SU that isn't found on any of the campuses I have seen in the U.S. One street has a large, modern stadium towering over a well-groomed lawn. The next street over consists of old brick dormitories, and laundry lines stretched between the trees in the little park on the corner. On another street, one of these buildings has been partially demolished, and four chickens are picking over one of the rubble heaps. Nearby there is a bank and a photography studio. Two streets farther there is a field covered in trash. Finally you come to the eastern gate, where the sidewalk is broken in front of a sparkling new high-rise community, and literally right next door is another lot filled with rubble and burning trash. Some people are sitting in the lot behind a table selling vegetables.

All systems go for operation Chengdu Burrito

I finally got all the paperwork in order and submitted my application to Sichuan University! I had forgotten that Dawn at the OSO had told me that the physical was only necessary if I wanted to be able to stay on a student visa for more than 6 months. But since I'm currently only planning to stay for one semester, the physical is unnecessary! I had decided to get it so that I wouldn't have to pay the 300 RMB to get a new physical later. But since I was going to have to get a new one anyway, I might as well wait until I'm sure I'll need one at all. Pleasant surprises: making forgetfulness more fun since 1997.

And I visited a place near my apartment called Sabrina's Country Store, a store dedicated to imported Western food. For the first time in a month, I saw avocados, tortillas, spices other than chili peppers and huā jiāo (cumin!? paprika!?), Western-style soymilk, a couple American microbrews (they carry Dead Guy! the catch: it's $3 a bottle over here), and all of the junk-food brands I've never eaten and never thought I'd miss seeing (OK, well, maybe I don't). It was almost like being home again...and being unable to leave the grocery store.

I also accidentally tried hot pot. I was looking for a place to have a simple lunch and through a series of misunderstandings fueled by my poor Chinese, I ended up going on a tour through the dingy kitchen (don't fall into that gutter running haphazardly along the middle of the cement floor! make sure not to slip on the gristle next to your foot!). After selecting four vegetables (bean sprouts, potatoes, lotus root, and something green and unnameable), I sat down at a table with a burner set into the middle. The next step involved a bowl of sesame-flavored oil, a bowl of garlic, a bowl of cilantro, and a cauldron of boiling red oil teeming with peppers and huā jiāo. The waiter did me the honor of carefully dropping all of the vegetables into the oil, where they cooked. Eating required fishing pieces of vegetables out of the boiling pot with chopsticks and dipping them into a mixture of the sesame oil, garlic, and cilantro. I think I consumed enough oil in this meal to make a batch of french fries in my stomach. But it was seriously delicious (and spicy). I did feel a little bit sad to have had this whole production put on for just one person. Hot pot is definitely a meal best eaten with friends.

Western Food Day

Today I spent a long time registering my residence at both the U.S. Consulate (which, fortunately, is across the street from my apartment), and the local police. They had me fill out a form with my address, dates of arrival and departure, and passport information, and then they entered this into a computer, stamped the form, and gave it back to me. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now, if anything. Do I keep the form when I leave China? Do I show it to the immigration officials? Do I return it to the police station?

After multiple hours of filling out forms, I biked to a nearby Italian cafe and had a very respectable espresso and a drab version of pasta puttanesca (but I ordered it without the anchovies, so maybe I was asking for it). Then I went to a slide show lecture on campus. A Chuan Da teacher from the UK named Jacob was showing slides from his extensive travels around China. The lecture was mainly intended for Chinese students (as opposed to students of Chinese) who wanted to practice their English comprehension. Every word was very clearly enunciated, and there was a vocabulary handout. I attended because it was also billed as being of potential interest to people wanting to learn more about China. Halfway through the lecture, the girl next to me turned and whispered "Jacob is a real gentleman."

Afterward I had dinner at Peter's Grill, the local Tex-Mex chain. I ordered a vegan burrito, but the tortillas were disgracefully small, and there wasn't much inside them except for peppers and onions. But this dinner was part of my field research. This weekend I am planning to have a few friends over and I am making burritos. None of them has ever had a burrito.

On the way home I bought a couple of pirated Chinese movies, thinking they might be good practice. Their titles are Cow and Wheat.

One more anecdote. When I first moved into my apartment, the washing machine was broken (I discovered this when I tried to wash all my clothes and after the cycle found that the soap was still where I had poured it and my clothes were all wet). After this I really needed to wash them, so I took them to a laundry nearby. Apparently there is no such thing as a laundromat in China, so I had to leave my waterlogged clothes (transported in plastic shopping bags) in the care of real laundrymen. The next day I got them back: