Throughout the ages food has always been subjected to fashion trends – there’s nothing new about that! There’s also nothing new about criticizing the fashions of the past, the Romans did it and the Greeks before that. Athenaeus is a mine of information on taste and food fashion, Plato – whom I respect unendingly for his Republic – is downright critical of anyone eating differently to him and Apicius was a chef, a rebel and irritable about food fashions that interfered with his own work.  Nowadays the magazine editors, hairdressers, home decorators and ‘fashionable people’ seem to know it all and pronounce which

culture takes the lead. Have we learnt nothing from history?  Is cultural intolerance, the disdainful dismissal of one culture as inferior simply because the food they eat is different to yours, really necessary? Who’s right? I can understand if that the poor girl who fainted when Krushkev’s entourage visited China in 1954 considers the Chinese a tad odd. (In order to honour them the Chinese prepared a famous Cantonese dish made up of both roasted snake and cat and placed them on the tables, gorgeously displayed). I think that I may also faint if I was faced with the prospect of eating cat, but there are wonderful Chinese dishes and quite exquisite Chinese meals to be had. Chinese bread is an experience in itself – the country is huge and the variety immense  - Uighur nan are flatbreads and in the Xinjiang province you will find them cooked in tandoor ovens – the heady aroma of fresh bread must simply be experienced. Guo cui are fried sesame coils and the savoury Tibetan breads, Jiaozi are only a drop in the river and are typical of a cuisine, as yet largely undiscovered by the Western world.  Chilli pastes, soups, stir fries, roasts, noodles and fish form part of an extremely healthy and varied menu – let’s not judge before we know, before we’ve actually gone to China and experienced it for ourselves.

To prove my point, here’s a recipe for a gloriously tasty Chinese spice rubbed roast pork – we tried it the other day and it’s so simple and so tasty, you really should too.

CHINESE SPICE RUBBED PORK

Ingredients

• 750 g Pork loin, clean and dry and with the thickest end no more than 5 cm high
• 2 teaspoons grated  nutmeg
• 1 ½ teaspoons roasted ground Sichuan peppercorns
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon Maldon sea salt (or to taste)
• About 2 tablespoon lard (or bacon drippings)

Method

• Pre-heat oven to 200 C
• Mix all the spices in a little bowl with the salt;
• Grease the bottom of the roasting dish with a little of the lard;
• Rub the spice mixture all over the meat, making sure the surface is well covered and put down in the roasting dish with the largest surface facing upwards;
• Dab the rest of the lard over the top of the meat;
• Roast for 50 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the oven;
• Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes;
• Serve thinly sliced with the deglazed pan juices;

Here’s a lovely soup, simple yet different enough for all of us to enjoy something different this coming week.

Ingredients

• 250 g boneless pork shoulder or fresh ham, thinly sliced and cut into bite sized squares
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• 3 dried red chillis
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 2 tablespoons grated ginger
• 1 tablespoon grated garlic
• 1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
• 1 lemon, zest only
• 1 ½ liter water
• Salt to taste

Method

• In a large wok, heat the oil and toss in the chillies, ginger, cumin, garlic and pepper and stir fry for about 10 seconds.
• Add the meat and stir fry until all surfaces of the meat have been exposed to the heat and have changed colour.
• Add the water, zest and salt and bring to the boil – then reduce the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes.
• Serve with hot bread