We met Meng, 58, selling newspapers on Xiang’er Hutong.
What are your favorite cuisines and food memories?
I’m from Beijing so I like eating dumplings, noodles and other Chinese food. I have tried Western food before but mainly fast food places like KFC and McDonalds. But I’m unaccustomed to these flavors – they’re too different from Chinese food.
My family enjoys cooking together. We usually cook simple Chinese dishes such as mapo doufu, gongbao jiding – this type of thing. I prefer to use less salt but am liberal with spice.
I used to enjoy dining at Qinghai restaurant near my home but it’s since moved. It was a government-style restaurant and the dishes were very delicious – similar to [Gui Jie restaurant] Dongxinglou.
Eating in general is quite expensive now, though. About 30 years ago, 10 yuan could last for a whole month.
I really love dumplings. I used to make them in Xi’an and even have my own recipe, which uses seven filling ingredients: tomato, egg, chives, fennel, cucumber, spinach and meat.
I’m pretty fast: in half an hour I can prepare, cook and eat the dumplings I make! First you need to boil the water, arrange the filling ingredients and then prepare the dumpling shell.
Before – around 1984 – I worked in Iraq and India. There was fighting going on during this time. There were a lot of other Chinese people there so we would all cook and eat Chinese food together, although I still enjoyed some of the local food, like the chicken leg rice. There was also a nice tomato, egg and bean dish that was very delicious.
I also like the Indian-style curry. I would definitely love to go out and eat these dishes again in Beijing. I can try anything.
Photo by Holly Li.
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