When birthdays, funerals and feasts share a dish: A Fujian food story [Eye on Fujian series]

Fujian cuisine, known for its fresh and refreshing taste, is one of the major Chinese cuisines, standing alongside Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan and other cuisines. Given the diverse ecology and regional cultures found in China, there are, in fact, many types of Chinese cuisine. Min Cai or Fujian cuisine could also include Chaozhou cuisine (Teochew cuisine) and western Fujian cuisine, which is Hakka and characterised by shanlu cai (山路菜) or “mountain-based food”. In this article, I will focus on eastern and southern Fujian cuisines.

Fujian has sea coasts and interior hilly lands, and the diverse ecology provides much seafood and land-based resources for food. At the same time, there are distinct cultural areas offering their respective unique cuisines. Fuzhou cuisine, representing eastern Fujian cuisine, and southern Fujian (Minnan) cuisine, are most well-known. In East Fujian, there are also specific local cuisines such as Putian cuisine, and in Minnan, there are county varieties, such as those of Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and Xiamen. For example, all these places have their respective lumian 卤面 (braised noodle), and people of each place claim that theirs is better. Unlike the lumian in Malaysia and Singapore, the lumian in Fujian has more varieties of tasty seafood, and the starchy gravy is not so thick. 

Until the 1980s, many people in the rural areas still depended on their peasant food, which was largely vegetarian-based, with some meat only. In my research in Yongchun county in the late 1990s, people then generally had rice porridge (bbe 糜, Minnan dialect for zhou 粥) for breakfast and dinner, and rice (bng or fan 饭) for lunch (more filling for heavy work). This was eaten with such dishes as tofu, various kinds of locally planted vegetables (leaf mustard, cauliflower, eggplant, pumpkin, water bamboo shoots (茭白笋, called gatɛsun in Yongchun), various kinds of bamboo shoots, etc.), eggs (such as cooked with tomatoes) and some pork. The foodway was actually quite healthy, despite its simplicity. 

Of the peasant foods, sweet potato was introduced to China from South America via the Philippines in the Ming dynasty, and it has an important place in southern Fujian diet. As for vegetables, guacai (jiecai 芥菜 in Mandarin) is widely planted in southern Fujian, and it is widely used in Minnan cuisine. It is an essential item at the Chinese New Year reunion lunch, on which occasion it is known as dngbbnia cai 长命菜 or “longevity vegetable” in Yongchun and dnglni cai 长年菜 (also meaning longevity vegetable) in Zhangzhou. In Malaysia and Singapore, this symbolic long-life vegetable is replaced by Tianjin long cabbage (天津大白菜), although not all Chinese overseas know the significance of eating this vegetable during the Chinese New Year reunion dinner.

What is fascinating is that a number of peasant foods are incorporated into elite eating in restaurants today. Five-star hotels in Quanzhou and Zhangzhou serve steamed sweet potato, steamed pumpkin and rice porridge along with other Chinese and international foods for breakfast.

Caitao ge 菜头粿 (radish cake) is a common ge made by villagers for festival worship, and it is nowadays served as a dish, often together with fried taro (芋饼), in a formal lunch or dinner at restaurants in Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, alongside other prestigious meat and fish dishes.

An interesting note is that the caitao ge sold at food stalls in coffee shops and hawker centres in Johor and Singapore is a reinvented version. A block of carrot cake is cut into small pieces and fried with egg. This delicious dish is very popular in Johor and Singapore, and it is not easily available in Kuala Lumpur and northern peninsular Malaysia.

Interestingly, the delicious fish porridge (鱼片粥) is often also served in a formal restaurant meal. Even the peasant giambng 咸饭 (literally salty rice), also called youbng 油饭 (literally oily rice), which is made for festive occasions and for offering to deities and ancestors, may be served as a dish in a restaurant meal.

When the same dish is prepared to celebrate the birth of a child, it is called yibng 浥饭. When it is prepared for a funeral communal meal, it is always called youbng. This kind of delicious rice is also made by the Minnan people in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, but I find the one in Yongchun featuring ingredients such as tofu, dried oyster, dried mushroom, taro, leaf mustard (guacai 芥菜) and pork strips, and cooked with pork lard, most delicious. 

Buddha Jumps Over the Wall (佛跳墙), which uses expensive ingredients like abalone, sea cucumber, scallops, pig tendon, as well as various kinds of meat and seafood, is a famous Fujian dish. The less expensive sweet and sour dishes (using sugar and vinegar) are well known too.

Each regional Fujian cuisine has its special dishes. For example, eastern Fujian cuisine, as represented by Fuzhou and Putian, is well known for the use of hong zao (红糟) or red vinasse. Thus, a popular dish is red rice wine chicken (红糟鸡), and the red vinasses can also be used to cook fish and mianxian (面线) or fine wheat noodle.

The Singapore brand Putien restaurant (莆田餐厅) in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur serves pretty good East Fujian dishes, including the famous Xinghua rice noodle (兴化米粉) and lumian. East Fujian dishes are available in Fuzhou settlements in Malaysia, namely, Sitiawan (Perak), Yong Peng (Johor) and of course Sibu in Sarawak.

East and southern Fujian banquets are known for two or three kinds of soup served in a meal. Special to Minnan soup is the generally clear soup with the use of sea clams and other seafood. For example, a famous soup is clams in chicken soup (鸡汤汆海蚌). There are of course soups made of animal meat, such as pig stomach soup (猪肚汤). This delicious soup cooked with a lot of pepper (made from peppercorns), is also very popular among the Hokkien Chinese in Southeast Asia. 

Another soup that I had recently eaten in Quanzhou is duck with radish soup (番鸭小萝卜汤). The duck is called fanya or “foreign duck” which shows its foreign origin. The popular white feather duck was probably introduced from South America through Southeast Asia. Fanya makes up an important part of Fujian cuisine. The delicious ginger duck or jiangmuya (姜母鸭) from Quanzhou is duck stewed in clay pot with lots of ginger, sesame oil and rice wine. On my first trip to Yongchun in 1998, I encountered an exotic dish, duck testicles. I declined to eat but the cadres that welcomed me all enjoyed eating the dish. 

In Yongchun, I encountered another even more exotic dish which I ate before knowing how it was made. This was kong lio bbah (焅尿肉) or pork double-boiled in urine. My interview with old informants confirmed that this was once a special local dish, the urine used has to be that of boys. The special way of stewing did not involve the meat coming into contact with urine, it just involved using steam from the urine to cook the dish. 

In Quanzhou there is also a popular exotic dish called tusun dong (土笋冻) or Sipuncula worm jelly. Made from Sipuncula marine worms (looks like earth worms), it is not appealing to visitors but made in jelly form with the worm clearly visible, it is actually quite delicious and it is a popular dish available in restaurants in Quanzhou. The dried worms often used in important religious offerings is called tiong, which is the Minnan pronunciation for chong 虫 or worms. 

A popular local dish that has influenced the Southeast Asian Chinese foodway is oyster pancake. This is also important in Chaozhou where it is called o luah (耗烙). Like Minnan dialect, o is oyster and luah is the Chaozhou (Teochew) word for “fried”. In Minnan dialect this dish is called o-a-zian (耗煎).

Each version is different. In Fujian and Chaozhou where oysters are easily available, the popular dish comprises lots of small oysters mixed with spring onion and fried in sweet potato or tapioca flour. In Malaysia and Singapore, perhaps oysters are more expensive, it is fried with more eggs, and so to those from Fujian, this is not really o-a-zian, but to Malaysian and Singapore Chinese, this is a more delicious version! 

Southern Fujian has many kind of pastries called ge (guo 粿), go (gao 糕) and bnia (bing 饼). Ge is mostly made of rice flour and steamed, while go is mostly made of wheat flour and may undergo some fermentation. Bnia is pastry that is baked or fried. Many of these are origins of such pastries in Southeast Asia and Taiwan where the majority of the Chinese are Hokkien.

Daosa bnia (豆沙饼) or mung bean pastry is of Minnan origin and it is an important pastry among the Hokkien people in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, and of course Taiwan. Residents in each town in Malaysia claim that their local mung bean pastry is the best. 

Ang gu ge (红龟粿), the glutinous rice flour pastry made in the shape of a tortoise’s back (hence the name) with mung bean ingredients and coloured red for birthday celebrations, is also important in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Also made is the uncoloured round flat version without the tortoise shape used for celebration and religious worship. This is called yni (圆) in Minnan dialect. Popularly called pong sia ku in Yongchun, yni is available in Yongchun restaurants as a distinguished Yongchun dish. 

It is not possible to mention all the pastries from Fujian, but I should like to mention one last item, Bban zian go (闽煎糕), which is called bban zian ge (闽煎粿) in Malaysia and Singapore. In Taiwan it is called ban zian dia (板煎嗲), maybe because the big piece of flour pancake filled with peanut nibs and sugar is cut into triangular pieces on a cutting board (called ban in Minnan dialect). In fact, nobody knows the proper name of this “pancake” and each called it by a slightly different pronunciation. In Malaysia, it is called bban zian ge.

As it is of southern Fujian origin, and Min (闽, bban in Minnan dialect) is the abbreviation for southern Fujian, I suspect the name is bban zian ge (Minjian ge 闽煎粿 or Min fried pancake). In Malaysia, there are now few Chinese traders who take up this trade. Instead, Malays have taken to making this pancake known in Malay as apam balik, and all sorts of ingredients, peanut nibs, canned corns, chocolate, banana etc., or a combination of these ingredients are used to make different kinds of apam balik.

Related: Fuzhou: Where every street tells a story and every bite delights | Inside a traditional Sichuan family restaurant [Eye on Sichuan series]