Sweet Tooth

I won't say no one knows sugar like America, because I haven't been everywhere else, and I have heard things about Belgium that makes me think I have yet to really understand sugar.  But China does not do sugar the same way America does sugar.  Maybe sugar is the wrong word, given our use of fructose and other such syrups...let's say no one does sweet like America does sweet, including China.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if we are paying attention to the rise in childhood diabetes and childhood obesity; we should probably cut out the sugar.  Especially all the super refined, not-easily-processed-by-our-bodies sugars and syrups...and  do not get me started on the artificial sweeteners. However, today  I will spare you from the rest of my rant on sugar (it's a good one though, ranging from obesity to the roots of political instability in South America).

While I was in China I had no particular problem with this lack of sugar, not having much of a sweet tooth.  However, if you are someone who really loves a good hit of sugar every once and a while (or everyday), China was like a sugarless wasteland.  Our students would frequently try to feed us, especially if they discovered that whatever they were snacking on was not something we had in the States (which was pretty much everything).  So, they would allow us to sample of their snacks, a treat that we approached with a considerable amount of trepidation every single time.

I mean, I ate some strange stuff in China; most of it was wonderful...some of it was awful in the extreme.  By agreeing to try a snack offered to us by our students we were not only taking a risk with out taste-buds (which could easily recover) but also in disappointing our students if we didn't like it--and were unable to disguise the depth of our dislike.  You also had no idea where the student obtained the food they were offering (most of it was in wrapped packages, but sometimes it looked more like what you would get a bulk foods--a clear plastic back filled with food) and so whether or not your body was going to forcibly eject that food in eight hours was always in the back of our minds.

But when it came to sweet things, our students always felt the need to warn us, "Careful, Rachel, this is very sweet."  So we'd brace ourselves for an onslaught of cotton candy-like sweetness...only to be met with something about as sweet as a Nutrigrain bar or Fig Newton.  Every time we were given this warning, we were given something that most Americans would  not consider overly sweet, and certainly not sweet enough to merit a warning.

Look at their expectant faces...and look at our fear.  MUST. NOT. DISAPPOINT! 

Thus bereft of a bountiful and varied supply of sugar (you could buy Snickers bars almost every where in China, and if you were desperate, there is a Hershey's store in Shanghai)  we began to rely on other sources of sugar for our daily dose of sweetness. 

I would say my largest source of sugar in China was through Milk Tea.  Milk tea is quite literally the greatest beverage that has ever been invented and consumed and its lack of pervasiveness into American culture is one of the most intolerable things about being home.  Now, you might be thinking, "I've had milk tea (and it's even more amazing cousin, bubble tea) here in America!"  Well, yes, we have establishments in America that sell this ambrosia, but in China (and elsewhere in Asia, I'm sure) milk tea shops are on every street.  Sometimes there are three or four on one street alone!  Milk Tea is available everywhere, and we did partake of it on a daily basis.

I don't have a single picture of me drinking milk tea! I don't know how that happened.  But here's a menu from my very favorite milk tea chain. 

My second favorite source of sugar was something called an egg tart.  I cannot remember the first time I had one of these--it may have been through my students, or it may have been through one of the other teachers (Justin was a big fan of trying out local sweets).  However, it only took one bite of them to fall in love with this particular treat; they are not overly sweet (because nothing really is), but just sweet enough to not be bland.  They consist of an egg-based custard that has been baked into a flaky, buttery pastry shell.  You can get them with filling, such as red bean or taro, or you can get them plain (my favorite); they sell for about 2 yuan a piece at vendors that are almost as commonplace as milk tea vendors.

Amanda here continues to be my camera woman, dedicated to capturing those moments I did not get on film while I was in China...and she has an excuse to eat egg tarts.  

Of course, as I was saying above with my students, China has things they consider to be sweet.  They have cakes and pastries and candies.  However, as an American used to the super sweetness of corn syrup, these "sweets" were not all together sweet.  We would try cakes whose texture was altogether more spongy than what we were used to, minimally frosted, and filled or topped (or both) with fruit...this included tomatoes.  I don't think there is anything less reminiscent in the minds of Americans of cake than tomatoes.  But there they were, sitting on top of the cake next to slices of pineapple, like they belonged there.

They also have a variety of pastries; lots of green tea or taro flavored things, or pastries stuffed with taro or red bean filling.  Many were stuffed with a simple cream--these were my favorites. But despite the cream filling, the "sweets" in China were not in the least overwhelmingly sweet, despite any dire warnings from our students.  If you wanted the sweet stuff, you had to raid the imports section in large grocery stores.

Here are some average sweets.  Lots of sesame and black sesame filled or covered things.  Along with red bean, green tea, and taro flavored/filled goodies.  And cream puffs.