Food is absolutely the most important culture of China and this culture is very complicated due to difference of sources, environment, flavour and tastes.
There are some kind of foods consumed in this East Asian nation that you could never like and fall in love with when you are in your home country.
I personally, thought and believed that there are types of food in my life I would never eat. However, this misplaced mindset was proved wrong when I landed in Beijing early this year, 2018.
Duck meat, especially roasted, is highly consumed in the China’s capital. The kind of meat is popularly known as ‘Beijing Kao Ya’ (Beijing roast duck). Back in my country, Tanzania, duck meat is not a common dish and it is not kind of poultry that people eat frequently --in brief, it’s not part of our food culture.
And, to be totally honest, it is something I knew would not try even if I were a traditional meat eater.
Born and raised in the most populous East African nation for the past 30 years, eating duck, one of the domesticated birds I considered the dirtiest, was something very impossible.
But relocating from a country where the national dish is ‘ugali’, fish, rice, beans and meat to a place that has a real passion and love for food has totally changed my eating habit.
China being a country of surprising diversity and a long history, food plays an important role in the development of its culture.
First thing to note for those who have been to this area before is that nearly every restaurant you can find roast duck, and, in my own experience, view and perception, it is one of their iconic dish.
I really sympathize with Chinese duck. For sure, I really do. Though I cannot defend my point with statistical evidence as I have not yet to visited all major cities in the world, but my observation so far, wraps it up that there is no any other country in the world that consumes duck like China.
No matter what street you go down --not only in Beijing but even in other provinces, there are plenty of food shops specializing in duck meat.
And, of course, to be fair enough as now I have been a daily roast duck eater, the meat tastes pretty good offering much more variety in flavour.
I have quickly learnt that in China, you can immediately tell what a city's most iconic dishes are, just by simply seeing what frequently colours the dining table.
To be brief and exact, duck is an everyday affair in Beijing, from street food stands to banquet halls where it is being treated as a luxurious dish.
Christophe Oswero contributes to the article. The ideas expressed are the author's alone, and do not represent the position of our website.
