At his toilet, a Chinese uses a basin of tepid water and a cloth in his ablutions, and it has been aptly remarked that he never appears so dirty as when trying to clean himself. Shaving is always done by the barber, for no man can shave the top of his head. Whiskers are never worn, even by the very few who have them, and mustaches are not considered proper for a man under forty. Pomatum and cologne-water are unknown. Snuff bottles and tobacco pipes are carried and used by both sexes, the practice of chewing betel-nut is confined to the men, and reddens their teeth, notwithstanding the pains taken to keep them white. The articles of food which the Chinese eat, and the mode and ceremonies attending their feasts, have aided in giving them the odd character they bear abroad, though uncouth or unsavory viands hardly form an infinitesimal portion of their food, and ceremonious feasts not one in a thousand of their repasts. Travellers have so often spoken of birdsnest soup, canine hams, and grimalkin fricasees, rats, snakes, worms, and other culinary novelties, served up in equally strange ways, that their readers get the idea that these articles form as large a proportion of the food as their description does of the narrative. In general, the diet of the Chinese is sufficient in variety, wholesome, and well cooked, though many of the dishes are unpalatable to a European from the vegetable oil used in their preparation, and the alliaceous plants introduced to savor them. In the assortment of dishes, Barrow has truly said, "that there is a wider difference, perhaps, between the rich and the poor of China than in any other country. That wealth, which if permitted would be expended in flattering the vanity of its possessors, is now applied to the purchase of dainties to pamper the appetite." The proportion of animal food is probably smaller among the Chinese than other nations on the same latitude, one dish of fish or flesh, and sometimes both, being the usual allowance on the tables of the poor. Rice, millet, and wheat furnish most of the cereal food; the first is emphatically the staff of life, and considered indispensable all over the country. Its long use is indicated in the number of terms employed to describe it, and the variety of allusions to it in common expressions. To take a meal is chih fan, i. e. eat rice; and the salutation equivalent to how d'ye? is chih kwo fan? i. e. have you eaten rice? The grain is de COMMON DIET OF THE CHINESE. 43 prived of its skin by wooden pestles worked in a mortar by levers, either by a water-wheel, or more commonly by oxen or men. It is cleaned by rubbing it in an earthen dish scored on the inside, and steamed in a shallow iron boiler partly filled with water, over which a basket or sieve containing the rice is supported on a framework; a wooden dish fits over the whole and confines the steam. By this process the kernels are thoroughly cooked without forming a pasty mass as when boiled in water. Bread, vegetables, and other articles are cooked in a similar manner; four or five sieves, each of them full, and nicely fitting into each other, are placed upon the boiler, and covered with a cowl; in the water beneath which supplies the steam, meats or other things are boiled at the same time. Wheat flour is boiled into cakes, dumplings, and other articles, but not baked into bread; foreigners at Canton are, however, supplied with loaves of a pretty good quality; cakes are also made of rice and millet flour. Maize, buckwheat, oats, and barley, are not ground, but the grain is cooked in various ways, alone or mixed with other dishes. The Chinese have a long list of culinary vegetables, and much of their agriculture consists in rearing them. Leguminous and cruciferous plants occupy the largest part of the kitchen garden; many sorts of peas and beans are cultivated, and the pods and seeds of two species of Dolichos are eaten, and the beans of another species made into soy by boiling and powdering the kernels, and then fermenting them with yeast, and mixing other ingredients according to the taste of the maker or purchaser. Another still more common condiment made from beans, is called bean curd or bean jam, by boiling and grinding them, and mixing the flour with water, gypsum, and the juice of yellow seeds. Vegetables are mostly cultivated to supply the region where they are grown, and not for exportation further than the nearest market town. The quantity consumed of cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, cress, colewort, and other plants of the same family, is enormous; and many modes are adopted for cooking, preserving, and improving them. The leaves and stems of many plants besides these are included in the variety of greens, and a complete enumeration of them would form a curious list. Lettuce, sow thistle (Sonchus), spinach, celery, dandelion, succory, sweet basil, ginger, mustard, radishes, artemisia, amaranthus, tacca, pig weed (Chenopodium), purslane, shepherd's purse, clover, At his toilet, a Chinese uses a basin of tepid water and a cloth in his ablutions, and it has been aptly remarked that he never appears so dirty as when trying to clean himself. Shaving is always done by the barber, for no man can shave the top of his head. Whiskers are never worn, even by the very few who have them, and mustaches are not considered proper for a man under forty. Pomatum and cologne-water are unknown. Snuff bottles and tobacco pipes are carried and used by both sexes, the practice of chewing betel-nut is confined to the men, and reddens their teeth, notwithstanding the pains taken to keep them white./ The articles of food which the Chinese eat, and the mode and ceremonies attending their feasts, have aided in giving them the odd character they bear abroad, though uncouth or unsavory viands hardly form an infinitesimal portion of their food, and ceremonious feasts not one in a thousand of their repasts. Travellers have so often spoken of birdsnest soup, canine hams, and grimalkin fricasees, rats, snakes, worms, and other culinary novelties, served up in equally strange ways, that their readers get the idea that these articles form as large a proportion of the food as their description does of the narrative. In general, the diet of the Chinese is sufficient in variety, wholesome, and well cooked, though many of the dishes are unpalatable to a European from the vegetable oil used in their preparation, and the alliaceous plants introduced to savor them. In the assortment of dishes, Barrow has truly said, "that there is a wider difference, perhaps, between the rich and the poor of China than in any other country. That wealth, which if permitted would be expended in flattering the vanity of its possessors, is now applied to the purchase of dainties to pamper the appetite.” The proportion of animal food is probably smaller among the Chinese than other nations on the same latitude, one dish of fish or flesh, and sometimes both, being the usual allowance on the tables of the poor. Rice, millet, and wheat furnish most of the cereal food; the first is emphatically the staff of life, and considered indispensable all over the country. Its long use is indicated in the number of terms employed to describe it, and the variety of allusions to it in common expressions. To take a meal is chih fan, i. e. eat rice; and the salutation equivalent to how d'ye? is chih kwo fan? i. e. have you eaten rice? The grain is de COMMON DIET OF THE CHINESE. 43 prived of its skin by wooden pestles worked in a mortar by levers, either by a water-wheel, or more commonly by oxen or men. It is cleaned by rubbing it in an earthen dish scored on the inside, and steamed in a shallow iron boiler partly filled with water, over which a basket or sieve containing the rice is supported on a framework; a wooden dish fits over the whole and confines the steam. By this process the kernels are thoroughly cooked without forming a pasty mass as when boiled in water. Bread, vegetables, and other articles are cooked in a similar manner; four or five sieves, each of them full, and nicely fitting into each other, are placed upon the boiler, and covered with a cowl; in the water beneath which supplies the steam, meats or other things are boiled at the same time. Wheat flour is boiled into cakes, dumplings, and other articles, but not baked into bread; foreigners at Canton are, however, supplied with loaves of a pretty good quality; cakes are also made of rice and millet flour. Maize, buckwheat, oats, and barley, are not ground, but the grain is cooked in various ways, alone or mixed with other dishes. The Chinese have a long list of culinary vegetables, and much of their agriculture consists in rearing them. Leguminous and cruciferous plants occupy the largest part of the kitchen garden; many sorts of peas and beans are cultivated, and the pods and seeds of two species of Dolichos are eaten, and the beans of another species made into soy by boiling and powdering the kernels, and then fermenting them with yeast, and mixing other ingredients according to the taste of the maker or purchaser. Another still more common condiment made from beans, is called bean curd or bean jam, by boiling and grinding them, and mixing the flour with water, gypsum, and the juice of yellow seeds. Vegetables are mostly cultivated to supply the region where they are grown, and not for exportation further than the nearest market town. The quantity consumed of cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, cress, colewort, and other plants of the same family, is enormous; and many modes are adopted for cooking, preserving, and improving them. The leaves and stems of many plants besides these are included in the variety of greens, and a complete enumeration of them would form a curious list. Lettuce, Sow thistle (Sonchus), spinach, celery, dandelion, succory, sweet basil, ginger, mustard, radishes, artemisia, amaranthus, tacca, pig weed (Chenopodium), purslane, shepherd's purse, clover, beans, peas, and others having no English names, all furnish green leaves for Chinese tables. Garlics, leeks, scallions, onions, and chives, are eaten by all classes, perceived upon all persons, and smelt in all rooms where they are eating or cooking. Carrots, gourds, squashes, cucumbers, watermelons, tomatoes, turnips, radishes, brinjal, pumpkins, okers, &c., are among the list of garden vegetables seen in the streets of Canton; the variety of cucurbitaceous plants extends to nearly twenty. Most of the vegetables raised are inferior to the same articles in the markets of western cities, where science has improved their size or flavor. Several aquatic plants increase the list, among which the nelumbium covers extensive marshes in the eastern and northern provinces, otherwise unsightly and barren. The root is two or three feet long, and pierced longitudinally with several holes; when boiled it is of a yellowish color and sweetish taste not unlike a turnip. Taro is used less than the nelumbium, and so are the water-caltrops and water-chestnuts. The taste of water-caltrops when boiled resembles that of new cheese; water-chestnuts are the round roots of a kind of sedge, and resemble that fruit in color more than in taste, which is mealy and crisp. The sweet potatoe is the most common tuber, for although the Irish potatoe has been cultivated about Canton and Whampoa for scores of years, it has not become a common vegetable among the people. The catalogue of fruits comprises most of those occurring elsewhere in the tropic and temperate zones, but their quality is inferior. This is particularly the case with apples, pears, peaches, and plums, none of which have received the care or attained the flavor given to them in Europe. The pears are large and juicy, sometimes weighing 8 or 10 lbs., but remarkably tasteless and coarse; the apples are still worse, being dry and spongy. The peaches, plums, quinces, and apricots, are comparatively better; there are four or five varieties of the first, one of them found at Shanghai is ten inches and more in circumference. Cherries are almost unknown. The orange is the most common fruit at the south, and the baskets, stalls, and piles of this golden fruit, mixed with and heightened by contrast with other fruits and green vegetables, which line the streets of Canton and Amoy in winter, present a beautiful sight. Ten or twelve distinct species of the Citrus grow in China, including the lemon, |