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I'm here in Shanghai, one of the biggest cities in the world, | 0:00:07 | 0:00:11 | |
and it's also, I'm told, | 0:00:11 | 0:00:12 | |
the most exciting city at the moment for cooking. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:16 | |
I like to travel around the world and pick up dishes, | 0:00:16 | 0:00:19 | |
I'm a bit of a magpie. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:20 | |
But I don't like reading about them, | 0:00:20 | 0:00:22 | |
I just like going out and trying them | 0:00:22 | 0:00:24 | |
and smelling them, tasting them, | 0:00:24 | 0:00:26 | |
seeing the colour, hearing the sounds of a city like this. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:30 | |
I think I know quite a lot about Chinese cooking, | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
but actually I only really know about Cantonese cuisine | 0:00:33 | 0:00:37 | |
and there's so much more in China. | 0:00:37 | 0:00:39 | |
And I'm here to pick up ideas and add to my repertoire. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:43 | |
But what I'm really excited about is getting out into the streets | 0:00:43 | 0:00:47 | |
and seeing what it's all about. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:49 | |
So what is it about Shanghai? | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
100 years ago it was a byword for the exotic, | 0:01:04 | 0:01:07 | |
the forbidden, the dangerous. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:09 | |
After the war, under Communism, it went into hiding for about 30 years. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:14 | |
But since the '80s, it's become a global financial centre | 0:01:14 | 0:01:19 | |
to rival London, New York and Hong Kong. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:22 | |
And with all that cash, | 0:01:22 | 0:01:23 | |
restaurants have opened up at a rate of knots | 0:01:23 | 0:01:26 | |
and chefs have been drawn here from all over the world. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
I find it really interesting, I've never been here before, | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
but Shanghai was knows as the Paris of the east, | 0:01:34 | 0:01:38 | |
also the pearl of the east. | 0:01:38 | 0:01:41 | |
But conversely it was also known as the whore of the orient, | 0:01:41 | 0:01:44 | |
this sort of rather sleazy rundown place, | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
the centre of the opium trade. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:50 | |
But to me, very interesting, what I'm here for is the food of course, | 0:01:50 | 0:01:55 | |
the Shanghainese dishes. | 0:01:55 | 0:01:57 | |
But are they still here, I wonder? | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
Because everything's changing, | 0:01:59 | 0:02:01 | |
there's so many western restaurants opening here. | 0:02:01 | 0:02:04 | |
What's happening to Shanghainese cooking | 0:02:04 | 0:02:07 | |
because, at the end of the day as far I'm concerned, | 0:02:07 | 0:02:11 | |
food is about culture, | 0:02:11 | 0:02:12 | |
and if you lose your cuisine, you lose your culture. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
My Shanghai journey starts in the heart of the city, | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
my cheffy friends told me about the most famous iconic, I suppose, | 0:02:24 | 0:02:28 | |
dish here - a dumpling. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:31 | |
A most fabulous dumpling | 0:02:31 | 0:02:33 | |
filled with soup and bits of crab or pork, or chicken. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:37 | |
This is a first for me, a new taste. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:40 | |
-Terrible weather. -Yeah. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
My translator Jia Jia splashed through a Shanghai shower with me | 0:02:46 | 0:02:50 | |
to one of the oldest dumpling restaurants in the city. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:54 | |
-It's coming. -Oh, good. Oh, I love these. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:58 | |
So, which is which? | 0:02:58 | 0:03:00 | |
This one is a hairy crab dumpling. This one is pork. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:04 | |
-OK. -Actually, you can pick it up and take a little nap... | 0:03:04 | 0:03:10 | |
-A little nap? You mean a little nip? -Nip, yes. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:13 | |
And you can take out the soup... | 0:03:15 | 0:03:17 | |
-Suck it out. -Yeah, suck it out. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
-Yeah. -And then... | 0:03:19 | 0:03:21 | |
-Oh, so good. -Yeah. And put it into the vinegar. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
Mm. And taste the whole dumpling. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:30 | |
-That's exquisite. -Yeah, delicious. -So yummy. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:38 | |
And you have hairy crab smell in the mouth, so very seafood. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:43 | |
-Lovely taste of the crab. -Yeah. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:45 | |
Let's try a pork one then. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
-So...this is possibly the most famous food in Shanghai? -Oh, yes. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:56 | |
It's very typical. Oh, be careful! | 0:03:56 | 0:03:58 | |
Well, that had to happen. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:02 | |
Yes. It's actually, for foreigners, not easy to take the tips of taking dumplings. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:08 | |
That's OK. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:09 | |
I never really understood the point of the spoon | 0:04:09 | 0:04:11 | |
and the chopsticks before. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:13 | |
In dumplings, there's always a lot of soup inside. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
-Inside? -Yes, so you might need it to take out the soup. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:20 | |
In this shop they serve 1,000 dumplings a day, mostly for lunch. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:27 | |
You would be forgiven for imagining | 0:04:27 | 0:04:29 | |
that Xia Long Bao had been here forever, but no. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:33 | |
Mrs Chen's family fell foul of the authorities during | 0:04:33 | 0:04:36 | |
the Cultural Revolution and they couldn't get jobs because | 0:04:36 | 0:04:40 | |
of their bourgeois connections. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:43 | |
In the mid-'80s, | 0:04:43 | 0:04:44 | |
their only way forward was to start their own little business. | 0:04:44 | 0:04:49 | |
SHE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE | 0:04:54 | 0:04:56 | |
Rick, this is the owner, Mrs Chen. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:59 | |
Would you thank her very much. I'm very impressed. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE | 0:05:02 | 0:05:09 | |
-You're welcome. -Thank you. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:11 | |
There are tens of thousands of restaurants here, | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
the whole gamut as you can imagine. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
Street food to fusion to nouvelle cuisine. Yes, it's still with us. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:24 | |
It's a bit of knack to find the best places to eat in a new city, | 0:05:24 | 0:05:28 | |
but I think I've got it, | 0:05:28 | 0:05:30 | |
and I just want some great recipes to take home. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:33 | |
Now this is right up my street. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:37 | |
The night market at Shounin Road is teeming with punters | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
from early evening to the small hours, all in search of seafood. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:47 | |
Plump crayfish, succulent lobsters | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
and huge oysters cooked to order on open-air griddles. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
I can't begin to tell you how exciting this is for a seafood cook. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:58 | |
I've never seen so much seafood ready to eat, | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
but what I'm really after is the local hairy crabs. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:05 | |
They're revered by the locals and I wrote down this quote | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
from a 17th century local playwright called Li Yu. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:13 | |
"While my heart lusts after them | 0:06:13 | 0:06:16 | |
"and my mouth enjoys their delectable taste, | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
"I can't even begin to describe why I adore their sweet taste | 0:06:19 | 0:06:24 | |
"and why I can never forget them. Dear, crab, Dear, crab, | 0:06:24 | 0:06:29 | |
"You and I are to be lifelong companions." | 0:06:29 | 0:06:33 | |
After a such a eulogy I can't wait to try some. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:40 | |
Here to guide me is Jamie Barys who runs food tours in the city. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:44 | |
So there we have steamed hairy crab. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
They're going to be quite hot, | 0:06:58 | 0:07:00 | |
so we're going to have to give them a minute | 0:07:00 | 0:07:02 | |
before you want to start ripping right into them. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:04 | |
The hairy crab isn't actually all that hairy, | 0:07:04 | 0:07:07 | |
apart from a generous tuft on its meaty forearms and not much else. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:12 | |
-Do you have a male or a female? -I got a female. -All right, good. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:17 | |
Lovely roe. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:18 | |
Dip it in a little bit of vinegar. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:21 | |
-So hairy crab is famously very sweet. -That's famously sweet. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:25 | |
Shanghainese food in general is very sweet, so this... | 0:07:25 | 0:07:28 | |
I'm just going to try some without the vinegar. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:30 | |
That is very good crab. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:34 | |
-I actually do know a thing or two about crabs. -Yeah. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:39 | |
Cos I'm a seafood cook back in the UK. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:42 | |
But this is good. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:44 | |
So tell me about Shanghainese cuisine, cos I know the hairy crabs | 0:07:44 | 0:07:47 | |
is really essential to them, that's right at the centre of it all. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:51 | |
So Shanghainese cuisine is kind of the red-headed | 0:07:51 | 0:07:54 | |
stepchild of Chinese cuisine, | 0:07:54 | 0:07:56 | |
so there's four major cuisines that are on the compass point. | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
And the one that's in the east is called Huaiyang. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
And Shanghainese is a branch of Huaiyang cuisine. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
It's a bit sweeter and has a lot more foreign influences | 0:08:04 | 0:08:08 | |
than a lot of the other cuisines in China | 0:08:08 | 0:08:10 | |
because historically Shanghai has always been a port town. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:14 | |
But I love it and once you find good places serving Shanghainese cuisine, | 0:08:14 | 0:08:18 | |
and not ones that hide behind the sugar | 0:08:18 | 0:08:20 | |
and the vinegar, then you have some excellent food. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:22 | |
So what did you call it again? | 0:08:22 | 0:08:24 | |
The red-headed stepchild of Chinese cuisine. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
Aw! | 0:08:28 | 0:08:31 | |
We call them wrangers back in the UK. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:33 | |
But I feel very protective towards red-headed stepchilds | 0:08:33 | 0:08:37 | |
because I was a wranger once. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
-Really? -Yeah. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:42 | |
-To the hairy crab. -To the hairy crab. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
Well, that's my first hairy crab experience. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
Yum. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:51 | |
On my own personal culinary scale I'd give it about eight out of ten. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:57 | |
It's good, but a Cornish spider crab straight from the sea | 0:08:57 | 0:09:01 | |
with all lovely white leg meat takes some beating. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:04 | |
We're in the former French Concession, | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
once a trading enclave within the city, | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
a little piece of France inside China. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:19 | |
I've been tipped off about a fantastic place for breakfast, | 0:09:19 | 0:09:22 | |
and there's always a queue because it's so good. | 0:09:22 | 0:09:26 | |
Mr Wu's spring onion pancakes | 0:09:27 | 0:09:29 | |
or scallion pancakes as they call them around here are a legend, | 0:09:29 | 0:09:33 | |
some people absolutely love them, | 0:09:33 | 0:09:36 | |
others say they're a bit too heavy with lard. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:38 | |
Well, the jury's out. I'm looking forward to trying them. | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
Actually, the queue is much longer earlier in the morning, so I | 0:09:41 | 0:09:45 | |
came a bit late for my breakfast so I didn't have to wait too long. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:49 | |
I'm watching everything he does and making notes. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:55 | |
It looks to me like the secret of these pancakes is lots of lard, | 0:09:55 | 0:09:59 | |
a big handful of scallions and a ball of fatty pork mince | 0:09:59 | 0:10:04 | |
stuffed into the dough which will be bursting with flavour. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:08 | |
So how long do you have to wait normally? | 0:10:11 | 0:10:13 | |
I would be here more than one hour just for the delicious food. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:17 | |
-Really? -Yeah. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:19 | |
-More than one hour. -So what makes them so special? | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
Al of my family, including my kids, love the flavour very much. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:27 | |
It's a very traditional Chinese flavour from when I was a young kid. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:32 | |
I like to eat this kind of street food. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:36 | |
-It's nice smelling... -It smells lovely. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
Smell of lard. I'm really looking forward to it. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:43 | |
Well, I suppose I better get back to my place at the back. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:47 | |
-Yeah. Enjoy. -Thank you. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
I know it's a bit fanciful, | 0:10:55 | 0:10:57 | |
but I couldn't help thinking that Mr Wu would make a fine character | 0:10:57 | 0:11:01 | |
in a Kurosawa film, Seven Samurai springs to mind. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:05 | |
I know the Chinese and Japanese | 0:11:07 | 0:11:09 | |
don't actually see eye-to-eye most of time, | 0:11:09 | 0:11:12 | |
but here is, without a shadow of doubt, a master of his craft, | 0:11:12 | 0:11:15 | |
a teacher of tradition and excellence. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:18 | |
To me in this busy thrusting city, he's a reminder of the past | 0:11:22 | 0:11:27 | |
and I just know these cakes that smell quite wonderful, | 0:11:27 | 0:11:30 | |
by the way, are going to be fabulous. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:33 | |
What really tastes good to me is the lard he cooked them in. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:41 | |
I love the taste of lard, | 0:11:41 | 0:11:42 | |
it takes me back to my childhood, funnily enough. | 0:11:42 | 0:11:46 | |
It's deliciously crisp and doughy and very savoury, | 0:11:47 | 0:11:52 | |
with the pork inside and the spring onions. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:56 | |
I think queuing for food like that, | 0:11:57 | 0:11:59 | |
anticipating, is great cos it's time to stand and reflect, | 0:11:59 | 0:12:05 | |
think about life, think about what you really enjoy in life. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:09 | |
I'm a fan. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:11 | |
I would wait an hour, but maybe not two. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:14 | |
These I know would go like hotcakes back in Padstow. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:24 | |
Seriously, a little stall by the sea | 0:12:24 | 0:12:26 | |
and the smell of Mr Wu's scallion pancakes | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
would give any cheese and onion pasty a run for its money. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:33 | |
Filming in somewhere like Shanghai can be a bit of a difficulty | 0:12:36 | 0:12:40 | |
because there's a lot of bureaucracy, not just China, | 0:12:40 | 0:12:44 | |
it was bad in India too, but this one is quite baffling, to be honest. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
We were going to go and film just down there, | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
which is where Mao Zedong convened | 0:12:50 | 0:12:53 | |
the first Chinese Communist Party congress in 1923. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
And the reason I wanted to go there simply in my humble culinary way | 0:12:57 | 0:13:02 | |
was that Chairman Mao loved one particular dish - | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
Chinese red-braised pork. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
Now that dish is held by many people to be great brain food | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
and that's why people felt that Mao Zedong was so bright. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:18 | |
That's all I wanted to say, | 0:13:18 | 0:13:21 | |
but no, for some inexplicable reason we can't film this famous building. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:27 | |
So let's turn now to what we're actually here for | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
and that's inspirational food. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
For a modern take on Shanghainese cuisine, | 0:13:40 | 0:13:43 | |
I've come to meet Anthony Zhao, a local TV chef. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
He's going to show me how to make one of his most famous dishes - | 0:13:47 | 0:13:51 | |
Chairman Mao's favourite. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:53 | |
Thank you for coming. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:55 | |
-Red-braised pork. -Yes. -Fabulous. -Follow me. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
Anthony was trained in western cuisine | 0:13:59 | 0:14:02 | |
and worked for years in European fine dining, | 0:14:02 | 0:14:06 | |
but now he's returned to his Shanghainese roots. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:09 | |
One thing that characterises the food here is | 0:14:12 | 0:14:15 | |
the so-called Holy Trinity of sugar, soy and oil. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:19 | |
But I think it's really a quartet | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
because they use serious amounts of yellow rice wine too. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:25 | |
First he fries spring onions with ginger, star anise | 0:14:25 | 0:14:30 | |
and cassia bark - it's a bit like cinnamon - | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
and a bay leaf. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:34 | |
Then he adds fat cubes of belly pork. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:39 | |
That's what we call five-layer pork. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:44 | |
-How come? -Because they have five layers, skin, fat, meat... | 0:14:44 | 0:14:51 | |
-That's belly pork though? -It's belly pork. -OK. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:53 | |
-Good texture. So this Shaoxing wine. -OK. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:57 | |
-I would say use sherry. -Yes! | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
Yeah, I like sherry. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:03 | |
Sherry has the same flavour, actually. Very similar flavour. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
So how come you use dark and light soy? | 0:15:08 | 0:15:11 | |
That's my secret, actually. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:13 | |
I'm sorry. I'll cut it out. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
Lots of people, they just use dark soy sauce. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
I just figured out if I have light soy sauce I don't need to put MSG. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:25 | |
He's putting in some rock sugar because | 0:15:27 | 0:15:29 | |
it goes so well with the pork and soy sauce. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:32 | |
I don't know why, for some reason rock sugar will make this shininess on the meat, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:39 | |
so the meat looks much better and even tastes much better. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:44 | |
Everybody has their own recipe, | 0:15:44 | 0:15:46 | |
but my recipe is add little bit of vinegar | 0:15:46 | 0:15:49 | |
because I believe vinegar can cut the fat through. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:53 | |
What do you call that vinegar? | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
This is Chinese dark vinegar. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:58 | |
But sometimes if you can't find it, you can use balsamic vinegar. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
OK, same colour and just a bit of sweetness to that. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:05 | |
Yeah, it's OK cos it's already very sweet, so it doesn't matter. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:10 | |
So now you slowly cook probably 40 minutes to an hour. | 0:16:10 | 0:16:15 | |
-OK. Good stuff. -Yeah. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
Antony's wife, she's a food writer, Crystyl Mo joins us for lunch. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:23 | |
And in front of us this glistening pork dish just waiting to be tried. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:27 | |
So traditionally we eat this always with rice. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:34 | |
So if you have a big mouth... | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
Big enough, so you put a little bit of rice with the meat | 0:16:39 | 0:16:44 | |
-and just one bite. -Oh, boy. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:47 | |
That's a big bite. How is it? | 0:16:48 | 0:16:52 | |
Oh! | 0:16:52 | 0:16:54 | |
-It's exquisite. -Is it? -Yeah. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:57 | |
-The fattiness and the sweet... -Sweetness. -Yeah. | 0:16:57 | 0:17:01 | |
It's just like when you dream of Chinese food... | 0:17:01 | 0:17:04 | |
it's something like that. | 0:17:04 | 0:17:06 | |
Oh, wow! That makes me very surprised. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:08 | |
I always worry western people won't like this dish. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:11 | |
-What?! -Sweet, fatty food, you know, how can they like it? | 0:17:11 | 0:17:15 | |
Perfection. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:17 | |
So the whole atmosphere of Shanghai is so wonderfully busy, | 0:17:19 | 0:17:24 | |
luxurious, sophisticated. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:27 | |
I can't imagine what it must have been like during | 0:17:27 | 0:17:29 | |
the Cultural Revolution here. I mean, were there restaurants? | 0:17:29 | 0:17:33 | |
There were basically no restaurants in China. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
I mean, Cultural Revolution people were dirt poor. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
People were on rations. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:40 | |
You got tickets to get food and you would get a little bit of oil, | 0:17:40 | 0:17:44 | |
a little bit of rice, you wouldn't be eating meat. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:46 | |
-You would eat meat, what? Once a month or something. -Yeah. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:49 | |
So the exquisite culinary culture of China | 0:17:49 | 0:17:53 | |
was completely dead during that time. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:55 | |
I just sort of remember in the '60s and '70s, | 0:17:55 | 0:17:57 | |
nobody knew a thing about China, it was just like a dead country. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:01 | |
Oh, yeah. It was a mystery. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
And the idea when suddenly it reappears | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
and you hear about Shanghai, you think, "Where's all that come from?" | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
-It was so sudden. -It was all latent, I suppose. | 0:18:08 | 0:18:13 | |
It was all like...China's waiting to get back into what they knew | 0:18:13 | 0:18:16 | |
and loved. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:18 | |
To now there's 120,000 restaurants in Shanghai, | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
which is just an extraordinary number. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:23 | |
When I'm talking to you both it's sort of really... | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
You're very close. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:28 | |
-Yeah, there's this mythology around Shanghainese husbands... -Which is. | 0:18:28 | 0:18:34 | |
Which is that everyone in China knows | 0:18:34 | 0:18:37 | |
you can date somebody from anywhere, | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
but when you marry a Shanghainese husband | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
because they know how to take care of the household, | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
-they are famous for being great cooks. -Housework? | 0:18:45 | 0:18:50 | |
They do the housework. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:52 | |
I mean, a funny thing you'll only see in Shanghai | 0:18:52 | 0:18:54 | |
and not in other cities is you'll see men holding purses. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:56 | |
They're always holding their girlfriend's or their wife's purses. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
So on the subway you're like, | 0:18:59 | 0:19:01 | |
"There's a lot of transgender people in this city. | 0:19:01 | 0:19:03 | |
"No, actually they're just holding their pink purse | 0:19:03 | 0:19:05 | |
"for their girlfriend or their wife." | 0:19:05 | 0:19:07 | |
You always see guys holding purses. | 0:19:07 | 0:19:09 | |
I'd love to be able to hold a purse. They're so convenient. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:12 | |
-I want to be clear, I don't do this. -He will not do that. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:14 | |
I'm like, "I should never have brought him to the States." | 0:19:14 | 0:19:18 | |
He's like, "What?! Men don't carry purses?" | 0:19:18 | 0:19:21 | |
Curious that. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:22 | |
My wife's always telling me I've got a strong feminine side. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:26 | |
It wouldn't worry me a jot holding her handbag. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
But not all the time. | 0:19:31 | 0:19:33 | |
All this eating, all these lovely meals, | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
it's getting slightly out of balance. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
Jia Jia my interpreter said the best thing I could do | 0:19:43 | 0:19:46 | |
is go to the Peace Park for gentle exercise. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:50 | |
UPBEAT CHINESE POP MUSIC PLAYS | 0:19:54 | 0:19:58 | |
You may not think so, but I take exercise very seriously. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:03 | |
I take a dip every morning in the Camel Estuary, come rain or shine. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:08 | |
I do! | 0:20:08 | 0:20:09 | |
In fact, I've heard people say, "Who's that old geezer?" | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
I can hear them, you know! | 0:20:12 | 0:20:14 | |
I know scenes of Chinese people doing their t'ai chi and dancing | 0:20:17 | 0:20:22 | |
is a bit of a cliche, but here, I think, is a good lesson for us all. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:27 | |
I must say | 0:20:30 | 0:20:31 | |
when I heard we were coming to this park early this morning, | 0:20:31 | 0:20:34 | |
it's now only half past seven, I thought, | 0:20:34 | 0:20:36 | |
"Oh, gosh, not a lot of people dancing." | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
But there are a lot of people dancing and they're all quite old, | 0:20:39 | 0:20:42 | |
probably about as old as me. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:44 | |
But I really enjoyed it. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:46 | |
I think once you get stuck into something like that | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
you sort of lose your inhibitions | 0:20:49 | 0:20:51 | |
and suddenly you realise what it's all about, | 0:20:51 | 0:20:54 | |
so I know I looked a fool, but I really loved it. | 0:20:54 | 0:20:56 | |
I find all this very uplifting. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
After all, China knew the secrets to a long and healthy life | 0:21:02 | 0:21:07 | |
long before the Greeks, long before the Romans, | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
and diet along with exercise was key. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:13 | |
I've already found some fabulous dishes, | 0:21:18 | 0:21:20 | |
Anthony's red-braised pork is a keeper definitely, | 0:21:20 | 0:21:24 | |
so are Mr Wu's yummy scallion pancakes, | 0:21:24 | 0:21:27 | |
but they're both based on fatty pork. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:30 | |
At this rate, I'll be going home at least a stone heavier. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:34 | |
As Confucius says, "The way you cut your meat reflects the way you live." | 0:21:34 | 0:21:40 | |
Now think about it. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:43 | |
While we're pondering on that, | 0:21:44 | 0:21:46 | |
what about the way we've embraced Chinese food? | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
It seems every tiny village in the UK has at least one takeaway. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:55 | |
Now who would have seen that coming? | 0:21:55 | 0:21:57 | |
I'm not blessed with a good memory for names, | 0:21:57 | 0:22:00 | |
but I can remember dishes I've had in my past | 0:22:00 | 0:22:03 | |
and I can remember my first Chinese lunch. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
I was taken out from my boarding school, Uppingham, for a day - | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
because we weren't allowed to sleep out, | 0:22:09 | 0:22:11 | |
we could only go out for the day - by my parents | 0:22:11 | 0:22:13 | |
and we went to Peterborough | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
and I can remember we had crab and sweetcorn soup. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
And I can particularly remember the gloopiness of it | 0:22:19 | 0:22:23 | |
and also the savouriness of it, the umaminess | 0:22:23 | 0:22:26 | |
cos it probably had a bit of MSG in it. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:28 | |
And the next course, because we did have it in courses I remember | 0:22:28 | 0:22:31 | |
cos my parents were quite traditional like that, | 0:22:31 | 0:22:34 | |
was a stir-fry and it was probably beef. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
But it definitely had bean sprouts in it and lots of soy | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
and probably five spice. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
And I was absolutely wrapped by it, actually. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
Finally, of course, I had lychees. I had never tasted anything like it. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:53 | |
And they're a combination of flavours that nobody, | 0:22:53 | 0:22:56 | |
nobody could fail to love. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:58 | |
It's a sunny morning at last. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:05 | |
They say in certain parts of industrial China | 0:23:05 | 0:23:09 | |
that dogs bark at the rare sight of the sun breaking through. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:13 | |
I am that dog on his way to see a spot of fishing, | 0:23:13 | 0:23:16 | |
to leave the city behind and head east | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
to one of Shanghai's nearby islands - Chongming. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:23 | |
And it sits right in the mouth of the longest river in China - | 0:23:25 | 0:23:30 | |
the Yangtze. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:32 | |
Well, I must say, I've seen these Chinese fishing nets all | 0:23:45 | 0:23:49 | |
the way from Italy to India, but I've never seen one in China before. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:53 | |
But this is quite special because it's enormous. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
I'm loving the way they've got it all set up right across the river. | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
Just a little bit worried, I think they need to get on with it | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
because the birds are having all the fish. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:05 | |
It's a bit tricky this filming | 0:24:08 | 0:24:09 | |
because actually they haven't got a lot of fish on this haul. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:13 | |
We should have been here at four o'clock in the morning, | 0:24:13 | 0:24:16 | |
but then we wouldn't have been able to see anything. | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
I love things like this. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:24 | |
I think if I wasn't involved with restaurants | 0:24:24 | 0:24:27 | |
I'd be involved with nets, with pulleys and motors | 0:24:27 | 0:24:29 | |
and all that sort of thing. | 0:24:29 | 0:24:31 | |
I just find it fascinating. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:32 | |
Interestingly, just watching them raising | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
and lowering the nets into the water, | 0:24:35 | 0:24:37 | |
they have to keep the fish alive | 0:24:37 | 0:24:39 | |
because in China freshwater fish really has to be live. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:43 | |
These fishermen seem to work on the basis of one for me, one for you. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:49 | |
They're having white fish for lunch. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:53 | |
It looks like a freshwater bream to me. Actually, I think it's a carp. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:58 | |
I've steamed fish with spring onion and ginger many times, | 0:24:58 | 0:25:02 | |
but this is a first for me to actually see it done in China. | 0:25:02 | 0:25:06 | |
And notice a difference. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:07 | |
First of all, | 0:25:07 | 0:25:08 | |
I'd be really parsimonious with the ginger always. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
I'm just noticing he's putting loads of slices of ginger, | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
plus some chilli as well. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:18 | |
Just a little pinch of MSG, which is fine by me. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
And a good wash of Shaoxing wine, which I've never done. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:26 | |
And a little bit of oil too and a little bit of salt. | 0:25:26 | 0:25:28 | |
Very interesting. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
I sometimes think I can remember every step of the cooking process, | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
but it's so easy to forget one little spoonful of spice | 0:25:35 | 0:25:40 | |
or a twist of lime, so my notes, my precious notes, are vital. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:45 | |
I'm so glad I've seen them cook steamed fish like this because | 0:25:50 | 0:25:53 | |
I've always wanted to know exactly how to do it, and now I know. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:57 | |
It's delicious. | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
I'm actually quite amazed cos I don't think I've ever sat down | 0:25:59 | 0:26:03 | |
with a load of fishermen and ate fish. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
It's just not normally what they'd do | 0:26:06 | 0:26:08 | |
cos I remember years and years ago I made a series in Cornwall. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:12 | |
We went to Newlyn fish market and we went into the cafe there | 0:26:12 | 0:26:15 | |
and asked for some fish. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:17 | |
And they said, "There's no fish here. It's a fishermen's cafe," | 0:26:17 | 0:26:21 | |
meaning fishermen don't actually eat fish. | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
Well, that's been my experience anyway. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
Bacon rolls and Mars bars, yes. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:29 | |
Filet of bream or haddock, definitely no. | 0:26:29 | 0:26:32 | |
Sounds like a sea shanty. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:34 | |
MOBILE PHONE RINGS | 0:26:34 | 0:26:40 | |
Takes me back to Cornwall. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:43 | |
RICK LAUGHS | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
Before I go back to downtown Shanghai | 0:26:52 | 0:26:55 | |
there's somewhere else I want to show you on the island of Chongming. | 0:26:55 | 0:26:59 | |
It's one particular ingredient that turns up in dish after dish - | 0:26:59 | 0:27:03 | |
yellow rice wine. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:06 | |
And it's made from fermented glutinous rice. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:09 | |
In this winery | 0:27:10 | 0:27:11 | |
the wine they make is more for drinking than cooking with, | 0:27:11 | 0:27:15 | |
and that's fine by me. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:16 | |
I'd like to taste, but the owner, Mr Yu, wants to show me | 0:27:16 | 0:27:20 | |
the whole production process. It always happens. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:24 | |
I'm told he's very, very funny. | 0:27:28 | 0:27:30 | |
Frustrating because I don't speak Mandarin | 0:27:30 | 0:27:32 | |
and he can't speak a word of English, but I know I like him. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
Look at his face. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE | 0:27:42 | 0:27:47 | |
The temperature of it is going to be brought down | 0:27:47 | 0:27:51 | |
first by adding some cold water and a little bit of warm | 0:27:51 | 0:27:54 | |
just so that it's exactly the right temperature for | 0:27:54 | 0:27:58 | |
the third phase of this, which is adding yeast for fermentation. | 0:27:58 | 0:28:02 | |
Very appetising aroma. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
Mr Yu used to be a government official, | 0:28:09 | 0:28:12 | |
but he says he was born in to wine and he has good taste buds for it. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:16 | |
His father, like most people on the island, | 0:28:16 | 0:28:19 | |
used to make it for the family. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:21 | |
The reason they're making that rice into that cone shape is | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
as it ferments the liquid comes out of the rice into that well | 0:28:26 | 0:28:30 | |
and they can tell at what stage it is. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:32 | |
If they had left all the rice | 0:28:32 | 0:28:34 | |
the liquid would have been underneath | 0:28:34 | 0:28:36 | |
and they wouldn't be able to see it. | 0:28:36 | 0:28:38 | |
It takes three weeks to ferment | 0:28:38 | 0:28:40 | |
and by that time the liquid is almost clear. | 0:28:40 | 0:28:44 | |
It's yellow but clear, | 0:28:44 | 0:28:46 | |
leaving the rice sediment in the bottom of the jar. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:50 | |
I think this is probably ready to drink. | 0:28:50 | 0:28:52 | |
And I can see why they call it yellow rice wine. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:55 | |
I don't know where the colour's come from, but it is yellow. | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
That's nice. | 0:29:00 | 0:29:01 | |
I think I should mention at this point that this wine | 0:29:01 | 0:29:04 | |
is considerably stronger than your average Chardonnay. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:08 | |
I like the cups. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:10 | |
Crikey! | 0:29:14 | 0:29:16 | |
Cheers. | 0:29:24 | 0:29:26 | |
I really like this wine. | 0:29:29 | 0:29:32 | |
It's sort of like... I tasted like really old burgundy, funnily enough. | 0:29:32 | 0:29:36 | |
It's got real...real... Sorry. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:39 | |
HE CLEARS THROAT | 0:29:39 | 0:29:41 | |
Drunk all mine. | 0:29:43 | 0:29:44 | |
It's nice. | 0:29:47 | 0:29:49 | |
HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE | 0:29:49 | 0:29:53 | |
What he says is that this wine above all others, | 0:29:55 | 0:29:59 | |
you can drink it and it makes your head clearer and clearer. | 0:29:59 | 0:30:03 | |
You never get a headache. I really like it. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:07 | |
Mmm. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:10 | |
Ha! | 0:30:10 | 0:30:12 | |
# Why did I tell you I was going to Shanghai? | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
# I want to be with you tonight | 0:30:17 | 0:30:20 | |
# Why did I holler I was going to Shanghai? | 0:30:20 | 0:30:23 | |
# I want to be with you tonight. # | 0:30:23 | 0:30:25 | |
The hottest restaurant ticket in town at the moment is Fu, | 0:30:27 | 0:30:31 | |
the name means good fortune and the waiting list is weeks long. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:36 | |
I'm lucky to get in. | 0:30:36 | 0:30:37 | |
It's lovely. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:39 | |
I've been invited to dine with the owner Mr Fang and his wife Rhianna. | 0:30:39 | 0:30:44 | |
And as a treat, because no-one's normally allowed in, | 0:30:44 | 0:30:47 | |
I've been ushered into the kitchen. | 0:30:47 | 0:30:49 | |
This is sauteed shrimp. | 0:30:51 | 0:30:53 | |
It's a curious mixture of great simplicity and total sophistication. | 0:30:53 | 0:30:58 | |
The shrimp are deep-fried for exactly eight seconds. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:04 | |
Then they're washed in boiling water, | 0:31:04 | 0:31:07 | |
drained and quickly shallow fried. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:09 | |
To finish, a tiny bit of cornflour mixed with egg white is added, | 0:31:11 | 0:31:16 | |
which gives them a silky coating. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:19 | |
The whole process takes less than two minutes. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:22 | |
I can't wait to try them, they're bursting with freshness. | 0:31:22 | 0:31:26 | |
We sit down to find cold starters. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:33 | |
One is lotus root stuffed with glutinous rice, | 0:31:33 | 0:31:36 | |
but this one has a western touch - a spun sugar cage. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:42 | |
And the red-braised pork has truffles in it! | 0:31:42 | 0:31:45 | |
Truffles?! Sacrilege. But delicious. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:48 | |
It's fusion food, but with a Shanghainese heart. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:52 | |
You don't need to eat the tail of the shrimp. | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
-I like it. -You like it? OK. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:01 | |
-How is it? -Very good. It's all very wonderful. It's very delicate. | 0:32:01 | 0:32:06 | |
Thank you. | 0:32:06 | 0:32:08 | |
-Is this eel? -Eel. -Gosh! | 0:32:08 | 0:32:10 | |
I like the presentation of that with the bone on it. | 0:32:12 | 0:32:15 | |
-It looks really good. -Thank you. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:17 | |
And guess what this yellow dish is? It looks and smells lovely. | 0:32:17 | 0:32:21 | |
Well, it's my old chum. | 0:32:21 | 0:32:24 | |
-This is hairy crab. -Yes. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:27 | |
-How is it? -Exceptional. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:31 | |
I use the word too much, but it's fragrant. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:35 | |
-It just tastes so fragrant of crab. -That's it. -I love it. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:41 | |
I might have a bit more. | 0:32:41 | 0:32:43 | |
I love this way of eating. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:46 | |
The more courses there are on the table the better it is for me. | 0:32:46 | 0:32:50 | |
Eating divides people. | 0:32:50 | 0:32:52 | |
There are those who love to eat like this, sharing, discussing, | 0:32:52 | 0:32:55 | |
tasting, comparing. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:58 | |
And there are those that sit over their own plate of food | 0:32:58 | 0:33:01 | |
guarding it like a bull dog. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:03 | |
Oh, yes! I've known a few of those, believe you me. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:07 | |
And what was the idea of the restaurant in the first place? | 0:33:07 | 0:33:11 | |
Old Shanghai cuisine is very delicious but not... | 0:33:11 | 0:33:16 | |
Not very beautiful. | 0:33:18 | 0:33:19 | |
And especially like a foreigner like you, if it's not very beautiful | 0:33:19 | 0:33:24 | |
maybe you guys not accept it very easily. | 0:33:24 | 0:33:29 | |
Mr Fang gets the restaurant gene from his mum | 0:33:29 | 0:33:33 | |
who ran a very popular down to earth late-night diner. | 0:33:33 | 0:33:37 | |
You'd think she'd be awed by his success, wouldn't you? | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE | 0:33:40 | 0:33:42 | |
THEY CHUCKLE | 0:33:42 | 0:33:43 | |
What does your mother think of what you've done? | 0:33:43 | 0:33:46 | |
She thinks... | 0:33:46 | 0:33:48 | |
HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE | 0:33:48 | 0:33:54 | |
Mother always think, "Oh, you are not doing good enough." | 0:33:54 | 0:33:58 | |
-Really? -He think he can do much, much more. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:01 | |
A lot of things need to do. | 0:34:01 | 0:34:04 | |
How funny. Mothers are the same the whole world over. | 0:34:04 | 0:34:07 | |
Different thinks. | 0:34:07 | 0:34:09 | |
Well, what I think, what it's worth is what I'm seeing here is | 0:34:10 | 0:34:16 | |
the food is recognisably Shanghainese cooking. | 0:34:16 | 0:34:20 | |
It's not fancy international cooking. It's Chinese fine dining. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:25 | |
-Thank you. -Congratulations. -Thank you. | 0:34:25 | 0:34:29 | |
What I love about Shanghai is that it's a city of huge food contrasts. | 0:34:40 | 0:34:46 | |
Nestling among the skyscrapers are a few islands of old Shanghai | 0:34:46 | 0:34:51 | |
still as they were 100 years ago. | 0:34:51 | 0:34:54 | |
Neighbours bustle about, each one growing herbs | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
and salads on the pavement in front of their houses. | 0:34:57 | 0:35:01 | |
Their back yards and gardens have long gone, | 0:35:01 | 0:35:03 | |
but they still have the urge to grow as much as they can. | 0:35:03 | 0:35:07 | |
One of the popular snacks around is | 0:35:14 | 0:35:16 | |
a big plate of noodles from cheap dives, | 0:35:16 | 0:35:18 | |
which are little more than holes in the wall, | 0:35:18 | 0:35:21 | |
where the tables spill out onto the street. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:25 | |
Our translator Jia Jia is a big fan. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:27 | |
Apparently noodle shop owners are famous for being very grumpy. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:31 | |
Oh, good. Here comes Jia Jia. I was just a little bit worried | 0:35:35 | 0:35:38 | |
because we were researching this restaurant which sells | 0:35:38 | 0:35:42 | |
pig intestine noodles, | 0:35:42 | 0:35:43 | |
the restaurant is also called pig intestine noodles, | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
they told us to go away, they didn't want any filming. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
They've got enough customers... Thank you very much. | 0:35:49 | 0:35:51 | |
So I'm very glad you're back with the pig intestine noodles. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:54 | |
And I'm sort of looking forward to eating them. | 0:35:54 | 0:35:58 | |
-Shall we begin? -Yes, of course. | 0:35:58 | 0:36:00 | |
-Well, Jia Jia... Are you all right? -Yeah, fine. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
-This is a first for me. -Yes, please. -Thank you. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:09 | |
-How you feeling? -Yeah, not too bad. | 0:36:12 | 0:36:15 | |
-Yes? -Mmm. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:17 | |
-Can you accept this? -Can I accept it? I like your use of English. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:20 | |
Yes, I can accept it, actually | 0:36:20 | 0:36:23 | |
because I've tasted similar things in France called andouillette. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:26 | |
Oh, OK. | 0:36:26 | 0:36:27 | |
And the more piggy they taste the more they like them. | 0:36:27 | 0:36:30 | |
-And these are quite piggy. -OK. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:33 | |
I'm not sure that a lot of people would like them from the west. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:36 | |
-Yes, I'm sure. -But just show me how you eat noodles. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:40 | |
Actually we just simply pour some over and have a taste. | 0:36:40 | 0:36:44 | |
OK. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:46 | |
So it's a bit like Lady and the Tramp. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:49 | |
Mmm. I like it. | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
Why are they so popular? | 0:36:56 | 0:36:58 | |
Actually it's not expensive and it tastes really delicious. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:03 | |
And in the ancient time, Chinese people, | 0:37:05 | 0:37:08 | |
the poor people actually they can support so much money for pig meat, | 0:37:08 | 0:37:13 | |
or pork, and so they used pig intestine. | 0:37:13 | 0:37:17 | |
But that's true. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:19 | |
But why are they so grumpy, why are they so bad-tempered? | 0:37:19 | 0:37:22 | |
Actually for the traditional noodle shop in Shanghai | 0:37:22 | 0:37:26 | |
the famous ones always be grumpy because they are too delicious, | 0:37:26 | 0:37:30 | |
too famous for customers, they don't need to be polite. | 0:37:30 | 0:37:34 | |
It's interesting cos there's a Chinese restaurant in Soho in London | 0:37:34 | 0:37:38 | |
which is like that. | 0:37:38 | 0:37:40 | |
They're so rude to everybody, but it makes people want to come | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
because they want them to say, "No, you go! You sit over there!" | 0:37:43 | 0:37:46 | |
Oh, yes. The same thing. Exactly. | 0:37:46 | 0:37:49 | |
Because I like it too because I'm in the restaurant trade | 0:37:49 | 0:37:52 | |
and all the time you have to be so polite to people, | 0:37:52 | 0:37:55 | |
so to see the Chinese people say, "No, no out!" It's, "Yes!" | 0:37:55 | 0:38:00 | |
I think because it's too delicious... | 0:38:00 | 0:38:02 | |
-That's it. You've got something good, why not? -Yes. | 0:38:02 | 0:38:07 | |
Overlooking the Huangpu River is the famous Bund, | 0:38:12 | 0:38:15 | |
named by the British using the Hindustani word for waterfront. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:20 | |
Those were the days when the globe was painted pink | 0:38:20 | 0:38:23 | |
through British imperialism. | 0:38:23 | 0:38:24 | |
And set in the middle of the Bund is an Art Deco gem - the Peace Hotel, | 0:38:40 | 0:38:46 | |
a relic of Shanghai's colonial past. | 0:38:46 | 0:38:48 | |
This was a favourite of the Hollywood greats | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
who adorn the walls here. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:03 | |
There's Marlene Dietrich sitting on the far right with | 0:39:03 | 0:39:06 | |
the founder of the hotel Victor Sassoon. | 0:39:06 | 0:39:09 | |
Laurence Olivier with Greer Garson. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:12 | |
George Bernard Shaw with Noel Coward, | 0:39:12 | 0:39:14 | |
of course he would be there, | 0:39:14 | 0:39:16 | |
he's supposed to have finished Private Lives in this very hotel. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:19 | |
There's a distinct whiff of the '30s in the air. | 0:39:24 | 0:39:27 | |
The Saturday afternoon tea dance. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
I can imagine louche captains | 0:39:31 | 0:39:33 | |
and subalterns eyeing the local totty. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:36 | |
Pink gins and Manhattans, cucumber sandwiches | 0:39:36 | 0:39:40 | |
and vol-au-vents, of course. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:42 | |
This was the era of the famous Anglo-Chinese cookbook in English | 0:39:46 | 0:39:50 | |
and Mandarin so you could give it to your cook. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:54 | |
The recipes included Indian curries, roast beef | 0:39:54 | 0:39:58 | |
and lobster a-la Newburg, but not one Chinese dish. Not one. | 0:39:58 | 0:40:05 | |
I think the European expats | 0:40:05 | 0:40:07 | |
were definitely a bit sniffy about Chinese food. | 0:40:07 | 0:40:10 | |
Well, I liked it. | 0:40:21 | 0:40:22 | |
I must say, I'm very happy to be here in the Peace Hotel | 0:40:24 | 0:40:26 | |
in the centre of Shanghai and I just love afternoon tea. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:31 | |
I think it's one of the few things that we British | 0:40:31 | 0:40:33 | |
can genuinely lay credit for - afternoon tea. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:38 | |
You get afternoon tea in Singapore, in Shanghai, in Sydney. | 0:40:38 | 0:40:42 | |
But one of the things that slightly irritates me | 0:40:42 | 0:40:45 | |
is if you're having this particular type of afternoon tea | 0:40:45 | 0:40:49 | |
it's always referred to a Devon cream tea. | 0:40:49 | 0:40:52 | |
But I always like to think of them as a Cornish cream tea. | 0:40:52 | 0:40:55 | |
And the difference is that in Cornwall | 0:40:55 | 0:40:57 | |
we have the cream on top of the jam. | 0:40:57 | 0:41:01 | |
In Devon they like it underneath. | 0:41:01 | 0:41:03 | |
So... | 0:41:04 | 0:41:06 | |
Perfect. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:11 | |
There's lots of other Art Deco buildings around the city. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:23 | |
That's one reason why it's so often compared to New York. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
But not all of its architecture is quite so appealing. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:32 | |
I think it's fair to say that I've been to more fish markets | 0:41:35 | 0:41:39 | |
than any other TV cook in the world. | 0:41:39 | 0:41:42 | |
This one is a biggie. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:44 | |
It looks a bit like a post office sorting depot. | 0:41:44 | 0:41:47 | |
Every size and species of whelks and clams and prawns, | 0:41:47 | 0:41:51 | |
crayfish and crab is here. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:53 | |
But inside there's an encyclopaedia of wonderfully weird fish | 0:41:53 | 0:41:57 | |
and shellfish too. | 0:41:57 | 0:42:00 | |
As the Cantonese saying goes, "If it walks, swims, crawls or flies | 0:42:00 | 0:42:05 | |
"and has its back to heaven, it must be edible." | 0:42:05 | 0:42:08 | |
I think that probably comes from a country | 0:42:10 | 0:42:13 | |
that has suffered so many famines, | 0:42:13 | 0:42:15 | |
to survive you had to try anything that could sustain life. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:19 | |
But then you could develop a real taste for it, | 0:42:19 | 0:42:22 | |
and that's what cuisine is all about. | 0:42:22 | 0:42:25 | |
The writer Jonathan Swift apparently said, | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
"He was a bold man that first ate an oyster." | 0:42:28 | 0:42:32 | |
I met up with Zan Lim, a food blogger. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:37 | |
She's my seafood lover's guide here. | 0:42:37 | 0:42:40 | |
-Zan? -Rick. -I thought so. -Nice to meet you. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:43 | |
-Amazingly busy. -Let's take a walk this side. -OK. | 0:42:43 | 0:42:47 | |
-Is this open all the time? -Oh, this is open 24 hours. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:51 | |
-Really? -Yes, and we've come at one of the busiest days. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:54 | |
The weekend is like the busiest time of the week. | 0:42:54 | 0:42:57 | |
During night-time this whole place is just packed with people. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:01 | |
It's just a feast for the eyes if you like markets. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
Yes, one of my favourite things to do at the seafood market is | 0:43:04 | 0:43:07 | |
I buy some fish or crab and then I take it to a restaurant | 0:43:07 | 0:43:11 | |
where they can cook it for me, so I don't have to cook it myself. | 0:43:11 | 0:43:14 | |
-Wow! Can we do that? -Yes, let's try that. | 0:43:14 | 0:43:16 | |
What would you like? | 0:43:16 | 0:43:18 | |
Well, I think I'd probably go for something | 0:43:18 | 0:43:20 | |
that's quite easy to get back in the UK so I can see how you cook it. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
-OK. -Maybe just some clams. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:26 | |
SHE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE | 0:43:26 | 0:43:31 | |
We always have to haggle when you buy seafood. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:33 | |
-Every day? -So he just told me 500g for 25 kuai. | 0:43:33 | 0:43:38 | |
-But I told him, "No, 20 kuai." -OK. | 0:43:38 | 0:43:40 | |
-That seems a very good price to me. -Yes, I think so. | 0:43:40 | 0:43:43 | |
-For 500g that's a good price. -That's about £2. | 0:43:43 | 0:43:46 | |
Thank you very much. | 0:43:46 | 0:43:47 | |
Also, what I usually do is | 0:43:47 | 0:43:49 | |
I bring a little digital weighing scale of my own... | 0:43:49 | 0:43:52 | |
-Do you? -Because sometimes they rig this. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:55 | |
-Oh, I couldn't possibly believe that! -OK, let's go. -OK. | 0:43:55 | 0:44:00 | |
-Have you tried the pomfret? -I love pomfret. I tried them in India. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:05 | |
-Shall we try one? -Yeah, let's have some. | 0:44:05 | 0:44:07 | |
-We can get it steamed, it's a good way to eat. -Steamed? -Yes. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:09 | |
-With ginger, spring onion? -Yes. -Fabulous. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:13 | |
Just ask him where it's from. | 0:44:13 | 0:44:15 | |
'And then I was in for a bit of a surprise.' | 0:44:15 | 0:44:17 | |
-It's all the way from your hometown. England. -From England? | 0:44:17 | 0:44:21 | |
It's probably from Devon, actually. | 0:44:21 | 0:44:23 | |
I know they catch them and send them to China. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:26 | |
Can we get one and ask him how much? | 0:44:26 | 0:44:29 | |
It's weird to think that this brown crab came from Devon | 0:44:30 | 0:44:34 | |
or maybe Cornwall, | 0:44:34 | 0:44:36 | |
with beaches full of wind breaks, ice cream, happy families. | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
And now it's on the other side of the world | 0:44:39 | 0:44:41 | |
and shortly it's going to be my lunch. | 0:44:41 | 0:44:44 | |
This is Zan's favourite here, | 0:44:47 | 0:44:49 | |
and they're going to cook the clams, the pomfret | 0:44:49 | 0:44:52 | |
and the crab for us in return for a small cooking fee. | 0:44:52 | 0:44:55 | |
It's a bit like corkage on wine. | 0:44:55 | 0:44:57 | |
I've been really looking forward to seeing how they cook our brown crab. | 0:45:03 | 0:45:07 | |
I've never seen a British brown crab cooked like this before. | 0:45:07 | 0:45:10 | |
Deep-fried in cornflour. | 0:45:10 | 0:45:13 | |
Very, very simple way of doing it and yet it looks so dangerous. | 0:45:13 | 0:45:17 | |
But my gosh it's interesting and I'm sure it's going to taste fabulous. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:22 | |
He adds preserved duck eggs, just the yolks, | 0:45:23 | 0:45:27 | |
salt and a splash of yellow rice wine | 0:45:27 | 0:45:31 | |
and just a pinch of MSG, monosodium glutamate. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:35 | |
Lunch in China starts around 11 o'clock, | 0:45:35 | 0:45:38 | |
the kitchen's really busy here. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:41 | |
I know what I'd say if a film crew turned up | 0:45:41 | 0:45:43 | |
when the kitchen's red hot. | 0:45:43 | 0:45:46 | |
But here, well, they took it in their stride. | 0:45:46 | 0:45:49 | |
The clams cook in seconds. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:53 | |
Basically he's got oil and spring onions. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:56 | |
I think there was a bit of ginger there too. | 0:45:56 | 0:45:59 | |
And now he's just stir-frying them. | 0:46:01 | 0:46:04 | |
I must say, it's really, really nice that they've let us in. | 0:46:04 | 0:46:07 | |
It's the busiest part of the lunch service. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:10 | |
Well, you'll have to show me how to eat most of this. | 0:46:16 | 0:46:19 | |
With the crabs, just go crazy. Use your hands. | 0:46:19 | 0:46:23 | |
So this has been salted, egg yolk. | 0:46:23 | 0:46:25 | |
Should be pretty delicious. What do you think? | 0:46:25 | 0:46:28 | |
It's very delicious. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:30 | |
It really brings out the sweetness of our British crabs. | 0:46:30 | 0:46:33 | |
This crab is really good. | 0:46:36 | 0:46:38 | |
I find that when I eat local crab it has a bit of a muddy river taste, | 0:46:38 | 0:46:42 | |
but this one is... | 0:46:42 | 0:46:45 | |
I'm very proud, very flattered | 0:46:45 | 0:46:47 | |
and proud of our British crabs in that case. | 0:46:47 | 0:46:51 | |
How do you cook t in the UK? | 0:46:51 | 0:46:53 | |
Well, we tend to just have them cold with mayonnaise. | 0:46:53 | 0:46:56 | |
-Mmm. -Would you eat the clams with your fingers? | 0:46:56 | 0:47:00 | |
Oh, I think for me I would use my fingers, | 0:47:00 | 0:47:02 | |
but usually we use the chopsticks or a spoon. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:05 | |
-OK. So I'm all right using my fingers. -You're all right. | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
They're so delicate. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:09 | |
Just have a bit of ginger, a bit of spring onion, | 0:47:09 | 0:47:11 | |
tiny bit of MSG, | 0:47:11 | 0:47:14 | |
tiny bit of chicken powder and some rice wine. Lovely. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:19 | |
So can we have some pomfret? Just show me how you... | 0:47:19 | 0:47:22 | |
I usually just take it from the belly | 0:47:22 | 0:47:24 | |
because it has the least bones. | 0:47:24 | 0:47:25 | |
There's very little local fish here, like from Shanghai itself. | 0:47:25 | 0:47:29 | |
-Why is that? -Oh, you know, the pollution. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:32 | |
I suppose pollution's quite a problem in China | 0:47:32 | 0:47:35 | |
-because it's expanding so fast. -Yes, it is. | 0:47:35 | 0:47:38 | |
Do you want to talk some more about...? | 0:47:40 | 0:47:43 | |
I don't know how to balance eating and talking. | 0:47:43 | 0:47:46 | |
Fair enough. | 0:47:46 | 0:47:48 | |
I have to say, I think the Chinese are probably amongst the best | 0:47:48 | 0:47:52 | |
seafood cooks, probably are the best seafood cooks in the world. | 0:47:52 | 0:47:56 | |
-Wow! -And I don't think a lot of people realise that, | 0:47:56 | 0:47:59 | |
certainly not in somewhere like the UK. | 0:47:59 | 0:48:02 | |
But honestly, those clams, that pomfret, that crab - | 0:48:02 | 0:48:06 | |
-fabulous dishes. -Wow! Glad you think so. | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
Let's just eat then. | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
I'm spoilt for choice. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:14 | |
Any one of these dishes I would happily cook at home. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:17 | |
One of the things I wanted to do ever since I started these travels | 0:48:20 | 0:48:24 | |
was to pay homage to the wok. | 0:48:24 | 0:48:26 | |
I think it's the greatest culinary invention since the fork. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:31 | |
Because of the searing heat like the jet blast of an F-18 fighter... | 0:48:31 | 0:48:35 | |
F-18 ENGINE ROARS | 0:48:35 | 0:48:38 | |
And the thinness of the pan... | 0:48:38 | 0:48:40 | |
everything cooks in seconds. Yes, seconds. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
Small pieces of meat, prawns, vegetables, a touch of soy, | 0:48:44 | 0:48:48 | |
a sprinkling of five spice, ginger, Shaoxing wine. Finish. | 0:48:48 | 0:48:53 | |
So, to Ken, Ken Hom, who introduced us in the UK to the wok. | 0:48:56 | 0:49:02 | |
I salute you. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:04 | |
There's something that China has given the world, and it's | 0:49:12 | 0:49:15 | |
becoming increasingly popular. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:17 | |
It's feng shui. | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
Nothing in China gets built without the force of feng shui being | 0:49:21 | 0:49:25 | |
taken into account, because it's about the order of things, | 0:49:25 | 0:49:29 | |
so that buildings are in tune with nature and will bring you luck. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:33 | |
In amongst the grey concrete supports for the motorway, | 0:49:33 | 0:49:37 | |
there sits this quite wonderful gilded pillar. | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
And it's there because of a fabulous trade-off. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
You see, when they were drilling here to build the motorway, | 0:49:47 | 0:49:50 | |
the drill stopped working at this very spot. | 0:49:50 | 0:49:54 | |
It could not get through the rock. | 0:49:54 | 0:49:57 | |
Now, a monk was summoned, who said they were on top of a dragon's nest. | 0:49:57 | 0:50:02 | |
Yes, a dragon's nest. | 0:50:02 | 0:50:04 | |
He was asked to appeal to the dragon for permission to drill. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:08 | |
"The only way it can be done to appease the dragon," he said, | 0:50:10 | 0:50:13 | |
"is to forfeit my life." | 0:50:13 | 0:50:17 | |
Apparently, within three days of the foundations going in, | 0:50:17 | 0:50:20 | |
the monk died, and some say they saw black smoke | 0:50:20 | 0:50:25 | |
coming out of the hole, indicating that the dragon had gone. | 0:50:25 | 0:50:29 | |
It's a nice story, but I think, to me, | 0:50:30 | 0:50:32 | |
it really illustrates the fact that even in modern, zippy Shanghai, | 0:50:32 | 0:50:37 | |
feng shui is still very important. | 0:50:37 | 0:50:40 | |
DRAGON ROAR | 0:50:42 | 0:50:43 | |
I don't feel entirely happy if I'm miles away from the sea, | 0:50:50 | 0:50:53 | |
so I just wanted to go to the nearest place to Shanghai | 0:50:53 | 0:50:57 | |
where they land fish from the sea. | 0:50:57 | 0:50:59 | |
This is Jinshan, a fishing village overlooking a rather muddy | 0:51:03 | 0:51:08 | |
East China Sea. | 0:51:08 | 0:51:09 | |
I'm just looking at what they're catching here. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:13 | |
I can't quite identify them. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:15 | |
They look like anchovies or some anchovy-like fish, and there is a | 0:51:15 | 0:51:19 | |
lot of white shrimps, which I guess they are going to just deep fry. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:25 | |
And it's not...brilliant. | 0:51:25 | 0:51:27 | |
It's not exactly a Greek island with boxes of glistening red mullet and | 0:51:27 | 0:51:31 | |
a taverna across the way, and blue and white boats, but it smells nice. | 0:51:31 | 0:51:37 | |
It smells of the sea, | 0:51:37 | 0:51:39 | |
and actually, the water is a little bit muddy, but that's because | 0:51:39 | 0:51:43 | |
we are the end of the Yangtze, and I imagine that's why it's muddy. | 0:51:43 | 0:51:48 | |
No, it's not a picture postcard. But, hey, it's fishing. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:52 | |
These may not look like much to a lot of people, | 0:51:57 | 0:52:00 | |
but I think they are really important in Chinese cooking, | 0:52:00 | 0:52:03 | |
and you find them all over south-east Asia, these dried fish. | 0:52:03 | 0:52:06 | |
Sometimes they're just dried and salted. | 0:52:06 | 0:52:09 | |
Sometimes they're salted and sugared. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:12 | |
It's not really so much the taste of them per se, | 0:52:12 | 0:52:14 | |
it's when you add them to other dishes. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:17 | |
They provide an essential savoury element. | 0:52:17 | 0:52:21 | |
You would really miss them if they weren't there. I'm a great fan. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:23 | |
It turns out this village has been renovated | 0:52:28 | 0:52:31 | |
quite extensively by the government. | 0:52:31 | 0:52:33 | |
And they are jolly pleased that we filmed here | 0:52:33 | 0:52:35 | |
and are showing how clean and pristine it all is. | 0:52:35 | 0:52:38 | |
But there is something in the air, a cooking smell? | 0:52:40 | 0:52:43 | |
It's something indefinable. | 0:52:43 | 0:52:45 | |
THEY CONVERSE IN CHINESE | 0:52:48 | 0:52:51 | |
I'm not... Ah! Thank you. | 0:52:55 | 0:52:59 | |
I'm not totally looking forward to this. I can smell... | 0:52:59 | 0:53:02 | |
This is called stinky tofu. I don't know what the correct name is, | 0:53:02 | 0:53:05 | |
but actually, I could smell it as I was walking over the bridge, | 0:53:05 | 0:53:08 | |
and I thought there was something wrong with the river. | 0:53:08 | 0:53:10 | |
So it's really like, you know... | 0:53:10 | 0:53:12 | |
Oh! | 0:53:15 | 0:53:17 | |
I imagine it's like a Chinese person eating some sort of ripe brie. | 0:53:17 | 0:53:21 | |
Well... | 0:53:26 | 0:53:27 | |
..it's not great. | 0:53:28 | 0:53:31 | |
But I think I could get used to it. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:33 | |
It's got quite a nice sort of savoury taste. | 0:53:33 | 0:53:35 | |
It's sort of smells a bit like bad cabbage. | 0:53:35 | 0:53:38 | |
If you can get that sort of idea. | 0:53:40 | 0:53:42 | |
But...the taste is a lot better than the smell. | 0:53:42 | 0:53:46 | |
The first taste, not so good, but I'm beginning to like it. | 0:53:46 | 0:53:50 | |
-Where do your parents live, then? -Just in the apartment nearby... | 0:54:00 | 0:54:04 | |
I'm coming close to the end of my taste of Shanghai. | 0:54:04 | 0:54:07 | |
I've got the opportunity to take home one last dish. | 0:54:07 | 0:54:11 | |
-Are they supposed to stop? -Um... OK, I think it's the right time to go. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:17 | |
My interpreter, Jia Jia, wants me to try her mum's boiled chicken. | 0:54:17 | 0:54:22 | |
She says it's her favourite meal. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:25 | |
If ever she left China, | 0:54:25 | 0:54:26 | |
she would make a point of cooking it at least once a week. | 0:54:26 | 0:54:29 | |
Well, it just so happens I didn't need asking twice. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:34 | |
For years, I have loved this dish. | 0:54:34 | 0:54:37 | |
Back at home, we haven't really discovered, I think, | 0:54:37 | 0:54:39 | |
the sweet joy of chicken - whole chicken - simmered in a pot. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:43 | |
This recipe couldn't be simpler. | 0:54:47 | 0:54:50 | |
A big lump of ginger, spring onions | 0:54:50 | 0:54:52 | |
and Shaoxing wine for the stock. | 0:54:52 | 0:54:55 | |
Then she dunks the chicken straight into the pot. | 0:54:55 | 0:54:58 | |
Apparently, Mrs Chen went to the market this morning | 0:55:02 | 0:55:05 | |
especially for us. | 0:55:05 | 0:55:07 | |
She chose a live chicken and then had it killed in front of her, | 0:55:07 | 0:55:11 | |
and plucked, ready for cooking within hours. | 0:55:11 | 0:55:13 | |
She simmers it for about 20 minutes, then rests it in cold water | 0:55:15 | 0:55:19 | |
for half an hour, but I think I would leave it in the stock. | 0:55:19 | 0:55:24 | |
Because it's so fresh, you can see a little blood on the bones. | 0:55:24 | 0:55:27 | |
It would worry a lot of people, but because I lived on a farm, | 0:55:27 | 0:55:31 | |
it certainly doesn't worry me. | 0:55:31 | 0:55:33 | |
It's just a sign that the chicken is ultra fresh. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:37 | |
Then she dresses it with sesame oil before she serves it up. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:40 | |
The dipping sauce is made of light soy, chopped coriander, | 0:55:41 | 0:55:45 | |
ginger and spring onion, and it's lovely. | 0:55:45 | 0:55:49 | |
-So, do you like coriander? -I love coriander, yeah. | 0:55:50 | 0:55:53 | |
OK, because a lot of Chinese, they don't like coriander at all. | 0:55:53 | 0:55:56 | |
-Oh, really? -Yeah, yeah. -I thought everybody liked coriander in China. | 0:55:56 | 0:56:00 | |
No! That's not true. Please... | 0:56:00 | 0:56:02 | |
Mm! | 0:56:05 | 0:56:06 | |
That is very fresh, very moist. | 0:56:06 | 0:56:10 | |
-Thank you. You like it? -I love it! | 0:56:10 | 0:56:13 | |
Thank you. | 0:56:13 | 0:56:14 | |
I don't think people realise how very simple and fragrant | 0:56:14 | 0:56:19 | |
-and elegant a lot of Chinese cooking is. -Oh, yes. -It's lovely. | 0:56:19 | 0:56:25 | |
Just remind me of what "thank you" is in Shanghainese again. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:29 | |
-Xia xia. -Xia xia? Xia xia. | 0:56:29 | 0:56:32 | |
Yes! You've got a good pronunciation. | 0:56:32 | 0:56:35 | |
So at the end of the day, | 0:56:39 | 0:56:40 | |
what really set my taste buds going on this trip? | 0:56:40 | 0:56:44 | |
Well, I'm going to choose three dishes that I know | 0:56:44 | 0:56:47 | |
I want to cook back at home. | 0:56:47 | 0:56:49 | |
In third place, it's tong jian ge li. | 0:56:49 | 0:56:54 | |
I hope I said that right. Clams with ginger and spring onion. | 0:56:54 | 0:56:59 | |
From the fish market - so sweet, light and tasty, | 0:56:59 | 0:57:02 | |
with a lovely velvety texture. | 0:57:02 | 0:57:05 | |
Number two - xiaolong bo. Soup dumplings. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:10 | |
They are unbelievably delicious. | 0:57:10 | 0:57:12 | |
Soft, delicate, doughy bags of flavour. | 0:57:12 | 0:57:16 | |
And I think I finally got the knack of the nip and the suck. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:20 | |
Very important if you want a clean shirt! | 0:57:20 | 0:57:22 | |
Oh! Be careful. | 0:57:25 | 0:57:26 | |
Number one has to be hong xiao ro - red-braised pork. | 0:57:28 | 0:57:34 | |
So sweet and spicy, it's the glossy king of dishes, | 0:57:34 | 0:57:38 | |
using one of the cheapest cuts. | 0:57:38 | 0:57:41 | |
Now, this is something that I will definitely cook at home, | 0:57:41 | 0:57:44 | |
probably only a few hours after I get off the plane. | 0:57:44 | 0:57:47 | |
It's quite stupendous, | 0:57:47 | 0:57:49 | |
and it's impossible to talk about it without your mouth watering. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:53 | |
It's my top dish. | 0:57:53 | 0:57:55 | |
FERRY HORN BLASTS | 0:58:05 | 0:58:06 | |
You know that term Shanghaied? | 0:58:09 | 0:58:11 | |
Will, it meant something terrible about being | 0:58:11 | 0:58:14 | |
frogmarched into doing something you didn't want to do. | 0:58:14 | 0:58:17 | |
But it's also got that romantic notion about going off into some | 0:58:17 | 0:58:22 | |
exotic world, and I've been well and truly Shanghaied in Shanghai. | 0:58:22 | 0:58:29 | |
# Oh, what did I tell you It was bye-bye for Shanghai? | 0:58:29 | 0:58:33 | |
# I'm even allergic to rice | 0:58:33 | 0:58:35 | |
# Why don't you stop me when I talk about Shanghai? | 0:58:35 | 0:58:39 | |
# It's just a lovers' device | 0:58:39 | 0:58:41 | |
# Now who's going to kiss me? Who's going to thrill me? | 0:58:41 | 0:58:45 | |
# Who's going to hold me tight? | 0:58:45 | 0:58:48 | |
# I'm right around the corner in a phone booth | 0:58:48 | 0:58:51 | |
# And I want to be with you tonight... # | 0:58:51 | 0:58:56 |