What About the Birds?

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The first half of today, we toured the Sichuan Culinary Museum, a little museum with a lot of history.
Beginning around 3,500 years ago, the Chinese have had a pretty rich culinary background that the government has recently tried to document with work in archaeological digs and museum foundry, and the museum in Sichuan had done a wonderful job of displaying thousands of years of culinary history in a very modest space. The museum itself isn't on government land, but rather a collection set up on the property of a citizen who wanted to make sure the museum always had a place in Sichuan.
Seeing how little the tools of Chinese culinary arts have changed, literally over millennia, was incredible. The cooking vessels, heat sources, and hand-tools changed so slightly from the first pieces we saw to the last that it's impossible not to recognize how very simple technology can also be the most reliable. Of course, the Chinese kitchens we've seen have used gas ranges, and the technology used to make the tools that are used to today is vastly different from the ways people made tools two thousand years ago, but the fact still stands that once tools so simple and effective as the spoon and chopstick are recognized as easy to make and use, it became unnecessary to find alternative tools like the fork and table knives. The Chinese bypass the need for forks by using tools like the cleaver in the kitchen; if the pieces served are already cut down to bite-sized portions, there's no need for a stabilizing tool like the fork because you don't need to use a knife at the table.
I found the museum to be very interesting, and I especially like the hundreds of spoon styles exhibited, as well as the bowls and cups that progressed from small, earthenware pot-like vessels to elaborately carved and painted dishes.
After lunch at the museum, we went to the Pixian Hot Bean Paste Factory, where we learned that there is poison everywhere to keep bugs and birds from getting too close to the open-air fermentation tanks situated in the courtyard-style factory. However, the bean paste is non-toxic and a delicious condiment. This is one of two condiment-based trips we'll be taking, and learning how much bean paste is produced each year, somewhere around 4,000 kilotons, exemplifies how seriously the Chinese take their condiments in a way none of us were aware of.

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