One of the last thing I'd ever want to do, let alone during my last day of New Year’s break, is climb five hours roundtrip up a "historic" mountain but my elder uncle demanded that I do so, and he hardly ever demands anything from me. We drive miles and end up at the edge of the city of Shenzhen, near a village located alongside a mountain range where my younger uncle spends his days following stock trends in his rustic, humble studio. He lived among other large families, many of who cram into one room homes and make their living selling produce or whatever possessions they no longer need to passing visitors and tourists.
On the way down (we’d given up after 20 minutes of a three hour climb up to the peak) we ran into a man selling these candied fruits. I’ve seen them in the Asian oriented areas in the city and all around China but had never had one until then. They always looked so appealing with their glassy, bright-red candy coating. The sickly sweet shell encases an extremely sour fruit that resembles an tart apple. The tartness slapped the jet lag out of me. And the man was so friendly, we couldn't say no to a few more.
Because we had all “worked so hard” climbing for those 20 minutes we felt we deserved victory treats, and found a mini-market, picnic style, of fresh vegetables and jars of mountain honey set up next to the make-shift restaurant, which housed hungry tourists greedily tearing away at their smoked chickens with the help of complimentary gloves. My uncles and I decided on silken tofu custards, which can be found in many Asian restaurants in the city but of course Chinese food tastes better in China. The texture is similar to that of flan but is silkier, lighter and is flavorless (except lingering traces of soybeans) without toppings. This batch was supposedly made with naturally purified mountain water, so we pretended like it had magical powers and quickly slurped our bowls clean. I opted for the cane sugar topping, but my uncle chose the salty version, which is topped with spicy, pickled sun-dried daikon (white chinese radish). I'm not a fan of the "luo buo gan" but these had the perfect crunch and heat intensity.
The vegetable lady recommended that we buy her husband’s country chickens, down the road, and we obliged. The duration of catching one of those elusive birds and leaving the shack with a freshly plucked chicken lasted an entire hour, but watching it was both an enlightening and grotesque experience. My uncle, who was never a man to follow directions, went off to pick fresh garlic plants from the garden against the owner’s wishes. After actually paying for the rest of the vegetables (turnip greens, fresh shitake, and spicy red peppers) and the freshly plucked naked chicken, we headed home to cook. Below are some pictures, and our final product of shitake and chicken soup.
