My Favorite Food in the World

Yvonne — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 07:59:00 +0000

I could eat Chinese dumplings every day for the rest of my life. I like them all ways, but especially love pan-fried pork-filled dumplings dipped in a mix of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and a small dollop of Chinese chili paste. If I’m feeling festive, I’ll throw in some minced garlic and minced scallions.

You would not believe how hungry I got reading this article in the Wall Street Journal [1]. It’s been five or six years since I last made dumplings from scratch (subsisting on large quantities of frozen dumplings in the meantime, as un-Chinese as that may be)—the process is as labor-intensive as it sounds—but the article gave me a definite hankering to do so.

It also gave me a hankering to look up the Chinese characters for dumplings because I did not actually know what they were! So here we go:

餃子 (jiao3 zi3)
The generic phrase for dumplings.

水餃 (shui2 jiao3)
Can be used as a generic phrase for dumpling, but more specifically refers to a steamed or boiled dumpling. 水 means “water”. [2]

鍋貼 (guo1 tie1)
Literally, “potsticker”. 鍋 means “pot”, 貼 means “to stick”. A phrase for the fried dumplings that, well, stick to the pot when you fry them, making lovely golden-brown delicious bits. A phrase for amazing bite-sized morsels just waiting to be dipped into the perfect sauce. A phrase for the thing I am craving RIGHT NOW!

Apparently the article’s photos and the accompanying video were shot in the kitchen of a childhood friend who now lives in Hong Kong. Amy Ma, the article’s author, is not said childhood friend.
Eagle-eyed grammar Nazis (and I consider myself one of them) may have noticed that I punctuate quotation marks the British way, instead of the American way. What can I say? I think the British way is more logical, and I get to make the rules around here.

Chipanglish » Food

My Favorite Food in the World

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