Dinner | pandaunexpressed

Chinese-Themed Dinner

Zhuotong Han, Skidmore College Dining Hall, 2021

Chinese-Themed Dinner is an ongoing collaborative project between Zhuotong Han and the Skidmore College Dining Hall. The dinner includes twelve carefully selected Chinese dishes and a curated exhibition of Chinese food and foodways in visual culture. This event will take place on February 11, 2021.

The Menu

The menu encompasses several cooking styles in China that reflect the diverse regional and geographical characteristics of Chinese cuisine. These twelve dishes are typical jia chang cai (家常菜), home-cooked delicacies that make up specific regional cuisines' repertoires. Dishes such as dough drop soup (疙瘩汤) and stir-fried rice cake (菜肉年糕) represent the regional difference; while wheat is the staple of Northern China, rice remains the main staple in provinces in Central and Southern parts. In addition to traditional Chinese dishes, you will also discover unconventional flavors that reveal the influence of globalization on Chinese cuisine. What happens when Coca Cola meets chicken wings? Take a bite of Coke chicken wings (可乐鸡翅), a widely appreciated mouthwatering delight across China. As you explore and savor, take a look at some personal stories from Chinese people who share their most loved dishes (WIP).

*All dishes were created and photographed by Zhuotong Han

Sesame Cucumber

Sesame paste distinguishes Beijing cuisine from the others. It’s a fragrant, rich ingredient.
Yutai Li, a Skidmore student from Beijing, shares his love for sesame paste, “you always see sesame paste on my family’s dinner table. Sesame paste is like the icing on the cake, it’s so versatile, and it just adds so much depth to the dish. It’s delicious as a sauce in cold dishes with all sorts of vegetables or noodles. Of course, it’s a must-have dipping for lamb hotpot (涮羊肉) on a cold winter day.”

Vermicelli Salad

“Vermicelli salad is my chosen dish! It is tasty, colorful, and well-balanced. I can never get enough of the tempting spiciness and the refreshing sourness. It is a very popular dish across China. When I was living in Henan province (in northern China) forty years ago, vermicelli salad was my grandfather’s favorite drunk food (下酒菜).” –Ming Han, a retired businessman in Chongqing

Stir-fried Rice Cake

"Nian Gao (年糕, sticky rice cake), a popular food eaten during Chinese New Year, symbolizes increasing prosperity because it is a homonym for “higher year.”
This Stir-fry is one of the most loved dishes in Shanghai."--Tianyu Shi, a Skidmore College student from Shanghai

Fish Fragrance Eggplant

Red Braised Shrimp

Sweet & Sour Ribs

Steamed Fish

Coke Chicken Wings

“This is the dish I taught my daughter to make before she went to her summer camp in Vermont when she was 13. I thought it was an easy dish to cook because she could easily obtain all the main ingredients such as chicken wings and coke in the US. She made it for her host family, and she told me that they loved it so much that they even licked the sauce off their plates. Today she studies abroad in New York, and it is still one of her favorite dishes to make.” —Jing Leng, a mother of an international student who studies in the US

Oyster Sauce Vegetable (Choy sum)

“This is a must-have Jia chang cai (home-cooked dish家常菜) in every family in Guangdong province. I grew up eating it, and whenever I miss home, the flavor always easies my nostalgia.” –Yingying Li, a Ph.D. student at the University of Oklahoma

Tomato&Egg Dough-drop Soup

Jujubee "Fa" Cake

Jiu Niang Pearls

The Exhibition

The exhibition investigates the representation of Chinese cuisine and foodways in visual culture, and it employs a mix of physical and digital displays using QR codes.

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