Dumplings in perspective
(Fish dumpling: Shanghai, China)
I cannot account for the wild perspective in this photograph. I got this camera for Christmas and I’m still madly twirling wheels and pressing buttons to achieve various snazzy effects. I tend to be rather haphazard with photography so you must excuse my oversized giant head and protruding eyes next to my doll like hands. (But if you were a real friend, you should overlook my physical defects anyway.)
This is a most bizarre dumpling, the likes of which I have never encountered before. We ate the myriad smaller dumplings we were served before tackling this beast. We took our cues from the adjacent table, watching the diners from the corner of an eye for clues on how to approach it. It appears – based on our limited experience of one other person – that the straw is poked into the heart of the dumpling and the soup can then be extracted. A tip; wait a while before drinking it. It is as hot as churning magma in there, so don’t just scoosh a gulp up the straw without checking the likelihood that your throat might dissolve. I speak from hard-won experience. When it does cool slightly, the soup is magnificently delicious – I’m not entirely sure what might create such a lusciously delightful, light fish soup but I have a suspicion that a heap of salt might be involved. In Glasgow, my friend (and first Chinese teacher) Susan taught me to make her trademark ‘Seven Dumplings’*, but my memory of the amount of salt required is colossal. However, the salt is then split into 50-70 individual dumplings, so unless one person consumed half of them, I suppose it isn’t a lot of salt at all. Anyway, Shanghai dumplings get my thumbs up every time. As I recall, I enjoyed them so much that even though Ying was completely full, I went up and in Chinese, ordered another stack just for myself. I imagine Ying’s philosophy with my eating habits is that if I’m prepared to go and get extras myself, I must really want more.
*This is the name of the dumplings and doesn’t refer to the quantity. It is how many dumplings her friend Ben estimated he could consume before being full. I recall he managed double that.
[...] addition to the filling in each one. It reminds me of the crabmeat dumplings I had in Shanghai, the ones filled with soup and were served with a straw. If I had one night to spend in Shanghai, I think I would do my darndest to visit that restaurant [...]