Inside Canton. Melchior Yvan

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СКАЧАТЬ at me with a kind and merry expression. Suddenly, the young tanka girl said a few words to me, which I did not understand, and offered me her breakfast: it was rice, seasoned with tao-fou, in a blue porcelain bowl. I took the bowl in my left hand, and the little sticks which are used in China to eat with, in the right. The grains of rice, well boiled and quite separated from one another, were polished and semi-transparent: they were like pearls just drawn from the depths of the ocean. The tao-fou, white like thick cream, and fried in the oil of the sesamum, partly covered the nourishing grain; and over this mess was spread a brown liquid, which formed designs like those we admire on the buildings of raised pastry constructed by Swiss architects, vulgarly called pastry-cooks. This dish was very nice. I thought that among the Europeans who go to China, there are very few who have the opportunity of eating the scanty pittance of the poor, and I did not hesitate to taste it.

      With the ease of a Frenchman who would not regret being a Chinese, I took the little sticks between my thumb, first, and middle fingers, and I began by taking a few grains of rice, which I carried ​to my mouth; they were firm and crisp, and with the flavour peculiar to this grain ripened in the salt plains of the Tchou-kiang. After this first satisfactory attempt, I took some tao-fou; I found it insipid; then, with a boldness natural to those who are inclined to gastronomic cosmopolitism, I mixed the rice, the tao-fou, and the black liquid: it was perfection; the black liquid was only treacle, or at least a very thick syrup of sugar.

      The rice thus arranged was something like rice milk, but it had not that taste of starch, nor that gluey and watery appearance possessed by the horrid soups which the poisoners, lying in ambuscade at the corners of the streets of the most civilized town in the universe (Paris), sell after midnight. On seeing what I was doing, the little Chinese, her mother and her brothers, had noisily exclaimed, at several intervals, aïa, which is peculiar to the lower classes of Canton, and some sailors from the top of their faï-ting had added their approbation to this family's expressions of astonishment.

      My knowledge of Chinese customs had charmed them; and when, after having taken some mouthfuls from the young girl's bowl, I returned it to her, accompanied by half a piastre, I had from all sides offers to recommence this fraternal communion. I gave the preference to the bowl of a sailor on board; it was, as usual, the unknown which tempted me. ​The rice was like that of the young girl's: very dry and much swelled. In bursting, the farinaceous matter had spread into silvery lumps, but the condiment accompanying it was not the same: it was a thick substance, of a yellowish colour, and a very decided cheesy taste. This mess was a real Italian rizzoto, the Parmesan of which was very strongly flavoured. I ate every grain of it.

      When I asked the name of this seasoning, I was informed that it was also tao-fou. I owe my readers the recipe of a production, which, alternately cream and cheese, is nevertheless made without the intervention of any lacteal substance. Haricots are steeped in cold water till they yield to the pressure of the finger; when they are in this state, they are pounded with a millstone, and the clear liquid which results from them is boiled. After this operation, it is thrown into a sieve, which retains the impure parts, the milk-like liquid which flows through is received in a bowl, and a small quantity. of baked plaster of Paris, reduced to very fine powder, and mixed with water, is added to it. An abundant precipitate is immediately formed, of a dull white colour, like alabaster, or of a rather yellowish-white, according to the haricots which have been used. That is tao-fou. This substance is eaten fresh or fermented. When it is fresh, it is very like the white cheeses called touma in Provence. It was in ​this state that the young tanka girl introduced it to me. When the tao-fou is fermented, it tastes like our strong cheeses.

      The Chinese in the southern provinces have an inexplicable repugnance to milk, and to all that results from the diverse manipulations to which it is subjected; however, they have, by means of an empiric process, certainly the result of chance, fabricated, with a vegetable, a substance which is the best imitation of that which inspires them with so must disgust. Nevertheless, tao-fou, fresh or fermented, will never replace to European palates that thick and unctuous cream which is eaten in Norman farms, nor Sassenage and Roquefort cheeses, nor even Brie or Neufchâtel.

      The custom-house officer who accompanied the mission, in his zeal for the industrial interests of France, was desirous of transporting thither the fabrication of tao-fou. All his efforts tended to substitute for our excellent cheeses of Auvergne, Cantal, Normandy, and the Alps, a substance of an inferior quality, and a much higher price: it was what the worthy man called a discovery. The use of tao-fou in this part of China serves to prove a very important sanitary truth: it is, that in every country, in every zone, and at all times, men have instinctively understood, that they must unite with the natural products on which they feed, food which is fermented or undergoing fermentation.

      ​While I was tasting the popular dishes of the Celestial Empire, the deputies from Pan-se-Chen arrived. They were in a charming vessel, rowed by eight men, which boarded our faï-ting.

      The mandarin boats are large barks, light and long, with an elegant pavilion in the middle, the curved roof of which is ornamented by flowers and fantastic animals. They are distinguished from other vessels floating on the river by streamers, on which the titles of the proprietors are written. In the evening lanterns, covered with characters, replace the insignia of official vanity, and have the same effect. These pleasure boats are divided into two rooms, where you can easily isolate yourself by letting down an elegant mat in front of the door which separates them. Callery and I installed ourselves in the state saloon—that is, the one which opens on to the stern; it was surrounded by a bench of hard shining wood, and at short distances were placed small ebony tables. The floor was covered with a carpet made of dog's hair, and the windows were furnished with moveable blinds, admirably carved. Servants brought us two cups of tea on a red Japan tray, and then discreetly withdrew.

      "It is necessary," said Callery, when we were alone, "that you should know where you are going to live."

      "I do know," I replied; "I am going to my ​friend the mandarin Pan-se-Chen, whom badly-brought up people call Poul-tin-Quoy, like his father the merchant."

      "You can call him Pan, his father's name, if you please—he has no parvenu's weakness; but you must be able, if necessary, to point out your residence. Remember, that you live in Tchaoin-Kiaï—that is, 'The Sound-of-the-tide Street'—in the house Thè-kì-Han, which means 'The Remembrance-of-virtue Factory.' Remember, also, that the Chinese word han, which the English pronounce hong, is applied to all houses connected with trade."

      In order to get to Pan's, we crossed some streets of the floating town; they were crowded with vessels, but no confusion resulted from this concourse. In other countries, a great crowd of people, and the tumult resulting from it, is an excitement to disorderly conduct and quarrels; here, on the contrary, it seemed as if each had undertaken to avoid disputes, and to prevent causing others trouble and embarrassment; there was a continued interchange of kind offices and polite attentions; sailors and fish-women carefully avoided collisions, and warned those they met of the obstacles they would meet with on their road. The conduct of these poor people says more for the civilisation of China, than all that may be written on the subject; and it will be understood how remarkable the gentle disposition of these ​seafaring people must be, when it is considered that it was this fact which particularly struck me among so many objects which were new and strange to me.

      The house Thè-ki-Han is built partly in the European and partly in the Chinese style: it consists of two storeys, and the roof, which forms a terrace, is paved with granite, which shines in the sun as if strewed with diamonds. On the ground floor are vast magazines, in which are piled up bales of silk, chests of tea, jars full of musk, in fact all the products which European civilisation borrows from the Celestial Empire. Our apartments were on the second floor: they looked on to the river. On our left we had the massive buildings of the factories, on which the colours of the great European nations waved; opposite, the left bank of the Tchou-kiang, covered with Chinese temples and houses, and the thousand streets of the floating town. СКАЧАТЬ