Cheong fun or crispy duck?

Cheong fun, genius

Soft, melt in the mouth, a brilliant white non-food typical colour, (rice flour, I think) pastry. Wrapping pieces of Cha Sui pork, or prawns, or vegetables, with some soy and sesame flavours. With spring onions. Sitting in a small, thin puddle of soy and maybe a drop of oil and some other tasty smidges. Mild, soothing, steamed magic. Impossible to eat in any tidy way. An essential order for a dim sum meal. You can pick up some fresh, prepared, cheong fun for pennies, really as cheap as chips, from Chinese shops, just steam and serve. You can buy the dough and fill it yourself, steam and serve. If you're better with four and water than me, you can even make your own from scratch.

Compare this absolutely superb dish with the latest ubiquitous menu must-have: crispy duck. Someone has killed a duck, only for it to be burnt to a cinder, the fibres shredded, and served with lifeless salad on dry pancakes, only palatable (actually, in my opinion, still not palatable) through huge amounts of plum sauce or similar condiments. What a senseless waste.

On the dim sum menu (at least, at the more long-established restaurants) there will be chicken feet, and the less-used parts of various animals, routinely, otherwise, thrown away. Despite publicity, there's still bendy carrots and 'secondary grade' – on appearance, not taste, spuds and other veg going straight to landfill, from the land they grew in.

It's new year, year of the new leaf, perhaps (Horse, actually). An upsurge in the food of the neglected Chinese provinces. Some of it searingly hot, all of it more interesting than standard takeaway favourites. While I understand that not everyone can cope with (say) a pig's head, or tripe, I don't understand otherwise squeamish and wimpy eaters criticising vegetarians. I don't understand the person who orders 'what they always have' rather then explore a menu for new experiences. I'm looking forward to ordering bass or trotters swimming in a sea of chillies and other big flavours, somewhere ahead of the game.

Or maybe just making my own vegetable cheong fun, bean shoots, greens – pak choy or similar, green beans, carrots, tofu, soy oyster, sesame, fish sauce, vinegar, steamed and drizzled with a soy / sesame oil mix, served with some lotus-leaf rice and other steamed morsels (I'm told that's what 'dim sum' means).

A Tale of Two Sandwiches

Both were made in advance and taken into work.

Sandwich one. Went to work in an office. Lovingly wrapped in tinfoil. It was unwrapped and eaten. At lunchtime.

Sandwich two went into a fire station, and was similarly put into the fridge. At the first opportunity, it was lovingly unwrapped. The ham was lovingly and painstakingly wrapped in clingflim that was trimmed exactly at the edges of the ham. Depending on the owner's preferences, the mustard may have been spiked with a large amount of chilli sauce. So on. Generally interfered with. Reassembled. Re-wrapped. Re-refridgerated.

Sandwich one would probably have been consumed, quietly, according to programme. Sandwich two will have been part-eaten, to hilarity, sooner or later (usually later) between emergency calls.

Working environmentally, I prefer the sandwich two zone.

I would also endorse interfering with all the taboo non-interference zones:

“Don't mess with my food” = (unless “Don't mess” is really going to kill you) mess with the mong's food.

For example, if someone has their own, personal, precious (Heinz or whatever) tomato sauce (or similar) stash, that's an open invitation. That needs to become their own personal extremely hot chilli tomato sauce stash. Particularly if they're chilli-adverse.