Okay, I’ll admit it: when it comes to cooking, I’m pretty much a dud. So far, I’ve only been able to heat up soup, warm up white sausages, or make a sausage sandwich—if you can even call all of that cooking, I doubt it. On the other hand, I love eating, and in China in particular, this is a big deal and a great pleasure, perhaps ignoring a few culinary challenges. A friend even recently told me that the key to China isn’t language and writing; no, food, and therefore cooking, is the center of Chinese culture!

 

Strong words, some might say, but the statement piqued my curiosity, and after some hesitation, I finally decided to take a cooking class! And what can I say in retrospect: what a delight!

 

As a beginner, you naturally need help with cooking, as is often the case, so I turned to the guys and girls at “The Hutong.” “The Hutong” sees itself as a center for cultural exchange, and accordingly, they offer a wide variety of courses, including Tai Chi, tea studies, traditional knot tying, and even calligraphy. The center is located in “old Beijing,” somewhat tucked away in a winding hutong and lovingly furnished in a traditional residential building with a courtyard and roof terrace.

The center was founded by two Australians, Stacey Shine and Mark Thirlwall, and now has a young, international, and dedicated team working there. Sophia Du is one of them. This lively twenty-something, originally from Inner Mongolia, has been with “The Hutong” for three and a half years and has been in charge of the organization’s programming for some time now – in addition to her duties as head chef. Sophia was also tasked with introducing me to the “secrets” of cooking and teaching me something about Chinese cuisine in particular. She had a tough job with me, but in the end, I went home with a full stomach and a smile on my face, so I’d like to say this right away: Thank you, Sophia! Was there something delicious? Jiaozi, Chinese dumplings filled with meat or vegetables and then boiled or pan-fried. There were eleven other course participants with me, and that was a good thing, because Sophia emphasized right from the start:

 

“Making jiaozi is a team effort because it requires a lot of work and is very time-consuming. I would never do it alone; there’s a lot of preparation and chopping involved… All of that isn’t very productive on your own, so – teamwork.”

 

Teamwork, I’m glad. Personally, that was just fine for me, because it made it less obvious that I really had no idea about cooking, and at the same time, I could be sure I wouldn’t go home hungry. The “team” in this case was a nice mix of younger and older participants: Americans and English people, a French woman, a Chinese woman, and, besides me, three Germans. Dorothée and Bernd from Northern Germany spent the Christmas period visiting relatives in Beijing and had received a voucher for the nearly three-hour cooking class as a gift. For them, it was practically a family experience, and Dorothée experienced it exactly the same way:

 

“I can really imagine what it was like back then in the hutongs; how people, or families, would sit together. There was no television or anything else. It’s a wonderful activity, and it’s productive, and people chat together, and it’s totally sociable.”

 

Fun and socializing were also important to Sophia, and yet she explained to us in detail and with great information, such as how to prepare, mix, and roll the dough. Or which ingredients to use for the filling: glass noodles, ginger, carrots, fried eggs, mushrooms, radishes, and, depending on your taste, beef or tofu. Fortunately, all of these ingredients had already been chopped by the kitchen assistant that afternoon, so our group only had to assemble and mix the filling as they pleased, and was able to experiment a lot. Next, the dough was rolled out again, divided into equal sections, and finally flattened to create small, round pancakes, perhaps the size of a hand. For some reason, Sophia gave me the tip on how to hold the knife, which resembles a small cleaver in Chinese cuisine, correctly:

 

“Release your index finger and thumb, and just stop here. Isn’t that easy? It’s easier for you to control the knife.”

 

What followed was perhaps the most difficult part of the entire course, well, at least for me: the task was to use a small spoon to place the prepared filling onto a portion of the flatbread, then fold it into a semicircle, and finally join the dough together at the end. Traditionally, this shape resembles a half-moon, although different regions of the country use different techniques and folding methods. As a laowai, and especially as a beginner, you’re not bound by any of these “rules.” In my case, I considered it a success to be able to close the dumplings without losing too much of the filling. Bernd did much better; he lived in Sichuan for some time in the 1980s and is therefore well-versed in the peculiarities of Chinese cuisine:

 

“It’s a very labor-intensive cuisine, but that’s also the way culture is. You can clearly distinguish between some cultures that place great value on a very exquisite and—as we say today—”sophisticated” cuisine, while others don’t. And the Chinese, as we know, are a culture that places enormous value on it. And you can see that. It’s high-tech, if you will, and at the same time labor-intensive.”

 

And Dorothée agreed:
“I was thinking again this evening: the amount of work that goes into this! My God, the amount of love people put into their food, it’s amazing!”

 

The work was almost complete, at least for this evening. It was now up to Sophia to add all the dumplings to the boiling water or rather to the pan. If any of the amateur cooks weren’t hungry yet, watching the jiaozi slowly float to the surface of the boiling water—the sign that the filling was done—or watching them slowly develop a delicious light brown crust in the pan made our mouths water! And finally, the time had come: after almost three hours of preparing, chopping, stirring, mixing, kneading, rolling, and shaping, it was—I must emphasize again—a true pleasure to pick up the first “homemade” jiaozi with chopsticks, bring them to my mouth, and then bite into them! And how delicious they tasted!

 

That wasn’t just my opinion, which is certainly not entirely objective, haha, no, Dorothée enjoyed it too!

 

“It’s sooo delicious! And I cooked myself hungry!”

 

Not only Dorothée and I were thrilled, but the other course participants’ joy was also palpable, as a blissful smile graced their lips every time they bit into a jiaozi.

 

But Sophia finally told us at the end that jiaozi not only taste good, but also have a special cultural background:

“Jiaozi is a very special dish in China. When I was younger, my parents told me you could only have jiaozi at New Year’s. Things are different these days, but back then, jiaozi was an expensive dish, especially for poor people. The tradition, however, is very special: no matter how poor you may have been, you had to eat jiaozi (at New Year’s) because of the shape of the jiaozi. They resemble the money that was used in the old days. People would “put” all their wishes into the jiaozi, such as having more money or having more luck in the next year. Traditionally, small coins were and are still placed in the jiaozi during preparation—not in every dumpling, just a few. And those who then find a dumpling with a coin have double luck in the next year!”

 

Double the joy, who wouldn’t want that? So let’s get going, get to work on the dough, and have fun with culinary teamwork!