A cook's tour of China without the crispy caterpillars

As I pick my way around the debris in Zhongyi market in Lijiang, our guide points out the yak section. Windpipes, cleaned intestines and huge wobbly magenta livers are neatly laid out on the filthy floor, while the more expensive cuts are arranged on trestles. My eyes are drawn to a row of small boys enthusiastically slurping up noodles swimming in a dark beefy-looking broth. ‘Would you like to see the dog section?’ our guide asks politely. ‘Umm, no, that won’t be necessary,’ we say quickly, then head out to the bustling, willow-lined streets.

It’s October and National Holiday Week and the stone-paved streets of Lijiang (a Unesco world heritage site) are filled with Chinese tourists enjoying themselves. People are munching everything from sweetcorn and pomegranates to yak kebabs and roast sweet potatoes. Music is coming from the small restaurants that line the pretty waterways. Inside guests play cards and sip the famous local Pu’er tea. Our guide stops by a stall selling what look like bee grubs, grilled cicadas and some form of crispy caterpillar. With a teasing smile she asks, ‘Would you like to try some?’ For a second I think of Lin Yutang’s words in Chinese Gastronomy: ‘the inherent textural variation of innards is interesting to gourmets’. I decide I’m not a gourmet and decline.

It’s hard to believe that two nights ago we were sitting in the restaurant at the Aman at Summer Palace hotel in Beijing, with bamboos rustling at the door. The soft lights and subtle fragrances seem like heaven now, as one exquisite Cantonese dish followed another. Every course was delicious, from the succulent fried shrimps with crispy shredded egg with butter and dried chilli sauce, to the aromatic clear soup with poached bamboo pith and green vegetables. It was as though we’d stepped into the rarified 18th-century world of Cao Xueqin’s The Story of the Stone.