Bruce Anderson

Chinese spirit

My recent drinking has been straight out of Hopkins: ‘All things original, counter, spare, strange.’ A dinner party in Chinatown ended with mao tai, the Chinese rice spirit. I have never been able to decide about mao tai. It has a nose like a school changing room: some would say, a taste to match. It packs a wallop. At around 86° proof, it can be heartburn in a glass. Girls rarely enjoy it. When mao tai is on offer, even the ones who delight in a Havana with some serious armagnac tend to dodge the column. But a ­digestif ought to pull the strings together: a final movement which makes sense of the symphony. After a Chinese meal accompanied by sake — apologies for the rape of Nanking, but sake is ideal with Chinese food — mao tai does the business, especially, as is increasingly the case in China, when followed by a cognac (not armagnac: mao tai needs a more austere brandy). I must confess to a post-judice. Chinese food has limitations. The French take gold, the Italians silver; the Japanese win a separate event for sashimi (they are sans pareil when they are slicing the fish, but fall back towards mediocrity if they start to cook it). The Chinese, Spanish and Indians can fight it out for bronze. As for the British, we could throw in odd dishes — pork sausages, haggis, black pudding, roast beef, smoked salmon — but not enough to qualify for cuisine status.

Any cuisine embodies a philosophy of the natural world. Though not excessively squeamish, I am overawed by the Chinaman’s robust approach to the potential cast list of his ­dinner plate. To paraphrase Hopkins as a children’s hymn, ‘All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small… the Chinese eat them all.’

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