OXFORD, Miss. Curious dinner guests venturing into Lenoir
Hall on a recent evening were greeted by the aroma of
freshly prepared, authentic Chinese cuisine. With not one
egg roll or bowl of fried rice in sight, the appetites of
diners were satisfied with an atypical, three-course
Chinese meal.
“China Table” was the first ethnic dinner hosted by Cook!
Eat! Share!, a new multicultural organization founded to
familiarize the community with other cultures through
food.
Under the direction of member Yang Liu, a pharmacology
postdoctoral research associate, group members prepared
vermicelli and seaweed salad, more than 250 Chinese
dumplings, Chinese barbecue ribs and green bean soup.
“I wanted to show people homemade (Chinese) food,” Liu
said. “America has a lot of Chinese fast food, but that’s
not the way food actually tastes in China.”
Daphne Ingene, counselor at the University Counseling
Center and coordinator of Cook! Eat! Share!, said the
dinner’s success was a true collaborative effort.
“I am proud of the Cook! Eat! Share! members,” she said.
“They crossed over culture differences to cook Chinese food
and share the Chinese culture and traditions together.”
During the meal, Ingene and member Stephanie Sheng led a
presentation on the origins of several popular Chinese
foods, and member Sheng Bi demonstrated how to cook Chinese
dumplings, or jiaozi.
Also known as potstickers in America, the dumplings are
pan-seared, half-moon shaped pieces of dough stuffed with
ground meat and vegetable filling. The dumplings were
served with a soy-vinegar dipping sauce that is prepared
with garlic, ginger and sesame oil. Bi, a doctoral student
in education, is a native of Shan Xi in northern China who
has lived in Oxford for more than three years.
“We spent a lot of time researching for the menu because
the culture behind the food is the message we wanted to
convey,” Bi said.
Although Chinese culture has evolved because more people
prefer to buy food than cook, the making of dumplings on
the eve of the Spring Festival, or the Chinese New Year, is
still a popular custom, she said.
Since the preparation of dumplings can be time-consuming
and difficult, families traditionally come together and
make large quantities for the holiday, she said. The
Chinese New Year is celebrated on the first day of the
lunar calendar, usually corresponding to a date in late
January or early February on Western calendars.
A popular part of the main course was Chinese ribs. Unlike
American ribs coated with barbecue sauce, Chinese ribs are
slowly grilled for an hour, then grilled 30 minutes more
while being brushed with a soy-vinegar sauce every two to
five minutes, Bi said. Dinner guests Charlie and Althea
Church of Oxford named the cold mix of vermicelli and
seaweed served as an appetizer as their favorite dish.
“I’ve never had anything like that before,” Althea Church
said. “It was so delicious.” Her husband, a senior research
scientist at the National Center for Physical Acoustics,
said he enjoyed learning about the origins of foods in
different regions of China.
The meal concluded with a cup of traditional green bean
soup served as dessert. Green beans contain a great deal of
ying, which means “sunlight” or “good,” Ingene said. “It’s
a good soup to regain balance in their emotions,” she
said.
Cook! Eat! Share! is supported by the University Counseling
Center, International Programs Office and Department of
Family and Consumer Sciences. For more information about
future events, contact Ingene at dingene@olemiss.edu or
662-915-3784.