Food in China

I was laughing earlier as I thought about the breakfast buffet line in Fuzhou because the food was definitely "Chinese". I thought of my "meat and potatoes" friend, Sarah, as we hastened past the soft belly of turtle soup, beef balls in spicy sauce and thousand year old eggs. Their version of "American cuisine" for breakfast, was baked beans, tofu french toast and chicken nuggets.
The Chinese serve fried rice for all meals, as well as noodles and soup. Congee is a big breakfast meal, and aside from adding pickled veggies and, well, pickles, to it, there isn't much that can be done to make it palatable, as it is rice and water cooked until it is mush. All Chinese children eat this for breakfast. I found out quite quickly that my child doesn't. This was a plus as I didn't think I could stand watching her eat it.

From the time we landed in Fuzhou, Scarlett has been getting a lot of firsts in the food department. And she tries everything! When in China she lived on a staple of fried rice for every meal (which she won't touch now), but then I would add veggies and meat to each one. She loves yogurt, bananas, really all kinds of fruit (except watermelon and strawberries, which are staples here in the summer). Seaweed and bok choy are another favorite of hers. She eats water lily bulbs (very yummy when sauteed with candied walnuts), french fries, dumplings, hamburgers, pizza, meat and cheese rolls... The list goes on and on. It's so exciting. I remember seeing some of the other children in both province and Guangzhou and they wouldn't touch anything but congee and noodles.
I feel so blessed that this is just one more thing that has come easily to us.
The other awesome part is that Shaw and Maeve were able to try a bunch of new things, which they love to do - I know, weird, right? - and we headed to the Asian market yesterday to load up on essentials.