A while ago, I talked about my experience of eating a notable Shanghai delicacy called xiao long bao. Here’s a video of Andrea Nguyen, chef and author of Asian Dumplings, as she talks about the process of making this dish and what she considers the perfect xiao long bao at Shanghai Dumpling King. (short commercial at beginning of video)
Having now seen the movie Avatar, I can’t say there’s much Hindu lore in it beyond the word “avatar” and an approximation of its ancient concept.
It’s true that the hero of Avatar, like the Hindu deity Vishnu, has blue skin and rides a mighty sun bird, but hey, we’re in the realm of myth, and X doesn’t have to be derived from Y.
Here’s a painting from the museum’s collection showing a very blue Vishnu (and his consort) riding through the sky on the great bird Garuda. It’s from the north Indian state of Rajasthan, and dates from around 1760.
If you see the movie and notice other connections with Hindu lore, write in and tell us, OK?
There you go again, Hollywood, stealing from ancient Hindu lore.
The word “avatar” comes from Sanskrit avatara, literally meaning “descent.” It referred, originally, to the incarnations of the great deity Vishnu. When humankind was threatened with disorder and violence Vishnu would take on an appropriate form and descend to earth to set things right.
There are usually thought to be ten incarnations, and they include animal or part-animal forms such as The Tortoise and The Man-Lion, and human forms such as The Dwarf, Rama, and Krishna.
Looking outside my window I noticed this garden taking shape in the Fulton Mall between the museum and the public library. If this is some type of beautification project, I like what I’m seeing. It’s kind of similar to the herb garden they installed in Civic Center during the Slow Food festival. If it were up to me, I would just fill the whole mall area with plants and install some meandering walkways. I don’t know, sometimes I have dreams of being a landscape architect.
Fulton Mall
The upcoming Shanghai exhibition got me thinking about Shanghai cuisine. What do I know about it? Absolutely nothing, well, except for this dumpling called Xiao Long Bao. According to the description in Wikipedia:
Shanghai does not have a definitive cuisine of its own, but modifies those of the surrounding provinces (mostly from adjacent Jiangsu and Zhejiang coastal provinces). What can be called Shanghai cuisine is epitomized by the use of alcohol. Fish, eel, crab, and chicken are “drunken” with spirits and are briskly cooked/steamed or served raw. Salted meats and preserved vegetables are also commonly used to adjuntify the dish.
Xiao Long Bao
As far as I’m concerned, any food “drunken” with spirits has to taste good. Anyway, back to Xiao Long Bao or “small steamer bun.” This dumpling is filled with pork or minced crab and soup. The soup is what got me the first time I ate it. Somebody forgot to tell me it was scalding hot and I put the whole thing in my mouth thinking it was just another dim sum. Apparently, there’s a technique to eating this innocent looking dumpling (filled with lava). You’re supposed to bite off the top, suck all the soup, then dip it in vinegar before eating. That was my introduction to Shanghai cuisine but I need to learn more. If you know of any other Shanghai dishes I should try, feel free to add your 2 cents.
Considering that books are such a large part of my job, I shouldn’t find questions like “Is this book any good?” complicated. I won’t lie to you: if I don’t like a book, I’ll tell you (sorry, capitalism). Ultimately it’s more important to find out whether or not you like a book for yourself. You’d think a bookseller would tell you that there are no bad books, but unfortunately, I have my standards. The best way to tell if a book is worth it? Start reading.
That said, I would like to break with all my usual feelings about “best-of” lists and provide for you…a best-of list. Word on the street is that it’s going to be one cold winter, and you know that you can’t spend that much time on Facebook…
Read more
Sorry to just spin news around, but I did want to make sure our blog readers knew about our Celebration of India event tomorrow and Chronicle writer Tamara Straus did a nice job conveying the spirit of the program, “which starts at 11:15 a.m. and runs until 4:15 p.m., includes tabla lessons led by drumming phenomenon Robin Sukhadia, Indian stories for families, a docent tour of the museum’s South Asian galleries, a Karnatic musical concert led by Mohan Rangan Govindaraj and an Indian classical singing lesson led by Gautam Tejas Ganeshan.
One of the challenges in planning and implementing public programs is making sure we have appropriate images to represent our programs, sometimes a frustrating and time-consuming process. The image being used to promote our upcoming tea program is not correct.
What’s wrong with this picture? The tea programs on Nov. 14 feature presentations by members of the Omotesenke tradition of tea. In the Omotesenke tradition, tea is prepared using many of the same utensils as any other Japanese tea lineage, but the tea is not whisked quite so vigorously as others might (for example the image above, which shows an Urasenke-style bowl of tea). Rather, Omotesenke style tea is blended more gently and has less froth on the top. I searched Google images for a more appropriate picture and I found only a few, such as this one in ceramic artist Cory Lum’s Flickr stream. I will need to be sure to take our own picture of an Omotesenke bowl of tea next week so we can have one readily available for future programs. Or if there are any Omotesenke practitioners out there who have rights to a good image you are willing to let us use, please let me know.
Want to know how to prepare a bowl of tea at home? Come to our workshop on November 14. On that same day you may also attend a tea gathering where you will be served a sweet and bowl of tea at the museum’s tearoom. This is our last tea of 2009 and thus is special in the annual tea calendar. It is a time to reflect on the past year and consider all the things you might like to complete before the new year, people you want to see, and make preparations to ensure that the coming year is a good one.
Tea bowl by Nonomura Ninsei (1615-1700) Stoneware with polychrome enamel decoration. Gift of the Connoisseurs' Council and Bruce and Betty Alberts, 1991.230.
It is also a time when people use utensils with images of the twelve animals from the Chinese zodiac, such as this bowl with a dragon image. We are in the year of the Ox and are coming up to the year of the Tiger on February 14, 2010. People will have lots of fun bringing out their utensils with tiger motifs in particular since that is the year ahead. Although Japan has adopted the Western calendar and celebrates New Year’s Day on January 1, there are still many traditions that are linked to the Chinese calendar system which is based on the lunar cycle. Here is an article about the tea calendar.
It’s a little bit of a joke with us that even when we’re not working, we’re working. Despite traveling several thousand miles away from the museum, I still managed to get some work into my holiday.
In Berlin I visited the Pergamon Museum, which houses both the Greek Pergamon Altar and the Assyrian Ishtar Gate. While the blockbuster architectural elements were spectacular, my favorite pieces were wrought on a more intimate scale.
incensor, West Asia
My last post talked about Vietnamese dining options near the museum. But of course there are other cuisines nearby. I still think the number one choice for lunch time dining is right inside the museum at Café Asia. But here are some other choices if you find yourself leaving the museum and wanting to have lunch or an early dinner near the museum.
Ananda Fuara salad and samosas. http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxkiesler/ / CC BY 2.0
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