China’s gastronomic traditions may have been developed over the course of several millennia. But if central planners have their way, the country’s cuisine will soon be restyled with the help of a relative interloper: the humble spud.
While the New World potato—or as it’s known in China, tudou, or earth bean—has been eaten in China since its introduction centuries ago, the Middle Kingdom’s table staples remain wheat and rice. Given the country’s water-strapped state, though, the government said this week that its citizens should begin consuming more spuds.
Potatoes have been widely embraced across China, alternately fried, baked, tossed into stews and in some cases transformed into potato flour. For years, the government has talked about possibly elevating their national position to help alleviate strains on the country’s parched land. Potatoes are a less water-intensive crop than rice or wheat, and particularly in some areas of the arid north, they are some of the only crops that grow.
From a numbers perspective, boosting spuds will also mean increasing the national grain harvest, a closely watched indicator in the global industry, because China officially counts tubers as a grain.
To emphasize the message, the country’s state-run China Central Television last week circulated a series of nine potato-centric recipes, including potato pancakes and Kung Pao potato. In another post on its Weibo account, it encouraged readers to debate the merits of hot-and-sour potato strips versus tomatoes stir-fried with eggs. “Making hot-and-sour potato strips is easy and tasty,” the broadcaster wrote. “Of course, there are also many who are partial to tomatoes stir-fried with eggs. Which do you support?”
Some microbloggers reacting to the news were aghast, with one particularly impassioned eater posting a lengthy treatise comparing the digestive impact of potatoes versus buckwheat. Headlined “Prevent Potatoes from Conquering Humanity,” it declared that potato consumption would produce pronounced levels of gas in the population. Others joked about the directive, posting Photoshopped Cultural Revolution-era images re-headlined to read, “I want to grow potatoes, I want development!”
Still others posted their own potato recipes, in one case including matcha-flavored mashed potatoes.
Local media reports said that the potato would soon be vying for fourth place among the country’s staple foods, behind rice, wheat and corn. Xu Shaoshi, director of the country’s National Development and Reform Commission, said that to ease them into consumers’ diets, potatoes will be mixed into bread, steamed buns and noodles.
Signaling the global market’s willingness to take a bet on the potato’s rising fortunes in China, the Swiss seed giant Syngenta also has a development project in China to boost potato yields, it said.
China faces a severe water shortage, with high levels of drought leaving hundreds of thousands with drinking water shortages last year. The country’s water tables have dropped by about one meter per year in parts of the north, with low levels of irrigation efficiency and high levels of water-intensive coal use further taxing its supplies.
Source: The Wall Street Journal