My stepmom has a foreign exchange student from Beijing coming Thursday night. Unfortunately, she lives in a small town that doesn’t really have any sort of ethnic foods, and his plane is coming in after the ethnic grocery stores in Oklahoma City close. We were planning on hitting the grocery stores before his plane arrived, but I’m not quite sure what to get. I’m sure my tastes are vastly different from what his are. We do know he isn’t big on sweets, but other than that…
So any suggestions?
Isn’t part of being a foreign exchange student getting the chance to try the foods of a different culture? I wouldn’t think he expects you to serve him Chinese food.
I had a Chinese roommate once whose favorite dish was chicken feet sauteed with hot peppers. He said they’re a delicacy in China and he couldn’t believe how cheap they are here. (Well, I guess they would be expensive if they were popular – imagine how many chickens you have to kill to get a pound of feet.) I tried them – not bad but not something I’d go out of my way to find. They’re just fatty skin on the bones.
One thing to watch out for is dairy products- the vast majority of Chinese are lactose intolerant. I don’t know how often this issue would come up with the diet he normally eats- he may or may not know if he is lactose intolerant (or may or may not know enough English to understand and answer the question).
Foods that contain a lot of lactose would include milk, yogurt, ice cream, or soft unaged cheeses. Any casserole made with milk is going to have a lot of lactose in it.
Will you or she get a chance to talk to him before he arrives, and ask him if there are any specific American foods he’d be interested in trying?
I used to live near a Chinese restaurant that had two menus – one of the dishes you expect to find in a Chinese restaurant in the U.S., and one of apparently more authentic Chinese dishes for Chinese customers. I never had the guts to order off the second but it included things like tripe, beef tendon in black bean sauce, and far more exotic things.
Wikipedia says that raw foods, particularly salads made with raw vegetables, aren’t usually eaten in China. The same article says that people in China don’t normally drink cold drinks with meals.
tremorviolet, he will be here for 10 months, so he will definitely have to get used to American food. However, my stepmom is hoping to lessen some of the culture shock and make him feel more comfortable if he has some familiar foods to fall back on, in case of emergency, times of stress, etc. Sorry, I should have explained that better in the OP. She is just trying to prevent him walking into a kitchen were almost nothing is familiar to him.
Anne Neville, thanks for bringing up the lactose issue. I knew about that, but frankly hadn’t even thought about it. I will definitely mention this to her.
Thanks everyone, please keep the suggestions coming!
Popular: Mcdonald’s, KFC. 
There isn’t anything you can get where you are that isn’t available in China, aside from cheese or foods containing a great deal of cheese (like lasagne and such) due to the lactose intolerance thing. I highly doubt a regular Western meal would be strange or unfamiliar to the guy, although most of it will be a little different than what he’s use to.
Rice?
If worst comes to worst, I have an amazingly huge Asian supermarket close at hand in Orlando, and if you guys send a shopping list with necessities, I can always check to see if we have the stuff you want and ship them to you for my cost plus shipping.
Now that I’ve collected my thoughts a litte:
Don’t make anything containing a great deal of cheese. Many Chinese people who have lived in the west for decades still cannot stand the stuff.
Chinese cuisine typically does not include very large pieces of roasted meat, that would require a knife to enjoy. I don’t think it will offend the guy or anything but a steak would definitely be unusual. Rare steak, that is, meat that is still “pink”, should probably be avoided.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with raw food/salads.
Your safest bet would be some roasted or fried pork or chicken with vegetables, perhaps in a casserole or a pie, rice/pasta, and a non-creamy soup.
Like Big Bad Voodoo Lou, I’m also very close to a really big Asian supermarket and can ship stuff. Heck, you could send us both lists and we could compare availability, if you want to get serious about it.
If you try to emulate Chinese food, you will fail. The “traditional English breakfast” my exchange hosts cooked for me on an exchange with a German family when I was 14 still lives on in infamy in my memory. Give the guy simple western foods, and avoid the stuff mentioned above that might make him sick.
Also, your local Chinese restaurant will serve stuff that is almost, but not entirely, unlike what he gets at home, adapted as it will be for the local market.
Simple Western food is a good idea. My Chinese friends tend to be Cantonese, so I’m not so sure about Beijingers, but here goes anyway…
Avoid cheese and lamb, unless they are provided as optional or he indicates he’d like to try them. Many Chinese find those quite awful, in the way many Westerners might view chicken feet, etc.
Rice isn’t as silly as it sounds, because you can serve it with a lot of Western food, and it will provide a good transition for this guy. Rice really is everywhere in China, so consider using it as a staple.
As for serving “Chinese” food, it is possible, but you’ve got to keep that simple too. The stuff you get in Chinese restaurants might seem odd to him, but you can fix little quick at-home snacks. If you’ve got steamed rice, some strips of stir-fried meat, vegetables, and soy and chilli sauces, you’re on your way to home-style cookin’.
The best way is to just ask him. Take him to the Asian grocery store, and let him pick out stuff. He might concentrate on snack foods, and that’s okay - the main meals can be Western ones. Things like “Tai Bao” (? I think - I know them as the Vietnamese “Banh Bao”) are great snacks - they are large savoury dumplings that are traditionally steamed, but you can take them straight out of the pack and nuke them for a minute or so, and you’re good to go. Great afternoon snack.
Definitely get him involved in the shopping and cooking, ask him for advice, and keep both the Chinese food and the Western food simple at first.
And he’ll expect you to screw some things up. It’s part of the experience.
For some reason, all of my Chinese friends love BBQ ribs. Go figure.
As a point of fact, lamb is quite popular in the North; the few Beijing style places here in Chicago feature it prominently on their menus. lamb stir fried with pure cumin and lamb hotpot especially.
Also they eat more wheat as in pancakes and flatbreads too. Rice is still big but not to the point it is further south. Mmmm, scallion pancakes with smoked pork, oh man I know where I’m going dinner!
All that aside, definitely make some American food, I’m sure he will like it. If you feel like doing something for him later, the hotpot is a great idea, simple to prepare and he can probably show you a few things too.
I don’t think you can go wrong with steamed rice and some beef or chicken strips sauteed with vegetables in a little toasted sesame oil (if you can’t find sesame oil, just use regular vegetable oil). You could also add some egg rolls or spring rolls - most regular grocery stores carry those in the freezer aisle, and I was told by a Chinese coworker that those are essentially the same as what you’d get in China.
Are you going to Cao Nguyen or the Chinese Supermarket? Or is there some spiffy place I haven’t found yet?
I’d suggest buying several packages of frozen dumplings with varied ingredients. They’re easy and yummy! Maybe some frozen steamed buns (the meat kind, not the sweet kind). And some packages of ramen soup. Definitely get those from the market - they’re much better than the American kind. Get some good soy sauce while you’re there. Rice and noodles you can get at the regular grocery store, or buy at the market.
I wouldn’t go too overboard to start with, since you’re guessing on his tastes. Just get some snacky-type things and plan to take him to the market later, if he wants to do some shopping. He’ll be expecting western foods; it usually takes at least a week or so for the “food homesick” problem to set in. Also, if he’s a college-aged boy, he may or may not have any interest in cooking or traditional foods.
p.s. Don’t forget to take an ice chest for the frozen goods!
Ask in the grocery stores. They’ll be delighted to help you.
Frozen dumplings from an Asian grocer will go well. I’ve had little porky dumplings in a very low-rent joint for breakfast in Beijing. And certainly the locals buy them in the supermarkets throughout China. You can get various bottled sauces labelled “dumpling sauce” that are a combination of soy and rice vinegar.
I had lots of ribs in China. And plenty of lamb. Mmm, hot smokey lamb ribs in Changsha.
The guy may be studying in Beijing, but may not be from Beijing. Good students travel a long way in China and food is radically different across regions. It’s hard to predict what his tastes will be, but having a few dumplings and the makings of a noodle soup (even a packet one with a few fresh vegies like bok choy and scallions) would provide reliably familiar tastes. Omlettes travel well too - a dash of soy and a drop of sesame oil and you’re right.
redtail23, we’ll be going to Cao Nguyen (I love that place!). Where is the Chinese market?
We will definitely get some of the dumplings and noodle dishes.
Any idea of what snacky stuff is popular? Is there a Chinese equivalent to the American fascination with chips, etc.?