As fall settles in to northeast China, and the “squirrels” are beginning to appear, I am thinking of cold weather foods and the lovely potato & leek soup I’ve added to our regular dinner rotation (Thanks, Pinch My Salt). That means a trip to the local market. This is where I buy nearly all of our meat and vegetables, along with some fruits, fresh noodles, small breads, maybe a pound of peanuts, or some fresh, spicy cucumbers. All smells aside, I like a market where the whole pig is on the table in the morning, or the chicken feathers are still out on the sidewalk. I go to the regular supermarkets and the import shop too, but this is our real food movement happens.
I had previously written about bei shi cheng, but over the last couple of years, I’ve settled in to a regular appearance at a market in the Hun nan district, specifically in the Fengxiang neighborhood. On a recent trip my list wrote up like this –
- 15 eggs – 7.40rmb (~$1.20)
- chicken (4 breasts, 2 leg/thigh) – 26rmb ($4.25)
- beef (1 kg minced, 500g skirt) – 120rmb ($19.60)
- pork (1 kg loin, 1 kg shoulder) – 60rmb ($9.80)
- vegetables (various & plentiful, about 3 lbs) – 15rmb ($2.45)
- new potatoes (500g) – 1.5rmb ($.25)
- 12 fresh rolls – 4rmb ($.65)
And my list might have looked like this:
The Simple Adventure 
WOW Julie! This is great….I wanna come back to the market!!
I love seeing everything out of commercial packaging. All those pretty real foods make you start to think about what to cook tonight – or what I should plant in my garden next year!
Can you tell me about the bones – soup bones or marrow bones?