Many interesting details about state dinner menus
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12255127
By Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News, Washington DC
Excerpts:
One of the key moments of a sensitive state visit to the US by Chinese President Hu Jintao was a state dinner in the White House - the kind of occasion where the food has to do a lot more than simply taste
...
With foreign guests, there is a dietary minefield to cross. Are there some foods they won't touch with a barge pole? Can you serve a Chinese statesman blue cheese?
...
At this week's state dinner for President Hu, cooked by executive chef Cristeta Comerford - Mr Scheib's successor and the first woman in the job - the visiting guests asked for something "quintessentially American".
They got it, right down to old-fashioned apple pie.
However, BBC's Fuchsia Dunlop, the author of three books on Chinese cuisine, believes it would have been a challenging meal for many of the Chinese delegation.
"Many Chinese people, especially those of President Hu's generation, would be less than delighted with raw salad and goats cheese and with the prospect of eating a whole slab of beef," she says.
In the past only "barbarians" ate raw food and dairy products, she says, while rare, pink oozing meat is an "atrocity" in terms of Chinese gastronomy.
By Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News, Washington DC
Excerpts:
One of the key moments of a sensitive state visit to the US by Chinese President Hu Jintao was a state dinner in the White House - the kind of occasion where the food has to do a lot more than simply taste
...
With foreign guests, there is a dietary minefield to cross. Are there some foods they won't touch with a barge pole? Can you serve a Chinese statesman blue cheese?
...
At this week's state dinner for President Hu, cooked by executive chef Cristeta Comerford - Mr Scheib's successor and the first woman in the job - the visiting guests asked for something "quintessentially American".
They got it, right down to old-fashioned apple pie.
However, BBC's Fuchsia Dunlop, the author of three books on Chinese cuisine, believes it would have been a challenging meal for many of the Chinese delegation.
"Many Chinese people, especially those of President Hu's generation, would be less than delighted with raw salad and goats cheese and with the prospect of eating a whole slab of beef," she says.
In the past only "barbarians" ate raw food and dairy products, she says, while rare, pink oozing meat is an "atrocity" in terms of Chinese gastronomy.