Big Bowl

This feast is truly a banquet in a bowl, actually nine courses, cooked separately, then assembled in layers and heated slowly with stock so their flavors combine. It is not only called big bowl, or poon choi, but also gau dai guai, or “nine precious flavors.” It is a celebratory meal of the Hakka people, and it is known by this latter name both among the Hakka and by the Cantonese who surround them. Its existence dates to the Song Dynasty in the thirteenth century, when the Mo