The Foods

Chinese cooking is certainly a specialized cuisine. While many of the ingredients it requires are more readily available in neighborhood markets today, because of the increased interest in Chinese cooking, many are not. Most foods of Chinese origin, whether from the People’s Republic of China, from Hong Kong or Taiwan, can be bought in Chinese and Asian markets. Most are available by mail order as well, particularly the prepared, preserved, and dried ingredients, and advertisements from the sellers can be found in the finer cookery magazines. Brands have also proliferated. I have refrained from specifying brands here except in such cases where I believe a particular brand of a food is far superior to its counterparts and thus essential to the recipes I offer.