THE TRUE MEANING OF FRESHNESS

THE TRUE MEANING OF FRESHNESS

The Dalian sea is located at the "gold latitude 39° N", just like Japan's island of Hokkaido.

When talking about Dalian, you cannot leave out Dalian's seafood. Having a couple of drinks with friends, eating seafood dishes in a light breeze during leisure time, this is the typical lifestyle of this romantic city. If you want to understand Dalian, maybe you can start with understanding its seafood.

Text by Wu Yan Translation by Bian Jiaxin Photos by Sun Fuxing&Zengjian

Every sea cucumber is collected by diving crew.

每个海参都由潜水员人工采集。

The tourists can also fishing on abroad over the sea.

游客也可以随船海钓。

People's Wisdom

At 8 o'clock in the morning, around the Zhang Zizao Island area in the northern Yellow sea, Wei Guozhong from Helongjiang Province is doing his routine— putting on his diving suit, carrying the oxygen cylinder and taking his motorboat to the designated area. Under his feet is more than 16 hundred square kilometers clean ocean, where he works every day. They call it “the farm”.

After 10 minutes, he fi nishes his fi rst underwater collection with his fi shnets full of all kinds of underwater treasures—shining and solid sea cucumbers, bright coloured shells and thorny sea urchins…Every kind is almost the same size. Zhang Dalong, who has been working on Zhang zidao Island for 11 years, said, he can tell at the fi rst sight if it is big enough. Around the sea area near 39 degrees north latitude, sea foods grow slower than those in more southern areas. Normally it takes 3 to 5 years for them to reach maturity. And only then is the quality, taste and the sweetness considered to be the best. Zhang knows also that when they gets their best seafoods, Dalian and Zhang Zidao Island are recognised by Chinese and even the global market.“There's no other opportunistic way, just believe in one word - patience. Waiting for them to get used to the laws of survival in the sea world, to hunt naturally, to grow up naturally, which is quite the same as a pasture in a fi eld. On the other hand, what humans need to do is to keep the laws and rules in a scientif i c way”, said, Wu Zhiwei, who has several years' experience on nurturing of sea treasures.

Wu Zhiwei took a shell out from the net and opened it. The fi rst bite of the heavy and fresh meat of the shell brought with the coolness and salt from the ocean, and then the strong and sweet taste went aroundfull of the mouth immediately. “This is patinopecten yessoensis, which was originally imported from Japan. After being nurtured and cultivated in Zhang Zidao Island, they are exported to many regions including EU and North America. Japanese later, on the contrary, started to learn from the methods in Zhang Zidao Island. We concluded and found out that the reason why we could make a long-term plan, do some researches and make a improvement is because Zhang Zidao Island has been sticking to collective ownership since 1950s, and all the 10 thousand citizens on the Island are stockholders.”

The local shells and sea cumbers taste better after being cooked by the chef in five-star hotel.本地特产的扇贝、海参，经五星级酒店烹调更显豪华。

All rivers run into sea

In Shangri-La Hotel in Dalian, the master of state banquet Zhang Jiawei is cooking a famous Chinese course: the off i cial “Fotiaoqiang”, which is made of selected Dalian sea cucumbers, haliotis abalones, slices of conch and so on. This is a renowned course originally from Fujian Province, but now it becomes one of the signatures of Dalian Cuisine. “Generally speaking, the eating habits of Dalian people are similar to Shandong and Northeast's. However, as a harbor city that was opened since very early, Dalian is not so strongly exclusive to other culture, where many cuisines and various methods of cookings can be found. People in Dalian don't have so many picky rituals, but the sea foods are always the leading role on table. They can be cooked in Chinese traditional ways or in western styles; they can be high-end, and can also be very down-to-earth”, said the President of Dalian Cuisine Cultwre Association Mr. Gao Chengcong. He has worked for several times for the food preparation for the World Economic Forum and seen the guests' passion for Dalian seafoods with his own eyes. This year, he wants to bring Dalian seafoods and Dalian snacks to the World Economic Forum and make more people know about the profound history of Dalian cuisine culture.

The “official Fotiaoqiang“, a luxurious course in Dalian cuisine meticulously developed and produced by 70-year-old master Zhang Jiawei.70多岁的张家维大师精心研制烹饪豪华连菜——官府佛跳墙。