Markets-wet, wild and wriggling(3)
Next comes the butchers' stalls where various cuts of pork, beef, mutton and lamb are displayed; cured ham and preserved sausages are hung up. Internal organs are displayed on the side, including feat, hart, lungs, liver, trip, intestines and other innards.
Pig's lung soup and fried pig's heart are quite popular and believed to be healthy. In traditional Chinese medicine an animal's heart is considered beneficial for the human heart, likewise for a pig's lung.
The stalls are always lighted in the sunny morning to make the red meat look redder and glistening. Some butchers post the daily specials.
"Lately the meat from hei mao zhu (黑毛猪), a domestic black pig, is popular," the chef says. "It has fine texture, rich flavors and a unique fatty fragrance, which makes a good Shanghai-style braised pork."
The poultry area is usually the biggest since it's filled with live chicken, duck, goose, pigeon and other fowl. They are placed in large cane cages and taken back into a kitchen to be slaughtered and drained and cut up as the customer wants.
Chicken is the most popular. Those of different ages are best for different dishes. Lao muji (老母鸡) or older hens, with rich flavor, are used for chicken soup; caoji (草鸡) or spring chicken, with tender meat, is made into congyou ji (葱油鸡), fried chicken with spring onion in hot oil.
Shanghai is known for its san huang ji (三黄鸡), a chicken with yellow feather, beak and feet traditionally raised in Chuansha Town, the Pudong New Area. It's often made into steamed chicken and chicken congee due to its fine and tender texture.
Chef Sam advises picking your bird and asking the vendor to kill and clean it in the back kitchen in 15-20 minutes. That gives you time to buy vegetables and other ingredients during the waiting time.
The aquatic products area is wet, slippery and bloody. It's usually in an area separate from other drier produce.
Seafood and fresh water products are sold separately in different ways. Fresh water products including fish, shrimps and shells are sold alive. They are placed in tanks or vats with oxygen supplying equipment.
One fish seller says locals prefer bai shui yu (白水鱼), a kind of white snapper, usually steamed with spring onion; jiyu (鲫鱼), a carp often made into soup or fried with spring onion; and luyu (鲈鱼), a weever that can be either steamed or braised in sauce.
Chef Sam says most of the freshwater products are from Dianshan Lake in west Shanghai's Qingpu District or Qiandao (Thousand Island) Lake in Zhejiang Province.
He recommends fish from manmade Qiandao Lake.
"The manmade lake used for a hydroelectric station has clear water quality. More importantly, the aquatic grasses provide balanced nutrition, which gives the fish a rich but not earthy taste," he says.
He recommends choosing wild fish that are dark in color, with a firm touch.
Various seafood
Various raw seafood are placed on ice, including hairtail, large yellow croaker, large prawns and many others.
"Shanghainese love braised hairtail in soy sauce, or salt it first and then deep fry it. I will help customers cut it into 5cm sections at home so it's easier to cook," says one vendor.
Large yellow croaker is rare thus expensive, the chef says. "But it's savory if steamed or made into soup. It's one of my favorites."
Soybeans can be processed into many products with different flavors, aromas, textures, shapes and colors. All are available in markets.
Commonly sold are tofu, baiye (百叶), a thin-sliced dried bean curd used to make soup; kaofu (烤麸), an honeycombed product and local specialty often braised with mushroom and peanuts; you mian jin (油面筋) or wheat gluten, a hollow spherical product with golden color that can be stuffed with meat.
Sellers of grains and cereals display sack of grain in the traditional way - in sacks, with wooden signs bearing the name, variety and production area.
Besides the rice are sacks of beans, millet, barley, sorghum, rye, peas and seeds. Some are arranged according to color, ranging from white rice and light-colored grains to golden millet and corn, green mung beans, red beans, back beans, black glutinous rice and sesame. Some are arranged according to the size of the grain.
Chef Sam recommends eating more black beans, black sesame and black rice in winter since traditional Chinese medicine claims that eating black-colored foods in winter supplies energy and "tonifies" the kidney. They are traditionally prepared in congee for breakfast. Locals often add pickles, fermented or dried vegetables and fruits and marinated condiments.
Each market has at last one seller of pickles and condiments of all kinds, some briny and spicy in northern style and some with a certain sweetness in southern style. There are many samples for tasting.
Older people prefer sweeter condiments while young people like spicier tastes, says one vendor, adding that everybody likes zhacai (榨菜), mustard stem salted and rubbed with chili.
Cucumber, radish and lettuce are commonly used to make pickles since they are juicy and crunchy. Garlic marinated with sugar and vinegar has a sweet and sour taste and is also popular.
Locals prefer wet markets not only for freshness and cost, but also for their wide range of street food. These include world-famous Shanghai snacks such as youtiao (油条), deep-fried dough, and shengjian (生煎), pan-fried dumpling with meat filling. There are others - hard to find elsewhere - but more likely to be on sale in wet markets.
Bao jiao bu (包脚步) literally means the cloth used for wrapping feet, quite unappetizing. It is actually youtiao together with pickles seasoned with tian mi jiang (甜蜜酱), a thick brown-colored sauce made from wheat flour and soybean featuring sweet and briny taste. It's wrapped in a thin layer of egg cake to resemble the food cloth. The cake tastes chewy and the inside is crispy with a strong aroma.
You dun zi (油墩子), a kind of deep-fried golden brown pastry, is filled with shredded white turnip and diced spring onion. It was once popular in the city but now is only found in wet markets. It has a crunchy skin and crispy filling with a mild taste; it's served hot.
Jiuniang bing (酒酿饼), a thin steamed cake with a soft, fluffy texture, is moderately sweet; it's made by mixing flour and jiuniang, a sweet mildly alcoholic unfiltered wine. During autumn, some vendors add sweet osmanthus to the dough, imparting a flowery fragrance.
Some popular old snacks relied on traditional skills and were very time-consuming to prepare; nowadays there are few places to find them - wet markets are a good place to hunt.
