Understanding Sweetness in China and America

Photo by Alexa Soh on Unsplash

The concept of ‘sweet’ in food is cultural. That is, ‘sweetness’ is not a universally accepted taste from country to country. Western cooking relies on sugar to give cakes, cookies and pastries sweetness, but avoids sugar in other dishes. Therefore, there is a clear distinction between ‘main courses’ (savoury) and ‘dessert’ (sweet). When we talk about sweetness in Western cuisines, we’re usually using it as a synonym for sugar.

But if we shift to China, things look very differently. I was in a Nanjing-style restaurant many years ago where we were served white-bean juice as a refreshingly ‘sweet’ beverage. The concept completely confused my palate. Bean juice? Sweet? It certainly wasn’t what I would call sweet, it was more creamy, thick and grainy.

In the convenience-store freezers of China, you’ll find pea or corn ice cream (of course alongside chocolate Magnums too). And then there’s the liberal use of red bean paste hiding inside many a mooncake, or Beijing’s rice cakes.

To a Western palate, these so-called ‘sweet’ foods of China are so bizarre; our tongues hear ‘sweet’ and expect sugar (usually mixed with flour and butter). When a chef in the west describes peas, squashes or root vegetables as sweet, we don’t think they’re going to turn them into a dessert. Vegetables are savoury in the minds of Western cooks.

One of my favourite sweet foods of China is known as tang yuan - small balls of gelatinous rice stuffed with black sesame paste or peanut paste and often served in a fermented rice soup (lao zao). There is sugar involved, but it is not sweet enough for a Western palate to register. Most Americans or British I asked said they thought it was too plain; not salty enough for a savoury dish, not sweet enough for a dessert.

The difference comes down to the history of sugar. In the 11th century, when sugar first came to England, it was an expensive luxury item. By around the 16th century production of sugar increased, prices decreased and the Western world’s sugar addiction began. Like any addiction, some led to more and to more. Western dishes became sweeter and sweeter (even fruits and vegetables have been bred to be sweeter than in the past), so much so that to Asian palates, a cake or cookie is often far too sweet to handle.

Sugar existed in China as far back as the Tang dynasty, but it was expensive and as such, not used much in Chinese cooking until the 1960s. Chinese palates did not fall in love with sugar in the same way. Even today, many cakes and deserts found in coffee shops across China are less sweet than their Western alternatives. But sugar can change palates quickly, and as a result, change the food too.

Fast food producers have long since used ‘hidden’ sugar in their food to make it more enticing. China’s modern producers are doing the same; the cheaper mass-produced food of chain restaurants across China catering towards convenience food for delivery has moved far away from traditional cooking. Just like the west, there is more sugar, more salt and more fat seeping it’s way into the modern Chinese diet.