Where it All Started: November 11th, 2015
The persimmon trees were skinny and bare with a few dirty orange fruits hanging from branches like abandoned Christmas decorations. The park gardener was raking leaves and collecting up the splattered flesh on the floor. He looked up and saw my curious foreign face looking lustfully at the fruits.
“Where are you from?” He asked in Chinese. “American?”
“No, English,” I replied.
He obviously approved and handed me two plump persimmon from his own stash of unbroken globes. Each one filled my hand, heavy and so ripe I thought the thin skin might burst and innards would melt through my hands.
This was my first day in Beijing, 11th November 2015. I’d landed a few hours earlier, checked in to my hotel and went out to explore my new home. As I left Ditan Park, carrying the persimmon like new-born kittens, an old Beijinger at the east gate was selling Ma Hua - a plaited dough that’s deep-fried until crispy. I bought one to try and walked on towards the dull sheen of Yonghegong Temple. Later, on the way back to the hotel, I noticed plumes of steam wafting out of a hole-in-the-wall under the twilight of smoggy dusk. I couldn’t resist buying three meat baozi and a tea egg before my jet lag was too much to fight anymore.
That was eight years ago. It was disorganised and chaotic, grimy and cheap. Restaurants popped up in make-shift tents, shacks or in apartments; street vendors lined the pavements; fruit stalls were sprawling markets under overpasses or in abandoned car parks. But that Beijing has gone; the grassroots innovators of food faded away.
The food can still be found if you look. Many of the street foods have moved into mall food courts, designated food streets or supermarket delis. I don’t want to overly romanticise the past; yes, it was cheaper, but now hygiene is better, it’s perhaps more convenient and many parts of the city’s roads have improved, but some would argue something has been lost - a connection to your local cook or farmer, and with that, a connection to your food.