Food Presentation Tips

You might be wondering what's sitting on the plate in the photo, but it's a sampling of southern Chinese village cuisine. My Chinese mother-in-law made these for us. I was once snacking away on these at their home, and she thought I liked them a lot.

These little balls are made out of ground up plants and rice flour. It looks black in the photo, but it's actually a very dark green color. I'm not sure what the plants are called, but it's a common plant found in the rice fields. At the end of the season, and after the the soil is turned over, these are plants that grow back. They taste sort of like mochi with a "green" flavor.



I can get additional details (including the name), if anyone is interested. However, you probably won't find this many illustrated Chinese cookbooks.

Please keep in mind that external appearance is not always important (as in the way we should also view people), and it's really what's "inside" that counts. That's my food presentation tip for the day. As they say, "it all ends up in the same place" (and you can read that in whatever way you want).