Babel

by R.F. Kuang

From Mrs Piper, he learned more than he’d imagined possible about English food and England. Adjusting to this new palate took some time. He had never thought much about food when he lived in Canton – the porridge, steamed buns, dumplings, and vegetable dishes that comprised his daily meals had seemed unremarkable to him. They were the staples of a poor family’s diet, a far cry from high Chinese cuisine. Now he was astonished by how much he missed them. The English made regular use of only two flavours – salty and not salty – and did not seem to recognize any of the others. For a country that profited so well from trading in spices, its citizens were violently averse to actually using them; in all his time in Hampstead, he never tasted a dish that could be properly described as ‘seasoned’, let alone ‘spicy’. He took more pleasure in learning about the food than in eating it. This education came unprompted – dear Mrs Piper was the chatty sort, and would happily lecture as she served up lunch if Robin displayed even the slightest interest in what was on his plate. He was told that potatoes, which he found quite tasty in any form, were not to be served around important company, for they were considered lower-class. He found that newly invented silver-gilded dishes were used to keep food warm throughout a meal, but that it was rude to reveal this trickery to guests, and so the bars were always embedded on the very bottoms of the platters. He learned that the practice of serving...