The art of the knife came with a whole vocabulary of shapes. Depending on the dish, one might need to cut ginger into ‘thumbnail slices’, ‘silken threads’ or ‘rice grains’. Tofu could be transformed into cubes, strips or ‘domino slices’. One could shave ‘ox-tongue’ slices from a block of white radish, so thin that the veins were visible in the translucent flesh. A pig’s kidney might end up as frilly ‘flowers’, ‘eyebrows’ or ‘phoenix tails’. The shape into which food was cut was part of the character of a dish: Gong Bao chicken (gong bao ji ding) was made with chicken ding or cubes,
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