Unexpected Similarities between Spanish & Hong Kong Cuisine
Not many Hong Kong natives know about Spanish anything.
Judging by the blank looks I get when I tell Spaniards that I’m from Hong Kong, the reverse is also probably true.
As far as I can tell — with basic world history and the almighty Google — there is little shared cultural history between Spain and Hong Kong.
After weeks of journeying through Northern and Southern Spain, however, I can’t help notice quite a few unmistakable similarities between traditional Spanish cuisine and the foods I grew up with in Hong Kong.
Tapa-style eating
“Tapas”-style eating has taken North America by storm. For those of you who don’t know, “tapas” — though originated from traditional Spanish cuisine and cafe/restaurants — is now used in colloquial English to describe dishes composed of bite-sized servings, shared between the table as the main part of the meal (not as appetizers).
I consider myself quite well versed in international cuisines, but I have yet to see another traditional cuisine that also serves its main dishes in small, shareable plates.
That is, except for the famous Hong Kong dim sum.
Though cooked in entirely different ways, both Spanish tapas and Hong Kong’s dim sum are traditional foods made to encourage conversation. A table is often expected to order several tapas/dim sum dishes and share between friends or family.
Both tapas and dim sum dishes have a lot of variety within one bar/cafe/restaurant (usually more than a dozen plates to choose from,) dishes can be cold or hot, and are often displayed in the open to diners.
In Spain, tapas are sometimes displayed like a big buffet at the bar. (Don’t be mistaken. They will charge you piece by piece.) While in Hong Kong, dim sum is often pushed around in heated carts or transparent cases throughout the restaurant by attendants.
These two cultures seem incredibly different at first glance. But with a closer look, you can see that there’s at least one similarity : eating and sharing food together is considered as an important social occasion.
Love of Dried Meats
Even in a foreign country miles from Europe, I can always tell if someone’s from Spain when they carefully open up a home-brought packet of jamon iberico (translation: Spanish dried ham of the best quality,) and make themselves a sandwich. (True story, seen both on a Vietnamese train and in the Dubai airport.)
To say that Spanish people love their cold cuts would be a very mild way of putting it. Lomo, Chorizo, Jamon and Morcilla should be the first words you jot down if you ever plan on traveling to Spain.
What about Hong Kong? Every meat-eater from Hong Kong loves a good bite of char siu (barbecued pork) on rice. It is practically the staple working class lunch box.
If anyone’s been to an authentic Hong Kong cafe-restaurant in any Chinatown around the world, the iconic hanging display of marinated chicken and barbecued pork should look very familiar. Without a doubt, these meats — which is consumed in both in hot or room temperature in my city — are essential to Hong Kong cuisine.
It is, however, one home cooking ingredient in Cantonese-Chinese cuisine, that connected the Spanish–Hong Kong similarity for me.
Lap Cheong — also known as the Chinese Sausage — is a household name in every Cantonese-Chinese family. Used commonly while steaming rice, the Chinese sausage is made with pork bits and guts, sweetened in a mixture of marinates including soy sauce.
Though marinated differently, lap cheong looks and tastes surprisingly similar to the juicy fuet enjoyed by Spanish and Catalan families here in Europe.
Coincidence? Probably. But it is definitely a pleasant surprise for Hongkies like me, encountering a taste of home 6500 miles away, in Spain.
Seafood As A Whole
Hong Kong is surrounded by the sea. So is Spain. It is only logical that both cuisines roots itself in the rich shellfish resources its environment provides. Right?
For me, that was an after-thought. The first time I sat across from a Spanish friend, sharing a plate full of whole shrimp — I was stunned.
Why? Well, it was the first time in my life that I saw someone outside of Asia able to peel shrimp as quickly as I do!
You see — when shrimps are served in Hong Kong, it’s served in one big plate in the middle of the family banquet table. The faster you peel, the more you get to eat. Plain and simple.
When I moved to the U.S., I learned very quickly that most Americans prefer to serve seafood in its edible form: without shells, without heads, without little creepy shrimp legs.
Crab cakes, shrimp cocktails and pre-cracked crab legs are more the norm here. Americans prefer to see food as just food, removing any evidence of its once alive, swimming form.
I’ve actually heard a tourist from North America say to a waiter in Croatia: “The prawns were very delicious, but honestly, I would’ve appreciated it if I didn’t need to do the work to open the shells.”
Spain (and the rest of Mediterranean Europe) is a different story. Just last night, our waiter in Tarifa (Southern Spain) took the raw fish straight from the ice to show us at our table — a gesture also customary in most Hong Kong seafood restaurants, but an act that would surely freak out a few of my American friends.
Simply put — both traditional Spanish and Hong Kong cuisine seem to appreciate seafood in its most raw and concrete form. Perhaps because both regions have fishing roots close to the sea, both appreciate the fresh and authentic taste that comes with seafood served in whole.
Fried Dough Look-alike
Everyone who knows about Spanish desserts should know about churros. They’re the thin pieces of fried dough heaven dipped in sugar, sometimes dunked in hot, melted chocolate. People in Spain eat them for breakfast and/or as a post dinner dessert, but I try to eat them anytime I see them.
When I went to Madrid for the first time, I was so excited to try this other version of churros called Porras. They were described to me as “bigger churros but they taste different.” I had to try them.
For the occasion, I went to one of the oldest chocolateria in Madrid that serves churros and porras. My order of porras arrived. I took a bite of this new and exciting dessert and… wait a minute; this tastes exactly like the yau za guey back home!
Not all fried dough are made equally. One churros master at a shop once explained to me, “Churros and porras have different consistency of dough in the middle, and that’s what makes them different.”
But I swear to the God of Fried Dough that porras and yau za guey has the same dough consistency in the center, and they really do taste (deliciously) the same.
Maybe next time I visit a cafe to eat porras, I should take my own bowl of rice porridge to eat it with.
…
I am still unsure of how these parallels are drawn between two rarely interacting cultures in opposite sides of the world. Though I feel incredibly fortunate to have traveled far and wide enough to make and share these four discoveries.
Writing this post has made me a little hungry. Until next time.
A bit about me
Yours truly has been traveling around the world with a backpack since 2015, and have visited 40+ countries during her years alive.
Since she no longer has creative briefs to write for agency clients, she will silently jot down cultural nuances on a notebook and narrate them on Medium.
