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Well-known Chinese author
Shen Hongfei |
Indeed, flexibility and compatibility in the dim sum dishes' content is not
the only reason behind its popularity. People love dim sum also because the
dishes are suitable to be eaten any time of the day. Through innovation in the
hands of southern Chinese chefs, dim sum dishes are now seen as an alternative
for traditional Chinese staple food such as rice and noodles. Furthermore, given
the variety of things that can be wrapped into a dim sum dish, many also treat
dim sum dishes as main courses at proper meal times. Such flexibility has allowed
dim sum to be eaten any time of the day: at breakfast, as a mid-night snack,
at lunch or during afternoon tea. One can eat dim sum to satisfy hunger, but
one can also eat it to fill cravings. It is a proper meal, but it is also a
snack. It is because of dim sum's uniqueness in its flexibility, compatibility,
variety and ever-changing faces that traditional boundaries between what is
mainstream and what is unconventional in Chinese culinary practices becomes
blurred. Much as what watching television at home should be like, there ought
to be no distinction between "prime time" and "non prime time"
in dim sum culture. It is simply "a great companion" for anyone anytime
of the day.
Another unique feature about dim sum culture is the location where it all takes
place – the traditional dim sum restaurant. The dim sum restaurant is where
friends and families gather around on a regular basis, and it epitomizes the
very traditional Chinese notion of family happiness. Therefore, the dim sum
restaurant is a medium through which dim sum culture is propagated, and without
it dim sum culture is simply meaningless. The drinking of tea and eating of
dim sum dishes is not merely a formulaic process through which people satisfy
their biological needs. More importantly, it is a building block upon which
the traditional Chinese familial notion of 'togetherness' is built.
Conventional wisdom stipulates that "you are what you eat." What
can be sure is that dim sum dining is no longer a privilege that can be enjoyed
only by the Cantonese people. More profoundly, the dim sum culture represents
values that Chinese people have internalized in terms of how they see themselves
and how they see the world. For centuries, the dim sum culture has proven itself
to be the perfect vehicle to deliver contentment to people. This is the main
reason why dim sum is such a popular phenomenon around the world, and why the
term 'dim sum' itself has even become a popular phrase in common English usage.
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