Chinese School - Lamenting slow death of egg tarts

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Opinion / Liang Hongfu

Lamenting slow death of egg tarts

By Hong Liang (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-11 07:24

Egg tarts and strong tea mixed with condensed milk have long been a
favorite elixir of many Hong Kong people to ease the pressure and stress
of a fast-pace lifestyle. But together with the won-ton (pork dumpling)
noodle soup and red bean puddings, these delicacies are disappearing from
our culinary landscape.

The local press has reported that the beloved egg tart, a favorite of
people of all ages, is going the way of the dodo. I have not come across
a street vendor selling sweet rice cakes, my childhood favorite, for
years. The last time I had won-ton noodle soup was in the coffee shop of
a five-star hotel. Understandably, it was nothing like what I had at a
street-side cooked food stall, or better known in the local dialect as a
dai pai dong.

Indeed, both the dai pai dongs and the cha chaan tings, or Hong
Kong-style dinners, have fallen on hard times. Rising property prices and
rents in Hong Kong have relentlessly pushed these low-profit-margin
eateries, catering mainly to the low-income segments of the population,
to extinction. The final blow was the city-wide ban on indoor smoking,
which took effect at the beginning of the year.

Of course, not everything old is worth preserving. And the demise of
these inefficient commercial enterprises is an entirely logical and
predictable occurrence that has little significance in the grand scheme
of Hong Kong's overall social and economic development. But their
disappearance, like so many familiar places and old customs, has saddened
our hearts because they have been part of our lives for so long.

Those are the places where we hung out with our friends when we had
little spare money and plenty of time. Each of us would order a cup of
tea or coffee, which cost the equivalent of about 20 US cents, and spend
hours talking about girls and fast cars, neither of which were remotely
within our reach.

Sometimes the young waiters, in their usual garb of singlet and black
pajama pants, would join in the conversation. They were more than keen to
recount their amorous exploits or their luck at the horse races.

But for most patrons, their interest was nothing more than the cup of tea
that always seemed stronger and more aromatic than the one brewed at
home, no matter how much tea leaf went into the pot.

Some culinary experts were convinced that the secret lay in mashing egg
shell with the tea leaf to achieve the "smoothness" in taste that was so
valued by aficionados. It was rumored that some tea houses used nylon
stockings to strain the tea. Thanks to its finer mesh, nylon stockings
were believed to be more effective than another kind of cloth in removing
the impurities in the brew.

The lowly egg tart has its origin in the English custard pie. Since it
was first introduced in the 1940s, egg tarts were a must on the menus of
almost every tea house, and a favorite desert at many Cantonese-style dim
sum restaurants.

A proper egg tart is judged mostly by the puffiness of its crust. Making
the crust requires patience and skill. The machine-made variety, which
has a harder crust, is generally shunned by consumers. Hong Kong people
take their egg tarts seriously.

Despite their popularity, traditional-style egg tarts are facing a bleak
future because the price they can fetch no longer justifies the cost that
goes into making them.

Perhaps one day in the not-too-distant future, real egg-tarts with puffy
crusts will re-emerge as a delicacy served at fancy restaurants. But like
the won-ton noodle soup I had at the hotel coffee shop, it just will not
be the same ever again.

E-mail: jamesleung@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/11/2007 page10)

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