Home-style cuisine packs a punch in warmth of family gathering

Hakka people often find excuses for the lack of presentation for their food, especially compared with their seafood-rich neighbors of Chaozhou and Shantou, where more attention is paid to how dishes are prepared and presented.

For an outsider like me, it is in this area that Hakka food stands out. It may not be the best-looking cuisine in the vast array of Chinese gastronomy, but it is surely a strong contender for the best tasting. It reminds one of the kind of food a mother cooks for her child who is visiting after a long absence from home.

The Hakka idea of feasting is mostly meat. Its salt-roasted chicken has been incorporated into Cantonese cuisine as a standard. The origin of bean curd stuffed with a small meatball goes back to the time before the Hakka moved away from the Central Plains. Unlikely as it seems, this famous dish is a variation of jiaozi, but since wheat was hard to come by in South China, the Hakka had to make do with tofu.