Anyone who has been to China has heard “The List.” The long itemization of all things great, small, and wonderful that the Chinese invented before Europeans could figure out which part of the spear was the “pointy/useful end.” On those thoughtless occasions at dinner when I make some critical comment about Chinese food, good friends never fail to gently chide me that, “the Chinese people were cooking banquets for emperors when your people were picking pine cones off the ground and saying: ‘that’s real crunchy.’” You sigh and nod and hold your tongue and then pick up your chopsticks to wolf down another piece of whatever the hell the cook could knock unconscious long enough to pan fry it. Criticism is not wanted. Whatever it is, the Chinese did it first. And better. And still do. And to be fair, in some cases, they’re right.
But now it appears we must add to “The List”… tequila?
From an archaeological site near Chengdu, comes the discovery of four cooking pits, two of which date back to the Qing dynasty.
“People found an unusual round object at the Qing Dynasty site; at first glance it looked something like a well. Eventually,