Shanghainese cuisine; sweet, right?

麻婆豆腐 (Mapo Tofu) - my favourite Chinese dish

So I have recently moved in with a Shanghainese family (上海家庭, 'Shanghai Jiating'). They are super sweet. On top of that, they pay for my rent and cook me all my food and in exchange, I hang out with their 23 year old graphic designer daughter. Its a pretty sweet deal but its been a difficult transition, especially with such cultural differences. I feel a bit strange with the set up but I'm sure I will find myself right at home soon.

There are countless interesting aspects of living with this family - most of which I'll get into later. Right now I want to talk about Shanghainese cuisine. I've never really been a fan. The food is all so sweet. There's a saying in China about the different foods in different areas:

“南甜，北咸，东辣， 西酸" (nan tian, bei xian, dong la, xi suan), which means "South is sweet, north is savoury, east is spicy, west is sour."

My favourite is 川菜 ('chuan cai'), Sichuan food (its in the west but its extremely spicy. Its a different kind of spice, one that makes your tongue numb). Being located in the Southeast, Shanghainese food is extremely sweet. I don't really like it but I've been pretty good about eating everything they cook for me and its also nice to eat home cooked food.

Tonight though, I helped Gao Chen Feng (my 'mom') cook dinner. We made a broccoli dish with some processed ham, scrambled eggs, a vegetable called 开化 （'kai hua'，‘open flower’) in Chinese . I don't know the English name. We also had some soup. It was all pretty good but I wish I didn't see the amount of oil and sugar put into the food! Lets just say the eggs were soaking with oil...