I'll start off with a confession. Until fairly recently, I didn't like Chinese food. This may have been a hangover from the one Chinese restaurant in our town which we visited growing up; where I would always order the spring rolls and egg drop soup, which seemed OK but boring. In fact, my favourite "Chinese" food growing up was chop suey which Mum used to make me for a special treat. Looking back I'm not sure that pan-fried beef mince mixed with pineapple, and the flavour sachet and noodles from a chicken noodle soup packet, could truly be said to be Chinese food... Something for me to process with my therapist at a later stage.
Anyway, even when I visited China for the first time - and second, third, fourth, fifth time - there just wasn't much I liked to eat. Part of it was my budget (non-existent) and part of it was the fact that I wasn't an adventurous eater and was very suspicious that I wasn't being told the whole ingredients list. To be fair to me, my Chinese host family (who were legitimately lovely people) delighted in trying to get me to try weird foods like fried scorpion on a skewer, and various congealed blood cubes; crying with laughter as I gamely chewed what I now understand to be gross things they would never have touched normally.
In those circumstances, I thought it best to manage my daily diet at university in Beijing as: breakfast - cake or chocolate covered donuts from the supermarket on campus; lunch - potato & beef strips (土豆肉丝) from the student canteen; dinner - whatever my Korean roommate's girlfriend happened to be cooking him (which was always Korean and always delicious). All washed down with some iced tea (冰红茶）which is water, sugar, brown food colouring and a squeeze of lemon with a tea leaf waved over it. Looking back it is fairly surprising that I didn't develop diabetes, and that my roommate never mentioned that I was eating his food every single day (although Koreans seem to take their role as ambassadors of Korean food very seriously and to this day I still love it).
As I lived in China longer, however, I did start to develop a list of Chinese foods that I came to love. Steaming hot pot (火锅) - spicy and fragrant - was a reward for venturing out into an icy Beijing winter evening. Roasted sweet potatoes (烤红薯), caramelised and delicious, bought from a vendor cooking them on a cold smoggy morning in Beijing were another winter favourite. Summer evenings spent sitting on tiny stools on the streets, going to town on barbecue lamb skewers (羊肉串) - brushed with cumin, chilli and garlic powder - and Yanjing beer, still rank as some of my happiest moments. And pork and cabbage dumplings (猪肉白菜水饺), dipped in garlic and vinegar sauce, were and remain a favourite.
It wasn't until I was a little older, however, until I began to understand all the fuss about Chinese food. It is now my favourite food in the world, and an absolute highlight of any visit to mainland China, Hong Kong or Taiwan. To get to this point, however, took some shifts in mindset which unlocked this world for me. For people who don't want to go through a 10 year incubation period, and multiple trips to China, to get to this point, here are the key things that really helped with my appreciation:
You'll have to be more specific. "Chinese" food isn't really a thing. China is a huge place, with a incredibly varied climates and an ancient and agrarian culture, which - in short - means that different regions developed very different cuisines. It can help to think of Chinese food in the same terms as "European" food. There is a huge difference between new Nordic cuisine and Italian food; similarly, there is a massive difference between the foods of north-east China and Cantonese food; or between the foods of Shanghai on the east coast, and Urumqi in the western deserts. Each place has its specialties, and it is best to be eating the local fare wherever you are.
Seasons matter. One of the great things about Chinese culture is the value people place on the seasons, including the different foods available at different times of year. In autumn in Shanghai, people will not shut up about hairy crab. Similarly, in October in north-east China people are wild about a specific type of pear and - to be fair to them - they are AMAZING. OK, that's two autumn-specific examples and more don't immediately spring to mind, but you get the drift. Try to find out what is in season and then get into it.
Blogs and review sites. There are a ton of English-language blogs about food in China; I'm not going to mention any here as they come and go, however it is well worth your while doing a quick search before you visit a place to see whether there are any blogs available which might be useful. Similarly, there are "Zoomato" style apps in China; HEAPS of them. OpenRice is the app favoured in Hong Kong; in mainland China "大众点评“ (da zhong dian ping) is a good one. These tell you where nearby restaurants are, and how well they were rated.
Street food is awesome. Seriously, wherever you go in China the street food is amazing. Because of the high turnover and need to keep pricing down, the food is likely to be fairly safe/hygienic and you aren't likely to get that many truly "exotic" ingredients because sparrows' tongues aren't cheap my friend.
Get into tea. Chinese tea is the perfect accompaniment to Chinese food. One of the main gripes I used to have about Chinese food was the fact that a lot of things either come drenched in oil or some sort of sauce; tea can cut through this so you aren't constantly left with that feel or flavour in your mouth. Also, Chinese tea is a world of its own with many MANY different variations and there is truly one for all palates. For coffee drinkers, I would suggest "大红袍“ (da hong pao - "Big Red Robe") which is a type of oolong tea with an earthy, nutty, smoky flavour.
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