Stir-fried Pork with Palm-Bud

Slices of unopened palm-bud are stir-fried over high heat with pork, dried chilli and garlic shoots; the palm-bud is faintly bitter with a sweet return, the pork savoury, a homely yet celebrated local dish of Tengchong.

Palm-bud is a winter-spring wild food of Tengchong; cooked with pork, its bitter-sweet balance expresses the western-Yunnan idea of "bitterness as freshness." In Heshun custom the dish so often graces a son-in-law's welcome that it is also called the "son-in-law's dish," the ace of local cooking.

Stir-fried over high heat and served hot with rice, the palm-bud's faint bitterness plays against the savoury pork — one of the most ordered dishes on a Tengchong winter table.

The palm-bud's bitter-to-sweet turn, its contrast with the richness of pork, and the folk byname "son-in-law's dish" are the clearest marks of this plate.