Nature's springtime gifts

Traditional and fusion cooking styles, regional and international ingredients and a new awareness of healthy eating are all factors contributing to an exciting time for Chinese cuisine. Pauline D Loh writes.

Outside our backyard in Beijing there is a mist of green slowly covering the hard grey ground. On the trees, tender young leaves appear almost overnight, sharing space with tight round buds that promise to bloom.

The yanghuai, or locust tree, will soon be heavy with clusters of creamy white buds, pendulous and scented with honey. There will be many hawkeyed predators waiting for the buds to get large enough, and they will come in the dead of night, armed with their knives and scissors.