Hosting Chinese students-- breakfast ideas?

[myfunnybunch]

My girls' choir is hosting a Chinese choir, and we'll be housing a few singers. They'll be eating breakfast with our family, and we plan to serve our traditional breakfast foods, but we'd also like to have something familiar on the table as a back-up.

Any experience/ideas?

[Tammyla]

I've always found our guest from other countries wanted traditional American things. White toast & cereal were requested more times than I care to remember. You're sweet to think of them. In Japan my friends often ate rice with breakfast. Would your choir teacher have some ideas? I find fresh fruit and yogurt are pretty international.

[Alice]

My husband is Chinese-American (ethnically Chinese but born and raised in Indiana). The breakfast food that he grew up with is called "congee" or "jook". It's a rice porridge usually made with already cooked leftover rice. What you put in it depends on what part of China you are from and what you have...according to my husband usually it's leftover meat or veggies from dinner the night before.

Personally I find it really bland and not very tasty. I usually joke that it would be better with cheese/salt/pepper (like grits) or honey/raisins/cinnamon (like oatmeal). Both ideas make my husband shudder at the horror or what I would do to the jook.

I think Chinese food is very regional so I'm not sure if this is really the most common breakfast across China...my husband's family is Cantonese (southern China).

Here is one link I found with a recipe (although I think it's pretty much just rice, add extra water and cook until the consistency of a porridge). http://chinesefood.about.com/library/weekly/aa100499.htm

[Laura Corin]

Bread is also often eaten, as is unflavoured, sweetened yoghurt. I see croissants a lot in the shops here and many people have soy milk for breakfast (warmed up - many Chinese don't think that chilled drinks are healthy).

Laura

[Alice]

the warm drinks is interesting. My father-in-law only drinks warm water. When we go out to eat it's always a major issue with waiters trying to explain what he wants.