Four-letter words are being bandied about in an online expat forum here. What is raising tempers is not racist abuse, but comments for and against a new delicatessen opened in a small city in South China.

This is one of those cities where genuine Western ready-to-eat food, as well as ingredients are rare to come by. Expats normally cross the border to Macau or Hong Kong to stock up. So, the announcement of the opening of a new ?Deli? created near-hysteria on the local expat website. More so because it asked expats for requests before its launch.

While a few hopefuls asked only for bread and cheese, others? requests ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous: nachos and salsa (?regular and cheese?), bagels, rice cakes, spits sunflower seeds, Nutella, Vegemite, Victoria (or Melbourne) Bitter, bratwurst, I&J crumbed spinach patties, CSR Demerara sugar, jelly, instant potato whip, rock salt?

Indians read the posts bemused, wondering what half of these items were. Not surprisingly, there were no requests for Indian food, not even for all-time favourites like farsaan and papad.

After the big day dawned, the gratitude-filled responses flew in. There were two voices of discord, though. One American fretted that the only thing he found there that was not available in other supermarkets was dishwasher detergent! The other, a South American, was vocal about the waste of his day since the shelves were half-empty, the prices too high and the shop assistant knew little English. His dour prediction, ?won?t come back... can?t see you lasting long?, provoked many replies, some sympathetic, some abusive.

Food fuss

Everyone knows the joke about Indians carrying thepla and dhokla to Paris. But Indians in China complain the least about the lack of Indian food. It is the Westerners who moan and groan all the time that they can?t get good cheese, the meat is strange (dark pink, pencil-thin sausages are a bit odd), the milk tastes of chemicals (indeed, most of it does), the bread isn?t hard/soft enough... One Austrian couple came back from X-mas holidays loaded not only with cheese but also with bread! Trips are made all the way to Macau to eat the best pizza, despite Pizza Hut being everywhere. Hong Kong of course, has always been the gourmet?s paradise.

Westerners can find almost everything they want in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, but the smaller cities, despite being Special Economic Zones, are pretty barren. Hence the arrival of a deli becomes cause for rapture. Even the rates ? almost double those in Macau ? aren?t a deterrent. After all, what?s the yuan in comparison to a euro, dollar or pound! It is only when you convert it into rupees that you start wondering whether a frozen pasta pack is worth Rs 250.

For the Chinese authorities, Western food is serious business. Beijing held its fourth Western food festival in January. These month-long festivals, complete with workshops, exhibitions et al, have a definite aim: to develop the Western food industry so that the hordes who descend on the Olympic city in 2008 are not disappointed. The Beijing Western Cuisine Association bemoans the fact that while Guangzhou has 3,000 non-Chinese restaurants, Beijing has just 1,300. Curiously, here Western food is a blanket term for all non-Chinese food, including Malaysian, Japanese and Korean, despite all three being east of China!

But it is going to take another generation for Western food to become popular. The price ? double those of comparable Chinese restaurants ? and the ingredients, a liberal use of cheese, olive oil and raw vegetables (?feel like a cow,? grumbled one student), are the main deterrents. What the average Chinese loves is McDonald?s and KFC ? meaty, cheap and junk.