FLOOD OF FLAVOUR

Chinese students in the US flocked to central Illinois and their food followed

- PETE WELLS

Julia Sun, a law student at the US University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who spent the first 10 years of her life in Shanghai, was shopping at an Asian grocery store 1km from campus last year when a package in the snack aisle made her do a double take.

“They had this waffle-biscuit thing that I ate in second grade,” Sun said. It had been so long since she had seen the waffle-biscuit thing that she was sure it was extinct. “I thought I was dreaming.”

For the more than 6,000 students from China in Urbana and Champaign, the wealth of products and dishes from back home can make the two cities seem like a mirage rising from the plains of central Illinois.

Surrounded by miles of flat, green fields of soy and grain corn, the cities have a combined population of about 127,000 people and a skyline that rarely pokes above 15 stories. The area isn’t anybody's idea of a major metropolitan centre. It certainly isn’t the first place you'd think to look when you are in the mood for serious Chinese food.

After a quick walk from the university’s main quad, though, you can sit down to a faithful rendition of spicy bullfrog hot pot in a Sichuanese broth studded with green peppercorns. A nearby restaurant serves yangrou paomo, a Shaanxi lamb soup with floating scraps of flatbread that is a favourite in Xi'an.

If you are struck by a late-night craving for stinky tofu in the style of Changsha, you can get it after 8.30pm from a chef who dresses fried black cubes of fermented bean curd in a glistening orange chillie oil, the way vendors do on the streets of Hunan’s capital city.

You'd have to hunt to find these dishes in a major city like Chicago, 200km away, but they have become a fixture of life in Champaign and Urbana. At least two dozen Chinese restaurants, bakeries, bubble-tea shops and Asian grocery stores are clustered close to the campus.