Confucius was a Foodie

Christine eats her way through the Lunar calendar with traditional customs, cuisine and culture.

Chef Christine starts her tea adventure in London, England where she learns why Westerners think of England when they think of tea, even though it's one of the most important Chinese exports and essential to all Chinese celebrations.

Birthday parties and baby naming ceremonies all wish for the same thing - long life. And in the Chinese culinary culture, that means noodles and there are more noodles in Chinese cuisines than you can possibly imagine.

Everything has its origins somewhere. Chef Christine looks for the culinary roots of foods such as ice cream, ketchup, pasta, phyllo, baklava and pizza.

Both during and after China's Cultural Revolution, traditional Chinese chefs, often seen as keepers of the cultural flame, were among the first to defect and their exodus has had a lasting effect on world cuisine, in particular in Taiwan.

Was it Confucius or Hippocrates who first said, "let food be your medicine and medicine be your food"? Chef Christine sets off to compare the thoughts and beliefs of foodie writers and philosophers.

When did cooking become cuisine? Was it in the Confucius Mansion 2,500 years ago and is Chinese cuisine really the biggest, the most expressive and the most complex cuisine on the planet?