Trips to my hometown of Boyertown in eastern Pennsylvania usually involve any or all of the following: really good hotdogs, ring sausage and perhaps, as a(n)     1     gift, chocolate the size of a football.

These are the tastes of my hometown, the foods that were part of my early childhood which later became the foods I     2     for whenever I go back to visit. They connect me to another time in my life, bringing back memories of whom I was with and what I was doing when eating it.

A recent trip back was no     3    . This time, however, I chose something I had not had in more than 25 years. There is a place in town called “The Grill Shop” that serves only breakfast and lunch. It has been around for as long as I can remember. It is the size of a shoebox (小平房), with five stools at the counter and a couple of booths along the wall. A flat-top grill is     4     into the front of the space and faces the street.

From that grill come the tastiest hotdogs, which were topped with chili, onions and mustard. They come wrapped in white paper and     5     into brown paper bags, the sturdiness (牢固) of which gets tested as the chili and mustard     6     seep out (渗出) before you can finish them.

It is the best $1.75 you will ever spend. I got two, because one is a lonely number. One bite in and I was ten years old again, going there with my grandmother during summer vacations. We would get hotdogs to go and take them back to her kitchen. My grandfather would sometimes come home for lunch.

Or, we would stay there if we were lucky enough to     7     a booth. A short lunch would     8     into an hour, since my grandmother knew almost everyone in town.

Mostly,     9     Boyertown looks much like it did when I lived there. I took a walk past my old house, which looks the same, although the abandoned factory had been replaced by a(n)     10     living facility and parking lots. The Grill Shop survives, however, and for that I am thankful.

The French author Jean Anthelme Brillat­Savarin once wrote, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”, which seems to be true. Chinese     1     is a case in point. For example, people in Shandong like boiled dumplings served with     2    . Traditionally, people in Xinjiang spent most of their time on horse backs, so they prefer their food to be cooked over an open fire—usually boiled or roasted meat, such as     3     kebab. In Shandong, the most famous food is pancake rolls stuffed with sliced Chinese green onions. You can experienced wonderful local dishes in South and central Chian, from Guangdong’s     4     dim sum—small servings of food in bamboo steamers—to the     5     stewed noodles In Henan.

Going for yum cha, which literally translates to “drink tea”, is a     1     that has become increasingly popular in the western world. People in southern China go to yum cha with family and friends — it is a time to relax and     2     in a laid-back environment. It is believed that the custom began thousands of years ago when teahouses started     3     up along the Silk Road to provide rest for     4     travellers. Later, it was discovered that tea helps     5    , so teahouse owners started offering snacks with their tea and yum cha was born.