Oriental products explained

Without a working knowledge of Chinese,  most of the treasures in a Chinese or Asian supermarket will remain out of reach, on the shelves. And unless you have a phonetic translation in your hand, it's impossible to make sense of any explanation. So here is one, for the basics:

Mushrooms
Muk yi - dried wood ears, which need to be soaked then thoroughly washed to remove grit. They offer little taste but good crunch.
Suk yi - white sponge-like snow ears, which swell to twice their size after an hour's soak and are served stewed with a sugar syrup for dessert.
Dung gu - Chinese floral mushrooms, with flower patterns on their caps. They are chewy and densely woodsy in flavor. 

Dried fish and sausages
Hak yu - dried squid; needs washing and soaking before being chopped into soups or stews.
Hou si - dried oysters, to add to soups or stews to infuse with a full and meaty flavor.
Yu chi - a triangular shark's fin in need of soaking, boiling or steaming before adding to a meat stock to turn it into an excellent, rich broth.
Ha maai are dried shrimp, a standard component of Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian, as well as Chinese, dishes. Ignore the stench. Soak in cold water for 20 minutes, then chop finely.
Maw - fish air bladders. Give a spongey texture to soups, having been soaked for two hours in cold water then boiled for ten minutes.
Lap cheung are sweet, generally anise-flavored and fatty Chinese sausages, for steaming then slicing thinly and adding to stir fries and vegetable dishes or eating over steamed rice.

Noodles and curd
Cheung fan is a white lasagna-like sheet noodle dotted with dried shrimp and parsley served, in dim sum, rolled round a shrimp stuffing and steamed.
Fan si is a transparent noodle made from mung bean starch, which is soaked in cold water then fried, or cooked with meat and vegetables, the juices of which it will absorb.
Mai fan is a rice vermicelli that cooks quickly after a cold-water soak and is used like fan si.
Fan gok is a brown yam noodle, good stir-fried with pork.
Ha min is a full-flavored shrimp noodle, good stir-fried with vegetables and shrimp and in little need of flavored sauces.
Fu juk are bean curd sticks, in need of soaking before being added to vegetarian and other dishes.

Fresh noodles need only a minute or so in boiling water to cook. Some dried noodles only need soaking in hot water. Follow packet instructions.

While the argument rages over whether the noodle came from China or Italy (with the balance weighing for Marco Polo bringing it back from his travels), food historians actually contend it was introduced into Europe by the Arabs of Sicily and Spain.

Italian pasta can be used in Chinese dishes but it is worth getting to know the different Oriental noodles, their properties and best uses:

Chinese fat egg noodles, Chinese thin egg noodles, E-fu noodles, Cantonmen, and vegetable-flavored egg noodles are all flour-and-egg dough noodles sold fresh and dried, and as Ramen, the Japanese word for noodles. They each have a taste similar to Italian pastas.
Rice noodle sheets, rice ribbon noodles, rice sticks, rice vermicelli are all rice flour noodles, sold fresh and dried. They are enthusiastic absorbers of sauces and gravies and popular in Thai as well as Chinese dishes.
Eha-soba and soba are Japanese buckwheat noodles, chewy with an almost brown bread flavor.
Somen are Japanese wheat-starch noodles made from hard wheat flour. When thicker, they are known as udon; when thin as fishing line, they are called miswa. Hiyamugi are similar fine noodles. Shrimp- or vegetable-flavored noodles are made from hard wheat flour.
Bean-thread noodles, sold in ribbons or sticks, are made from mung-bean flour, and are good absorbers of other flavors.

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