Hi all,

I have a jar of bean sauce from Sichuan, Lan Chi brand. Primary
ingredient broad beans, secondary ingredient wheat flour. It's a thick
sweet-salty smooth brown sauce intermixed with large pieces of broad
bean. Does anyone in the know consider this a substitute in recipes
for Sichan "sweet wheaten paste"? It's the closest thing I've been
able to find in the shops I frequent, and it would be easy to pick out
the bean pieces if necessary. From the ingredient list and from the
taste of the sauce, compared with Fuschia Dunlop's description of
sweet wheaten paste in _Land of Plenty_, I suspect that I may have
something like "fermented broad bean packed in sweet wheaten paste".
Then on the other hand, I'm almost totally ignorant of the cuisine and
only know a few Chinese characters.

Help me out here, if you can stand it -

Best - krnntp