PARIS

I THOUGHT I knew a thing or two about Chinese food, until I discovered the recipe for rancid bear paw.

My 15-year-old goddaughter was in town and we were touring an exhibition on the culture of cooking and eating in China at the Quai Branly museum near the Eiffel Tower. The show was being advertised in Metro cars and on billboards as “Les Séductions du Palais” — which could mean either “The Seductions of the Palate” or “The Seductions of the Palace.” We were intrigued.

Most of the 150 artifacts on display belong to the National Museum of China in Beijing, which had never lent them to a European museum. So when Jean-Paul Desroches, the curator of the Guimet Museum of Asian Arts, who organized the exhibition, offered a private tour, we couldn’t say no.

The oldest object was a flat stone and a matching stone cylinder used as a mortar and pestle that could date from as far back as 7000 B.C. There were bronze tripod cooking vessels and Neolithic pottery tableware; gold and silver plates and cups from the Tang, Liao and Yuan dynasties; Ming and Qing imperial porcelain. My favorite was a jade green porcelain teapot with an enamel glaze that Mr. Desroches said “may be the most beautiful teapot in the world.”