Diving into an order of General Tso’s chicken last night–and I’m talking a gooey-sweet concoction that would give my dentist gray hairs–I began wondering just how Anglocized is Chinese food here in the States. Ditto kung pao chicken and other items.
Yes, I readily concede that General Tso’s chicken ain’t exactly Chinese. I also realize that Chinese food varies from province to province in China.
That said, in what ways does the “Chinese food” that we Americans generally find in our restaurants (I’m talking the rule, not the exception) vary from the real deal?
I couldn’t cite you specifics, but I have been taken to Chinese restaurants multiple times by Chinese people, where the waiters didn’t even really speak English. The dishes are sooo far from the fried rice with teriaki beef and chow mein on the side stuff you get at the “Lunch plate: $2” places. Those places are very American.
I remember that “Jump Start” comic strip had a male nurse named Wiki move in from Hong Kong. The wife took him to a “Chinese” resturant. He was saying things like “There is cheese in my egg roll”, and “I have never seen food prepared in this manner.”
General Tso’s chicken is an American invention, as are fortune cookies, as is chop suey. Much of the question of how much of a Chinese restaurant’s menu is authentic depends upon the restaurant. A lot of Chinese restaurants in the U.S. serve stuff that’s pretty close to authentic, while a lot of others serve heavily Americanized food.
Most of the stuff in Chinese restaurants I’ve been to in the United States does at least have a corresponding dish in China. Yes, they have sweet and sour pork and Kung Pao chicken. The real thing is almost invariably better, though, and naturally there’s a whole lot more variety, especially taking different regions into account. American Chinese food is usually just standard dishes, but… not as good. I’m not a chef, I don’t know how to quantify it. Supposedly this is “catering to the American palate,” but almost everyone prefers the real stuff, so I don’t know where they get that idea from.
I’ve never seen cheese served with any Chinese dish, period. At every Chinese restaurant I’ve eaten at I have never seen the staff eat the same thing the customers do. Maybe I should worry? Mostly their dishes contain very little meat and tons of veggies.
Most cities do have some good and authentic Chinese places. But of course, in America, people tend to experiment and try new recipes.
Also, you may be looking at a distinction between good Chinese food and ordinary Chinese food. As in, I think a lot of the dishes served in America are lower-class variants. The bigwigs traditionally ate their own brand of cuisine.
What I have been told, by Chinese people, is that there’s enough lactose intolerance among Chinese that cheese doesn’t figure very big in their cooking.
What I have been told, by Chinese people, is that there’s enough lactose intolerance among Chinese that cheese doesn’t figure very big in their cooking.
My wife is Chinese, and if my mother-in-law’s cooking is authentic, give me Americanized anyday!
When I went to Qingdao to visit the in-laws, every restaurant meal was seafood. (Qingdao is on the coast). Best shellfish, mostly clams, I’ve ever had anywhere. Almost no dishes I recognized from American style restaurants. Items I could compare: Chinese Big Macs taste better than American ones, and the Coca-Cola is better (real sugar - no corn syrup). Tsingtao beer has many varieties which are not imported into the states, most of which are better than what they do export. The best beers were the ones that had “For Domestic Sale only” (yes, in English) stamped on the case. (2 cases fit in a large suitcase. Time for another visit!)
Here in Southern California, my wife always comments on the authenticity of any Chinese place. The authentic ones tend to be hole-in-the-walls, or in parts of town with large Chinese populations, such as Chinatown or the San Gabriel Valley. Bilingual menus are always a good sign. Interestingly, my wife prefers going to Americanized restaurants, as she feels the service is friendlier, even if the food is not as authentic.
I am not Chinese. I’ve never been to China. I do not even live in place that has a Chinatown. However, one of things I remember reading from long ago (sorry, no cite) was that many of the immigrants who came to this country and opened restaurants were peasants, simple people from simple backgrounds. They cooked and served peasant food. And to maximize their profits, they altered that food in whatever way was necessary to get cuisine-shy Americans into the place. It would be as though I, a housewife from the deep south, went to China as an immigrant and opened an American restaurant in a Beijing strip shopping center. As an untrained chef, used to cooking only for family, I would cook and serve the food I knew: fried chicken, black-eyed peas, iceberg lettuce salad, and banana pudding with Nilla Wafers. Maybe some meatloaf and mashed potatoes if I was feeling particularly adventuresome. And if my customers didn’t like what I served, I would alter it in any way I could to keep them coming in. Chinese food in a Chinese restaurant is a testament to the strength, determination and inventiveness of the Chinese immigrants. Would that there were representative restaurants of southern, mid-western, northeastern USA etc. regional cooking in other countries instead of the ubiquitous McD’s and Starbucks…
IMHO the only Tsingtao worth drinking is the original. To pick nits, they also have a “special” premium version in 12 oz brown bottles, but this is just the original beer in a different bottle.
Tsingtao has taken over dozens of breweries around China in the past couple of years and has many different varients of their beer. Again, the original is far far better than any of the other’s I have tried.
“For Domestic Sale Only” does not contain a different kind of beer. It is to prevent tax cheats in Hong Kong and other countries. Tsingtao in Hong Kong has a box stamped with “approved to be sold in HK” or something to that effect and shows that HK tax has been paid.
Anyhoo, I drink gallons of the stuff and think it is among one of the finest light lagers brewed in the world. Certainly better than Bud or any of the other mass produced US lagers.
I don’t care what’s authentic, drat you all. I’m hungry.
Is curry at all Chinese? There are a couple of curry dishes that I run across often, curry chicken with onion, or curried Singapore rice noodle, or in one of the restaurants here they serve a wonderful hot red beef curry with potatoes. Is that even remotely Chinese? There’s a little note on the menu that it’s an “authentic rural dish.”
I’ll still eat it even if it was invented in Columbus, but I’m curious.
I do believe you have the reasoning backwards there :P. And actually, I’m Chinese and have Chinese friends and so between my friends and my younger brother, a joke has always been that we’ve never learned a Chinese word for ‘cheese’…
And yeah, curry is commonly served in Japanese and Chinese cuisine, although it differs from Indian or Thai curry.
I do live in China and can say that some of the food here is not that much different than it is in Chinese restaurants in the States(I’m from Michigan).
It is different, usually more spicy and with a much larger variety, but is not totally foreign(so to speak).
I guess it really depends on what you order. Gungpao Jiding is about the same as it is in the States, but most of the food here just isn’t available in the States.
