I’ve posted about this issue years ago, but I’m curious as to how this issue will work out as a poll and also if there are any new/changed views from old and new members of the board.
When I was growing up, whenever we went to a Chinese restaurant, there would be a pair of condiment sauces, one yellow and one orange. The yellow one, we called “mustard” and the orange one we called “sweet-and-sour sauce.” Yes, there were also menu items like “sweet-and-sour pork/chicken/shrimp,” but to us that sauce was very similar, and almost the same as the orange condiment.
Now, everywhere I go, I see this orange sauce pretty much exclusively referred to as “duck sauce.”
So, what I want to know is whether anyone else called the orange sauce that was paired with mustard “sweet-and-sour sauce.” Is it a generational thing? Or a geographic thing? Or was this just something unique to our family?
Midwesterner here. I grew up hearing sweet and sour and never heard of duck sauce until about 20 years ago. It took me 10 more years to figure out it was what I had been calling SnS.
“Sweet and sour sauce” is something else entirely – red instead of orange and with far more vinegar. There used to be a piece or two of pineapple in it, but that seems to have stopped.
I am given to understand that duck sauce is a variant of plum sauce, which, while a sweet and sour sauce, is a different beast than the bright red stuff CALLED sweet and sour sauce.
Yeah, they are different.
But when you got your spring rolls you got a little bowl of Sweet and sour with a blob of hot mustard in the middle of it to use if you want.
Duck sauce was the orange stuff in the packets that didn’t taste like anything, and had no point.
It’s been duck sauce for as long as I can remember but plum sauce does ring a bell, too. I agree with everyone else on the sweet & sour being a red sauce.
Sweet and Sour sauce is day glow red and Duck Sauce is dark orange or brown. S&S only comes with dishes you order that are specifically called Sweet & Sour X while duck sauce is given away in packets (if Take Out) or in a little bowl on the table for Noodle dippin’
It may be a regional thing but in the restaurants I go to, plum sauce is different. It is listed separately on the menu and comes with certain dishes, often Duck (the meat) dishes, ironically.
ETA: I am shocked to hear people have not seen mustard. Spicy Chinese mustard is like the Pepper to Duck Sauce’s salt in every Chinese restaurant I have been in (and I eat Chinese food A LOT :))
The last time I went to a sit-down Chinese restaurant, the only condiments on the table were soy sauce and chili oil, so I’m assuming the mustard-and-duck-sauce must be an east coast thing.
No, it’s not just East Coast. Our favorite local Chinese joint always mixes up a fresh bowl of Chinese mustard at the table to go along with the fried chow mein noodles.
As I said, I grew up in the Midwest, so it’s not just an East Coast thing. My experience is that when you go to a Chinese restaurant where they specialize in table service—as opposed to carry-out—this pair of sauces is always there, either a permanent part of the table setting, or brought to you when you order egg rolls.
That’s seems to me pretty much standard for American Chinese food. In a super-casual Chinese place, you might get it in little plastic packets or at a super-trendy place they might serve it in bowls, but egg rolls come with a bright yellow mustard sauce and a bright orange (what I would call sweet-and-sour) sauce — http://media01.stockfood.com/wmpreviews/MTE3ODUwNDY=/00906542.jpg
Most commonly in my experience, they’re served in a twin condiment server like this—
Anyway, the comments and poll results so far are enough to assure me that it is a thing for the orange sauce to be called sweet-and-sour sauce, even if it’s a minority usage.
