Chinese mustard!
That’s not really now language works. Things are what they are called. It’s just a question of whether you’re in a group that uses a particular name for something.
I only know sweet-and-sour sauce here. Growing up, the three packets invariably were soy, hot mustard, and sweet-and-sour. I am familiar with “duck sauce” from other regions. “Plum sauce” to me is something different.
Grew up in Chicago suburbs, lived in Chicago proper for (holy shit) almost 20 years.
The red stuff in entrees is “sweet and sour.”
The orange stuff in the packets was “sweet and sour.”
The stuff in the squeeze bottle on the table is “sweet and sour.”
The stuff sold for $1.10 at my local Chinese takeout is “sweet and sour”.
Thestuff in the grocery storeis “sweet and sour”.
The stuff at McDonald’s, Burger King and Long John Silver’s is “sweet and sour.”
I have only recently, in the last two years, noticed thatmy packets now say “Duck Sauce,” and the stuff inside is sweet with a hint of umame, it is not sweet and sour, with vinegar. This is why I know how much a bottle of Sweet and Sour costs at my local Chinese takeout, because the packets are unacceptable now. I resent the intrusion of Duck Sauce into my Sweet and Sour world.
Yes, my experience is like WhyNot’s. While the sauces weren’t identical, we still used the same name for them.
I’d agree with you if that’s what you were asking, but what I said is what it is if you know the different sauces. You can *call *one Pete Walmsley, but if you know it is Sweet and Sour, then you know there is a distinction to be made: what you call it vs. what it is.
No, what I was asking is what usages everyone is familiar with. If there are significant group of people that call it “sweet-and-sour sauce,” then in that group’s lexicon, it is sweet-and-sour sauce. That’s how lexicons work. If there were significant numbers of people calling it “Pete Walmsley,” then it is Pete Walmsley for that group.
I see, yes. That’s more precisely dialect or even idiolect than lexicon, btw. I still thought it might be helpful to lay out the different sauces and what they’re called in the jargon of Chinese cuisine.
Upon reflection, I guess you could call that lexicon as a subset of a dialect. I’d normally refer to them as “lexical items” then, but lexicon isn’t wrong or imprecise. Sorry.
When I was growing up in western Canada, we would invariably get packets of Wing’s Egg Roll Sauce with our takeout egg rolls.
These days? Sweet chili sauce. Where was that yumminess my whole life?
In this kind of case, yes. It is what it is wherever you are. Sweet and sour in the Chicago/Milwaukee area seems to be what people in other cities call duck sauce. So around here, generally speaking, the orange stuff is sweet and sour.
I have a friend who calls whatever is on the table to start with “Potato Chips.”
She eats Chinese hard noodles: Chinese Potato Chips. Mexican tortilla strips: Mexican Potato Chips. Even Italian bread and oils: Italian Potato Chips.
Particularly weird since American cuisine restaurants don’t really set out bowls of potato chips… Talk about idiolect.
I just went over this with my girlfriend. I’m a native Chicagoan, and never really had a name for the orange sauce. If I had to call it something, I’d have probably called it sweet-and-sour or plum sauce. She’s a native New Yorker, and grew up calling it duck sauce. I think the duck sauce thing is an East Coast term.
And I NEVER heard of Chinese food that didn’t come with that hot, sinus-searing horseradish based mustard!
Always been called plum sauce around here. Never heard it called duck sauce!
Why isn’t plum sauce (which it actually IS), included in the poll? (You can purchase it at the store, clearly labelled Plum Sauce!) Seems silly not to.
In my area, plum sauce is dark, thick, sweet and salty, and served with mu shu. http://kame.com/sites/default/files/products/sauces/sauce_plum_main.jpg it’s
WhyNot’s link is what plum sauce is here in NY too. Duck sauce is orange and sweet and sour is reddish orange.
The stuff with Mu Shu and Peking Duck is usually Hoisin sauce.
It’s not horseradish-based mustard. Or at least it doesn’t need to be. That sinus-clearing effect is natural to mustard-based mustard.
I would have included it had I been aware that it was used that way. I’ve never heard or seen that usage. I did include an “other” option for answers that I did not anticipate.
I have always heard “hoisin sauce” and “plum sauce” used interchangeably for that dark, thick, sweet and salty sauce served next to the Sriracha hot sauce at pho joints. As well as the sauce you get with mu shu pork.
I happen to have a packet of Duck Sauce (I told you I eat a lot of Chinese food! :)) and the ingredients list Peaches and Apricots but no plums. I have had plum sauce and it is different.
I’m surprised there are places where Chinese restaurants don’t serve mustard. It’s essential in America. — http://youtu.be/WLsE99V4sHE
(One of the things that makes me sick about the revelations about Bill Cosby is that classic bits like this are now tainted)
For me, my familiarity with “plum sauce” is of the dark kind, although I am aware of the lighter kind that is basically duck/sweet-and-sour sauce. I always thought of hoisin as something a little different (no plums), but it seems that the two terms are used fairly interchangeably in a lot of places. So Americanized/Anglicized names for Chinese food items appears to be ambiguous indeed!