When I was younger, an egg roll was a stumpy, pudgy little thing. I think the wrapper was just a fried wonton skin, crispy and bubbly on the outside, tender and slightly chewy on the inside. The filling had a very unique gently warm spiciness (five spice powder?)
Nowadays it seems like whenever I order an egg roll, what I get is actually a fried spring roll. These are generally longer and skinnier, the outside is smooth and crisp, and the filling is not as flavorful.
I don’t know if this is location-specific (I grew up in Chicago but currently live in San Diego) or if I’m completely imagining this, but I miss the much beloved egg rolls of my youth… tear
Deep-fried rice paper rolls such as lumpia or the Vietnamese chả giò have definitely gained in popularity over Chinese-American style egg rolls with the wheat flour wrapper. I don’t know how old you are, but if you noticed that shift, it may be due to the large influx of Vietnamese, Hmong, Cambodian, and Thai immigrants in the last 30 years.
I find I can usually still get egg rolls at Cantonese restaurants.
It seems it’s by location. I have a lot of Chinese places a round me and while most sell the kind you remember, several have the latter (I prefer the first FWIW).
There was one in a nearby town fifty years ago. They ordered their egg rolls from Chicago and they were stuffed with the most wonderful assortment of goodies -bean sprouts, barbequed pork. mushrooms, water chestnuts. And they were fried in the wheat flour wrappers.
The only egg rolls I can find in our town’s six or seven Asian restaurants are Southeastern Asian. Usually all they have in them are a lot of shredded cabbage, some shredded carrot and, with luck, a few crumbles of unseasoned pork.
Years ago one of our first Vietnamese families lived nearby and every Saturday morning the mother would send the little ones out with baskets of Vietnamese fried spring rolls. They weren’t like the Cantonese but were very good. Well seasoned. Unfortunately the health department shut her down.
That is one of the wife’s criteria for selecting a Chinese restaurant - do they actually have egg rolls as opposed to spring rolls? Egg rolls are getting harder and harder to find, probably due to the factors OneCentStamp mentions above.
It’s a total pain in your ass – time consuming but not difficult – to make your own. Won ton wrappers are easy to come by, you can stuff 'em with anything you like and I would guess they freeze well, so you could make them all, freeze, and then fry when you want a few.
I find I prefer the deep fried spring roll, but when I make egg rolls – doesn’t happen often because it takes hours and dirties every pan and knife in the house – I make 'em the old-fashioned way.
I don’t mind spring rolls/lumpia per se–but I do mind that almost all rolls these days seem to be bland cabbage things. No flavor, no meat. I miss mushrooms, shrimp, celery, maybe water chestnut.
I have some Filipino inlaws who make great lumpia with basically spicy meat + carrot. Those are good.
Then again, I can’t stand most Chinese-American food nowadays.
That’s interesting, because I think of the old school flour wrapped egg rolls as being mostly cabbage with a little pork, and the rice paper ones as being full mostly of pork, with just a little bean thread or something as filler.
They freeze great. A friend of mine makes a ginormous batch every so often and does exactly what you suggest. That’s actually how she paid me for adding some pockets to a dress for her, in egg rolls.
I love making eggrolls, it’s the frying part that defeats me. The eggrolls at the local takeout place are just awful, all cabbage, bland if not actually bad tasting. There are spring rolls on the hot foods bar at the grocery store that are OK. I still miss the little frozen LaChoy eggroll appetizers. I’ve looked everywhere for them. No luck.