Here’s a hilarious video from Off The Great Wall about must have Chinese sauces. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilkgD-TeUhg
Note that they’re all from different parts of China. I know Dan was born in Shanghai, I believe Mia was born in Hong Kong, and Yi and Mike are, I believe Northern Chinese, which is why they don’t all agree on the ‘essential’ sauces for their respective cuisine styles.
I’m rewatching the video now and Dan said he and Mia are from Shanghai and Mike and Yi are from Shiyan, Northern China.
Hah. Looks like my kitchen is set–I have all but two of those sauces. I do agree with not putting sriracha in pho, though. On the side to dip some beef in? Sure. But in the broth? Just destroys the delicate flavor of pho (and I love spicy foods and am a fierce chili head, so it’s not about the heat.) A good bowl of pho is just such a beautifully balanced and aromatic broth, and throwing in something as abrasively sweet, sour, and garlicky as sriracha just kills it for me. (I will add the chopped fresh peppers, though, for a kick. That doesn’t really change the underlying broth flavor to me.) I mean do it how you want, but I can see why Dan and Mia were a bit surprised.
Not a bad video to start with. Maybe half are really essential and some are pretty regional. My Shanghaiese wife would view these as second or third gen American Chinese that don’t really know shit from shinola when it comes to Chinese cooking.
Missing these from our kitchen cabinet: Soy Sauce, fish sauce, XO sauce, doubanjiang (豆瓣酱）and Shaoxing wine.
I was going to come back to thread to mention something like this. I don’t have my copy handy, but Jennifer 8 Lee’s “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles”* covers some of this.
*An excellent book prompted by the author wondering why the Chinese food her Chinese-born mother cooked at home and what her non-Chinese friends ate in Chinese restaurants. It covers the history of Chinese food in America.
A couple of points made in the book in regards to the large-scale spread of Chinese restaurants across America in the past 25 years:
-A large majority of Chinese that come to America and spread out to work in restaurants are from Fujian Province. They can go to a job broker in a major city such as NYC and end up on a bus to say, rural South Carolina, the same day. Almost none of them have any restaurant experience until they come to the US. They work for a few years and save money until they can open a place of their own or buy an existing restaurant.
-The are wholesaler syndicates that will help set newcomers up by loaning them seed money and supplying everything a Chinese restaurant might need, including food/ingredients, with already-made noodles, wontons, soup stock, sauces, etc. Basically, a lot of Chinese restaurants are almost franchises of the same chain with different names.
I admit to having one dinner in Chicago’s Chinatown that was…not too impressive. I am going mainly by Little Pianola‘s criticism. She was raised on Manhattan and Brooklyn Chinese food and has lived in Chitown for several years, and when she comes home to visit scarfs up as much Chinese as she can hold. Dim sum, high toned midtown places, cheap takeout, everything.
We didn’t make it to Brooklyn on our recent trip, but the Chinese food we had in Flushing almost had my wife wanting to move to New York. The previous month, we’d had Chinese in Chicago, but it was pretty much the same as the Chinese we get in Farmington, MI or Toronto.
As I stated earlier, the issue with “authentic Chinese food” is that there’s multiple (100’s of millions if you count home cooking) of cuisine in China. Someone from Mainland China may never have had Southern cuisine, even dim sum and vice-versa. Taking a Chinese person to your local Chinese restaurant would be like someone in a foreign country taking you for chitlins and collard greens just because you’re from America. Delicious for those from the South who grew up with it, but completely foreign to most Americans, myself included.
Note that in this YouTube video, “Chinese People Try Panda Express For The First Time”, that the two older ladies are speaking Mandarin, so likely not from Southern China and I’m 99% sure the husband and wife are speaking Cantonese, so likely from Southern China. Again, two completely different sets of taste. [Chinese People Try Panda Express For The First Time](Chinese People Try Panda Express For The First Time)
Edit: There are numerous videos of people trying the Americanized versions of their ethnic cuisine, usually with the same results “This isn’t real xxx food!”
I shouldn’t have said “Americanized” versions of their ethnic cuisine", because of course that’s not fair. I meant to say, versions of their ethnic cuisine that’s not cooked / prepared (i.e. without the same ingredients, especially spices and sauces) in the same way as the “real” versions. Even something basic as beef or pork may taste different because of the different breeds of animals available in the U.S. vs. other countries, as well as what, how they’re fed.
Here’s the link. (You just linked it to the name of the title.)
Man, that young guy in the middle was annoying as all get-out. Loved the parents/elders. Pretty much how I expected it to go.
Thanks for fixing the link.
BTW, I can’t figure out how the guy with the glasses is with that girl! Gives hope to us nerdgeeks. 
My ex’s Mom was Hakka, I believe her parents or grandparents were from Guangdong and she would take us to Hakka restaurant here in Hawaii. She said it was the only authentic Hakka restaurant in Hawaii and the food was definitely different (and delicious!) from any Chinese food I’ve had anywhere else.
Also, when I took a Cantonese language course (just a short intro), the instructor took us to what he said was the only authentic dim sum restaurant serving authentic Hong Kong style dim sum. Again, different from anywhere else I’ve ever been. Note I didn’t say Guangdong style, which I understand is different.
BTW, yes I know Hong Kong is historically part of Guangdong province, but since it and Macau were under British rule for so long, it’s developed it’s own unique culture and style, so much so that even mainland China recognizes it as a Special Administrative Region.
Decades ago, a new Chinese restaurant opened near to where I used to live. I don’t know where the owners were from, but the style of cooking was different (there was a distinct taste of Chinese wine) from that I was used to and I liked it. Gradually, over the years, I noticed the taste changed to be more generic and closer to what I could get in other restaurants.
On of my favorite places to eat was a hole-in-the-wall place, next door to another hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant. They both served almost identical menu items, but they were distinctly different. The owners of the place I liked spoke Cantonese (I believe Hong Kong accent), so I’m assuming they served Hong Kong style cuisine.
Well, people sometimes talk about “American food” even though we have 50 states and many variations on food based upon locality. But the term has a meaning, so I’m unsure why we cannot use the term “Chinese food” an attribute a similar meaning.
I wouldn’t describe chitlins and collard greens as “American food” even though for the semantic language lawyers out there, it is a dish eaten in some parts of the United States. If someone in France, for example, advertised “authentic American food” and I looked at the menu at it had meatloaf, roast, hamburgers, etc., then I would expect that such food be prepared and taste as it does in Anywhere, USA, even though I understand that those dishes might taste different in different regions of the country.
Here is a YouTube by a guy who was ten years in China and an ex-pat talking about the ‘secret menu’ I alluded to earlier and how to get more authentic versions of American favorites like egg roll and General Tsao’s chicken.
Felt like the older people were politely trying the food and giving their thoughts whereas the younger people were “We’re gonna be on the internet gotta make this look good!” and dramatically overreacting.
My favorite sushi place is Korean-run and definitely not traditional japanese style. Their pieces are garishly festooned with every manner of inappropriate garnish and sauce imaginable piled with center of gravity so high that the table wobbles when you lift it to your mouth. I love every nontraditional bite of it.
There is some truth to that (there are definitely restaurants here in Chicago that have two menus) but I doubt this is anywhere near universal or even common. Reading through the comments on the video, that does seem to be the case. If you live somewhere with a strong Chinese community (or other cultures also sometimes have a separate menu–there’s a few Thai restaurants around here that have menus only in Thai that have different items on them than the English menu) this will be more common, but I would doubt this would work in a majority of a random sampling of ma & pop Chinese joints, if simply because a lot of times you will need to have different ingredients on hand, and if you don’t have a strong local ethnic clientele, it just doesn’t make economic sense to carry those ingredients.
And something just irks me about that guy.
Meatloaf, roast and hamburgers are prepared in the majority of households and restaurants throughout the U.S., differing in seasonings and prep. But they’re still easily recognizable as American staples.
With the possible exception of mein (noodles), fried or boiled, the ingredients of “Chinese food” differs greatly according to region. It’s only when you get to to the basics, meat or poultry (seafood is largely limited to the coastlines, no supermarkets in rural areas) and vegetables is there a commonality in “Chinese food”. And since these are basic ingredients, it’s the sauces, seasoning and prep that gives it, its unique flavor.
In the YouTube video I posted above, the old man (who BTW is speaking Cantonese and likely from Southern China) says “Chinese people don’t have egg rolls”, doesn’t mean it’s not made somewhere in China, just that he hasn’t had one prepared the way Panda Express did. And of course as has been discussed, Panda Express, PF Chang’s and apparently Zimmern’s restaurant are a mish-mash of foods from different regions of China. Is it “authentic” Chinese food, possibly (yes, possibly even Panda Express) in the sense that it’s sauced, seasoned and prepared in the same way as the food in that region. Is it “authentic” Chinese food in the sense that if you walk into a restaurant in say Shanghai, you’ll get the same variety and selection? No.
I have a question for those who say the “Chinese food” they had in a regional restaurant was bad. Was it because it didn’t meet your expectation of “Chinese food”? Could the food have truly been “authentic” and just not to your taste?
I’m not poo-pooing the the fusion of ethnic foods (though I draw the line at cold wasabi mash potatoes!), but I wish people would recognize that “Chinese food” is too generic for the multiple regional cuisines in China. This is just as true for any other ethic cuisine (I don’t count American food as ethic since it’s a mish-mash of multiple cultures and ethic foods). I’m even fine with “American Chinese Food” which more accurately describes what the majority of Chinese restaurants serve.