# There are no fortune cookies or takeaway boxes in China.... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 7, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161 "2011-11-07T12:51:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/41 "2011-11-07T20:36:42Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > [This link](http://j8.ly/popular-irish-chinese-dish-3-in-1-fried-rice)has a picture of a three-in-one. 🙂 From the people who brought us the [Munchy Box](http://blog.23x.net/5/what-is-a-munchy-box.html). ---
**Author:** ![JimmyFlair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce7236/32.png) [@JimmyFlair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimmyFlair)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/42 "2011-11-08T00:38:16Z")
I’m still trying to comprehend the whole “chips in the Chinese food” thing from Ireland. I thought the whole “those Irish folk sure love potatoes!” thing was a stereotype until I went there. I mean, the stew with potatoes in it served on top of mashed potatoes seemed like a little bit much, and the pasta with chunks of potatoes in the sauce was bordering on the absurd, but this is definitely not for amateurs! And the “Munchy Box” (snerk!) - depending on your blood alcohol content, that varies from the grossest thing ever to the MOST EXCELLENT THING EVER. That should be the roadside drunk driving test - No “Been drinking tonight sir?”, just wordlessly open the box at the driver’s open window. Recoil in disgust? You’re good to go. Excitedly reach over for a hand full of donair “meat” and fries? You clearly belong in the drunk tank! However, I did love the description of fries as “Glasgow salad” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/43 "2011-11-08T01:23:48Z")
The three in one makes me smile for all it’s unashamed potato love. That’s definitely an Irish thing, I’ve had meals with boiled, mashed, and fried potatoes all on the same plate. Add some chicken and ham and some Chef sauce and we’re good to go 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/44 "2011-11-08T01:30:06Z")
> [@howye](#): > > This would be where I point out that NYC does not constitute the United States. I suspect that as with many things, film and tv makers use those containers because that is what they have seen used and thus it became a shorthand for takeout food that is now recognized in many places exposed to American media. I lived in the midwest for the last couple of decades. Every chinese place used those little white containers. Many Italian places did too. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/45 "2011-11-08T06:27:19Z")
Fortune cookies are a type of cookie commonly found in Japanese stores. More like a cracker than a cookie. Similar to senbei or arare, which are made usually of rice flour: senbei usually sweet, arare, usually smaller & savory. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/46 "2011-11-08T06:30:34Z")
Although fortune cookies are usually made of flour, but they are usually lumped in as senbei, because they are not overly sweet. ---
**Author:** ![Ashes\_Ashes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@Ashes\_Ashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashes_Ashes)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/47 "2011-11-08T06:57:02Z")
Maybe it’s regional. Around here (the south west) foil containers aren’t common, especially with Chinese food. The white boxes, no handles anymore, are used for everything except whole fish and suchlike. Some places put soup in lidded paper cups. Curry is almost never on the menu, and I’ve never even\* thought\* fries might be offered. Not even with the rarely offered kid’s burger alternative meal. Fried chicken is what those who don’t like Chinese food order. I’ve always wondered about ketchup for Chinese food. My home county restaurants do this, but I don’t think I’ve seen it elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/48 "2011-11-08T07:21:55Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Not in the US. First of all, you generally can’t even order fries at a chinese takeout in the US unless it is an EXTREMELY cheap, nasty, shop as one would expect to find in a really crappy dangerous ghetto. The sort of place where you order through a bullet-proof-proof window. Second of all, Chinese restaurants in the US don’t serve curry. (on very, very rare occasion, you can get “singapore style” ie curried, stirfried noodles, but not in sauce). Not true at all. I also live in NYC and there are plenty of small Chinese food places that also sell fries, fried chicken, etc. None of them are “crappy dangerous ghettos.” Or does Soho now count as a place where you need to order through bullet-proof glass? How about the Upper West Side? Times Square area? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/49 "2011-11-08T07:50:40Z")
People need to realize there’s a difference between Chinese-American, Italian-American, and Mexican-American cuisine and Chinese, Italian, and Mexican cuisine. This is probably also true of various other hybrid cuisines in immigrant communities. People adapt their native cuisine to their new country. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/50 "2011-11-08T10:56:39Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > So have you risked drinking a Coke while you’ve been over there?😃 > [@simple\_homer](#): > > Me ? I do not understand the risk. > > I have risked drinking milk here, but I don’t do it often. You never heard the little amusingly racist rhyme when you were a kid, about the Chinese playing a little joke by putting pee pee in your coke? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/51 "2011-11-08T11:07:16Z")
> [@Ashes\_Ashes](#): > > I’ve always wondered about ketchup for Chinese food. My home county restaurants do this, but I don’t think I’ve seen it elsewhere. That’s ironic, because the word “ketchup” comes from Chinese (via Malay), but it originally meant a kind of brown fish-based sauce, and still refers to a brown sauce in Malaysia. (Tomatoes are New World, so it’s interesting that the word “ketchup” eventually came to be applied to a sauce based on them.) As others have noted, the idea of curry in Chinese food is odd for most Americans. Mixing Indian food with Chinese is as strange to us as mixing either of them with, say, Spanish tapas. But the British Isles have a longer and deeper history with India than the Americas do, so it’s not surprising that curry has infiltrated other realms there. (For the same reason, the word “Asian”, without context, evokes an image of a South Asian in a Brit’s mind, but of an East Asian in a Yank’s mind.) ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/52 "2011-11-08T12:10:44Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > I’m curious, is a three-in-one common Chinese takeaway fare anywhere outside Ireland? > > Chips (ie fries), boiled or fried rice, and curry or other sauce on top, all in a tray. > I reckon there are some restaurants in Dublin that have 3-in-1s as 90% of their business. 🙂 In Belfast I’ve heard it referred to as a half-and-half. I was really bewildered when my boyfriend’s brother came in one day, saying that he’d been to the local Chinese restaurant, and then produced a curry with rice and chips. A curry with chips would have been odd in itself, but the fact that he’d gotten them from a Chinese restaurant was what really confused me. Since when are chips and curry Chinese? It is good though. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![raskolnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e47c2d/32.png) [@raskolnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raskolnik)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/53 "2011-11-08T12:25:24Z")
Curry is popular in China…especially curry rice. I’ve had curry fries made by a chinese man who had worked in Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/54 "2011-11-08T13:25:04Z")
Chinese curry in the UK is usually quite a different thing from the Indian curries we get here, though. I don’t think the Chinese curries originate from Indian ones here. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/55 "2011-11-08T16:07:47Z")
> [@howye](#): > > To be fair, the oyster pail box does not seem all that common in America either. This. If I order a simple rice dish, it may be packed in an oyster pail, but otherwise it’s a styrofoam-like container (biodegradable containers becoming more common), or a light-duty Tupperware-like container. I always thought the ubiquitous oyster pail was a New York City thing, like anthora cups. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/56 "2011-11-09T05:31:53Z")
You might check out the very enjoyable [Fortune Cookie Chronicles](http://www.amazon.com/Fortune-Cookie-Chronicles-Adventures-Chinese/dp/B003P2VDF6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320816649&sr=8-1) for the history of some of the differences between Chinese-Chinese and American-Chinese food. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/57 "2011-11-09T12:51:03Z")
Fortune cookies are ubiquitous here, but Chinese take-out comes in [round styrofoam, cardboard, or shallow foil containers](http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/gvictoria/gvictoria0902/gvictoria090200089/4371192-chinese-food-delivery-or-takeout-aluminum-covered-containers-on-bamboo-placemat.jpg). The only place I’ve seen the US-style boxes is in a specific Thai fast-food chain. ---
**Author:** ![Charley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/97f17d/32.png) [@Charley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charley)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/58 "2011-11-09T13:15:30Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Chinese curry in the UK is usually quite a different thing from the Indian curries we get here, though. I don’t think the Chinese curries originate from Indian ones here. Indeed, and chip-shop (which traditionally were where you’d get your chinese take away - they’d often have two counters/queues, one for fish and chips etc., one for chinese) curry is a whole different thing again. It’s not necessarily going to be **a** curry on top of rice and chips, but a thick sauce with a vaguely curry flavor. As someone mentioned up thread, it’s coloured anything from rich brown to an alarming yellow. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/59 "2011-11-09T13:29:38Z")
When I were a lad our local “Chinky” (yes, sorry, that’s what it was called at the time) did chips with sweet and sour sauce. I was friends with the two sons of the owner so we got freebies all the time. I never had the heart to tell them that the chips were totally disgusting. However, I never encountered curry sauce with chips from a Chinese takeaway until I arrived in Ireland. I was bemused that it was considered standard Chinese fare. When I subsequently lived in Oxford my local chippie was Chinese-run (by a woman from Happy Valley with the strongest Hong Kong accent I’ve ever heard. When I said I knew Hong Kong well and from her accent I reckon she must be recently arrived she told me “Noooo! I be in England firty year! I be in England more time I be in Hong Kong!”). They did absolutely no Chinese food at all. But they did do chips and curry sauce. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![breaking-reality](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a8b319/32.png) [@breaking-reality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/breaking-reality)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161/60 "2011-11-09T17:40:50Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Most Chinese takeaway food here in the UK is sold in foil cartons with cardboard lids or snap-closed plastic boxes. I’m in the Mid-West U.S. (Illinois to be precise) and most of the Chinese takeout I get comes in foil containers or snap-closed plastic containers, too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-are-no-fortune-cookies-or-takeaway-boxes-in-china/602161.md?page=4)