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China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

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Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#61

Post by zhemao »

nitwit005 wrote: post #56
inopinatus wrote: post #19

I'm married to a first-generation offspring of Chinese parents, a source of regular and scathing remarks on how what is served in the US as "Chinese food" is often a many-generations-removed facsimile thereof. Three items in particular (Chop Suey, Chow Mein and General Tso Chicken) receive very special ridicule and their appearance on a menu can effectively disqualify any restaurant from further consideration. As the…

There is a lot of ego around food when it gets tied to identity. Your spouse is probably rejecting many restaurants that are run by immigrants cooking recepies brought over.

Seriously, though. California, and the Bay Area specifically, is one of the best places in the US to find authentic Chinese food. OP's spouse is just a snob. Sure, a lot of restaurants feel the need to put some "standard" dishes like General Tso's Chicken on the menu, just in case. You don't have to order those. Outside of tourist traps like SF Chinatown, Chinese restaurants mainly serve Chinese food to a predominantly Chinese clientele.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#62

Post by orblivion »

tuna-piano wrote: post #44

In the reverse, this is what I got when I ordered a burger at a basketball game in China. I think of this burger when I try and empathize with how other cultures feel when America adapts their cuisine: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5dDMxJP_n1aVWFmby0ydlJfbW8... Also, here's a video of Chinese people trying Panda Express (American Chinese fast food) for the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo59LlkTDe4

I think that young guy was just showing off how authentic he was to the two ladies sitting next to him. The old people liked it.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#63

Post by orblivion »

What doesn't add up to me is the idea that American Chinese food evolved from the 1800s, yet every legit Chinese restaurant has owners who have a heavy Chinese accent, clearly from China themselves. Did they come here and so quickly adapt to what was expected from "Chinese" food?

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#64

Post by lvturner »

tuna-piano wrote: post #44

In the reverse, this is what I got when I ordered a burger at a basketball game in China. I think of this burger when I try and empathize with how other cultures feel when America adapts their cuisine: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5dDMxJP_n1aVWFmby0ydlJfbW8... Also, here's a video of Chinese people trying Panda Express (American Chinese fast food) for the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo59LlkTDe4

That burger to me looks like it's actually a 肉夹馍 (rou jia mo) - which is often mistranslated as a burger or a "Chinese Burger" if done right they are really tasty... unfortunately this particular example looks a little stomach churning

Edit: wife has corrected me, it's a 馅饼 (xian bing) - roughly translated as a minced meat pancake/pie!

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#65

Post by smallnamespace »

orblivion wrote: post #63

What doesn't add up to me is the idea that American Chinese food evolved from the 1800s, yet every legit Chinese restaurant has owners who have a heavy Chinese accent, clearly from China themselves. Did they come here and so quickly adapt to what was expected from "Chinese" food?

Basically yes. They're here to make a buck, not to do haute cuisine, and it's much safer to serve food that your customers already know rather than something totally foreign.

Restaurants change hands frequently in cities. Actual family owned restaurants that have passed through generations are a small minority.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#66

Post by kyleschiller »

nostrademons wrote: post #27

My dad's a Chinese immigrant, and I've been to China and had Chinese food there. There are two types of Chinese food you can get in America (well, more given all the regional variations, but I'm making a point...). If you went to a strip mall, walked into a P.F. Chang's, and had General Tso's Chicken, that's not Chinese food. But if you walked into an unmarked doorway in Chinatown, walked down a flight of stairs to a…

There's plenty of great authentic Chinese food in the U.S. (and China) that has nothing to do with tendons or organs.

I have nothing against those cuts, Chinese food just really doesn't need to be exoticized any more than it already is.

For that matter, there's plenty of great authentic Chinese restaurants with marked doorways, at ground level and with english menus.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#67

Post by spc476 »

bane wrote: post #37
nostrademons wrote: post #27

My dad's a Chinese immigrant, and I've been to China and had Chinese food there. There are two types of Chinese food you can get in America (well, more given all the regional variations, but I'm making a point...). If you went to a strip mall, walked into a P.F. Chang's, and had General Tso's Chicken, that's not Chinese food. But if you walked into an unmarked doorway in Chinatown, walked down a flight of stairs to a…

> walked into a P.F. Chang's, and had General Tso's Chicken To be a touch contrarian, I'd even argue that the kind of food served in some of the newer chain restaurants isn't even proper traditional American-Chinese food (which seems to have shown up sometime in the late 19th, early 20th century). One of the things I've come to appreciate after lots of travel and lots of -Chinese food is how well developed and embedd…

You can find an American-Chinese restaurant everywhere, but I was very surprised to find a Chinese-Mexican restaurant in Florida (Indiantown, Florida to be precise): https://www.google.com/maps/@27.024428,-80.4724516,3a,75y,21...

Haven't eaten there, but have passed the place plenty of times (girlfriend's Mom used to live in Indiantown).

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#68

Post by wluu »

Not really a surprise. It's the same story elsewhere around the world. They had to adapt to survive. They firstly adapted local ingredients with techniques and flavours of home to cater to their fellow migrants, then they'd start adding some new dishes based on what they perceived as local tastes to try to attract the "native" population when just catering to their fellow migrants wasn't enough to survive.

How close a restaurants' dishes are to "authentic" ones depends largely on how many generations removed the chef is from their homeland.

Anyway, I'm of Chinese descent. First generation in my family born in Australia, but several more removed from China. So while the food that my family cooks retains Chineseness it also contains influences from the countries that my parents grew up in mixed in with ingredients that were sourceble in Melbourne, Australia in the 80s. That said, due to the relative distance of Australia to Asia during the mid to late 90s, more ingredients came in as the post-Vietnam war migrants settled here and had become further established in the community (so had capital to spend on luxuries like imported ingredients).

Some links that may be of interest: - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-21/humble-chinese-diner-m... - http://www.chia.chinesemuseum.com.au/biogs/CH01148b.htm - Chifa (Chinese Peruvian Cuisine) https://immigrationtalk.org/2013/07/17/chifa-the-story-behin... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Chinese_cuisine

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#69

Post by tmalsburg2 »

nostrademons wrote: post #27

My dad's a Chinese immigrant, and I've been to China and had Chinese food there. There are two types of Chinese food you can get in America (well, more given all the regional variations, but I'm making a point...). If you went to a strip mall, walked into a P.F. Chang's, and had General Tso's Chicken, that's not Chinese food. But if you walked into an unmarked doorway in Chinatown, walked down a flight of stairs to a…

Not disagreeing with you but I think it's important to point out that the whole notion of "Chinese food" is a very western idea. China is a huge country with very different cuisines depending on where you are in the country. Referring to all of that as "Chinese food" doesn't do justice to the complexity and history of the phenomenon.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#70

Post by alkonaut »

This is exactly the same with Italian food: even though the US is full of people of Italian descent, that doesn't change the fact that the Olive Garden menu baffles Italians.

Italian-American is a different kitchen. Just like British-Indian food. Or Tex-Mex.

Sometimes these adaptations are pretty good (the British Indian food, which is what everyone outside india thinks of as "Indian food" is pretty good!) but for some reason the US-chinese, US-Italian and US-Mexican (Tex-Mex) cuisine is an embarrassment to the originals.

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