chengdude

You are right, it wasn't meant as arrogant, although I do believe that GOURMET magazine has undergone a gradual dumbing-down over the many years it has been published. And by "intended audience" I meant folks who weren't acquainted with Sichuan food; in that, the article was very suitable. Finally, by "reputed expertise" I perhaps rather obtusely implied that I haven't seen her book either, as it is still forthcoming in North America. This "First foreigner to train at Chengdu's nationally known culinary academy" is a standard tag from her bio and, as yet, I haven't seen much from Ms. Dunlop to substantiate this title...thus, the "reputed expertise" quote. Sorry if I come across as arrogant.

Not necessarily. I suppose I could have added more detail to my comments for indeed, it is still possible to find "real yogurt." It is usually sold by street vendors and in small shop stalls and is packaged in small glass carafes or ceramic jars, both of which are meant to be recycled (typically they have paper or plastic wrap covering the mouths of the containers). People usually hang around eating/drinking and hand the containers back when they are finished. I think even these have a touch of sweetness to them, but much more of a tangy flavor not nearly so sweet as the mass-produced "yogurt drinks."

A few more jiao's worth of thoughts on comments made so far: jackal10 wrote: >I thought authentic chinese food was a small bowl of rice for most of the south, and maybe some >instant noodles for most of the north...perhaps with a pickle or a little meat if times are good, at >least for most of the population for most of the time. Yes, there are great feasts and court food, but >only for the lucky few. While there's no point arguing that a modified version of this reality still exists for a portion of the populace, China isn't in the middle of the Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution anymore and the economic reality is very different for many. Disparities exist (and for some are growing by the day) but at this point the near-famine conditions you paint are definitely part of an unfortunate history. Fat Guy wrote: >That's certainly an important point: what is authentic Chinese food? Under Communism, much of the >infrastructure necessary for production of that cuisine was destroyed on the mainland and >preserved by communities in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Certainly, in the Chinatowns of North America, >there is plenty of authentic Hong Kong cuisine. By "infrastructure" I guess you mean "people" for that was the greatest destruction wrought by misguided economics and politics of the Communist Party. If you have some examples, I would enjoy hearing about any culinary history or knowledge lost on the mainland but preserved outside. Certainly today, the mind-boggling variety of Chinese foods and foodstuffs is in full evidence, as is the historic Chinese preoccupation with food, eating, and talking about food and eating. Confusion wrote: >What regional Chinese cuisine do most people there consider to be the best >Northern/Western/Southern/etc. Of course, most people wil say the food of their hometown is the best, but pressed for an answer, I think you'd find Sichuan mentioned the majority of the time. As is true everywhere, a percentage cannot tolerate a high level of spice in food, but everyone appreciates the abundance, quality, and -especially- the low cost of food in Sichuan. Jon Tseng wrote: >Would be interested in know what, if anything, distinguishes "manchu" food from northern chinese. >As I said have had the baozi and sopping-in-oil stir-fries to death in beijing. There is a small chain of restaurants in China called Dongbei Ren that specializes in food of the northeast. It's a rather brilliant attempt to standardize a particular style of food and market it in a casual dining/fast food format, however "authentic" the recipes might be. Waitstaff wear outfits made from a favorite "northeastern" fabric: a wild floral print in shocking colors. In one area, guests can sit on mock kangs, the elevated portion of a traditional northeastern home. The menu featured a range of jiaozi stuffed with fillings typical of the northeast, vegetable dishes including wild greens found/popular in the northeast, slow-braised donkey, crepes rolled with meat and green onions cooked on a giant griddle in view of the patrons, and other braised this and steamed that, although not a tremendous amount of stir-frying. chaste nosferatu wrote: >The popularity for KFC is because they serve chicken and the chinese relate to eating chicken. But >Mickey D's and their chopped meat patties are repulsive, the children love it but the adults who >were raised on an almost exclusively veggie diet find it gross. While Chinese certainly relate to eating chicken, KFC is generally first out of the gate because it's a whole lot easier to go in to a foreign market and sell pieces of chicken dipped in seasoned flour and deep fried than it is to sell those chopped meat patties. Buns, sauces, french fries, cheese, etc. etc...McDonald's is renowned for their rigid control not only over the quality and preparation of their products, but their suppliers as well. Mickey D's doesn't move into any market until they are convinced that the supply and transportation infrastructure can meet their specs and handle the day-in and day-out of churning out the same food on a "Billions Served" scale. And the adults may find it gross, but that doesn't stop them from taking the whole family for the see-and-be-seen experience. Nothing shouts success and child indulgence, however nouveau bourgeois, like trips to McDonald's. trillium wrote: >Just to clarify, I totally agree that these dishes were created for a perceived western appetite, real >or not . I'm just questioning the statement ""American Chinese food" is mostly Cantonese (and >inferior Cantonese as well)" in the text I quoted. I'm kind of surprised that this food is thought of as >Cantonese. It doesn't resemble the food I eat at 1st or 2nd G overseas Cantonese homes and I >don't know any Cantonese who would claim it as their own. I'm not trying to be pedantic, I'm just >surprised that this type of food gets labeled Cantonese. I think a partial explanation would be because of the historic patterns of Chinese immigration from Canton (Guangdong), the term "Cantonese" has simply entered our collective consciousness as a synonym for "Chinese food" in general...at least in the U.S.. Think of images of Chinese restaurants in the U.S. from the 50's, 60's, or 70's and the word "Cantonese" is likely to appear repeatedly. ecr wrote: >There was a great article in a recent Gourmet on food in Sichuan (Chengdu, in fact) and how some >chefs are pushing the edges of the Sichuan cuisine envelope while others are serving fine >renditions of the "standards". For me, the article in question (from the April 2003 issue of Gourmet, by the way) was "great" simply for the novelty of seeing this subject covered in a U.S. magazine. It certainly did not delve into any great detail nor cover the subject with great conviction or passion. It only hinted at the reputed expertise of the author, Fuschia Dunlop, whose well-received book SICHUAN COOKERY has been out in the UK for some time and will be released in the U.S. as the retitled and reformatted "LAND OF PLENTY" next month. I do understand, of course, that the article was written for a target audience and, thus, was well-suited to that end. chaste nosferatu wrote: >Mags, yogurt is almost a staple with the kids I teach, they drink it, the yogurt here is not the thick >creamy spoon-needing kind. It is consumed in almost as great a quantity by the kids as the soy milk >and there are tons of varieties and brands. Yes, these yogurt drinks are pandemic in China. Have you examined them closely? The majority of those little plastic bottles and aseptic boxes of "yogurt" are, as you say, more like drinks to be consumed through attached straws and are composed of water, milk, sugar, and flavors. They are certainly not so healthy as all the TV commercials would purport and the amount of calories from sugar may partially account for the disparity in children's weight you have seen in your teaching. >The schools that are composed of wealthier children are noticeably larger than those from poor >neighborhoods. I have never seen it so graphicly represented how diets can alter the phenotype in >real life. This touches on an extremely worrying trend in modern China: the growing wealth of the people, the change in lifestyle that wealth and fundamental shifts in the economy bring, the availability of a mind-boggling choice of ready-to-eat snacks, and the influx of Western fast food are all combining to create a time bomb of obesity and heart disease, health issues that China has no practical experience dealing with. Bicycles are disappearing, sodas and fast food are all the rage, snacks like cookies, chips, and crackers are everywhere, all those instant noodles consumed are made with (usually) palm oil, and milk and juice products marketed as "natural" & "healthy" are often loaded with added sugar. Add that together with the ticking bombs of respiratory illness (smoking and persistently dismal air quality) and an aging populace and China's health care system is going to be sorely taxed in the coming decades. >Still working on the fermented rice recipes... Ask your chef friends for recipes using "lao zao" ...as another contributor has already mentioned, probably the most common preparation involves using it as a "soup" for tang yuan, the glutinoous rice flour dumplings most traditionally eaten at the end of the Spring Festival.

My 2 jiao's worth... eatingwitheddie wrote: >I’d like to make an analogy between the world of Chinese food and a family tree. Because no >matter whether you’re talking about a congee breakfast in Fukien, or a take-out order in >Chicago, or a formal Chinese banquet in Bangkok, they all still relate to the Chinese >culinary sphere of influence, and are part of the same evolutionary process which >eventually leads back to Chinese roots at the top of the tree. While certainly true, I think this is a rather Politically Correct view of the issue in question. Breaking down this thoughtful reply into 3 arguments, I think first of all it's fair to say that what we outside of China know as Chinese Food has been disproportionally influenced by (or filtered through, if you like) Chinese from Guangdong, Fujian, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Straits. Your tree analogy, in other words, is missing much of its root complex. Whether by traditional emigration patterns of the previous centuries or modern politics, events have long conspired to keep much Chinese cuisine out of Western consciousness. The caveat, of course, is that there are always exceptions to any argument like this and, further, as China continues to open to the global economy, no doubt these exceptions will gradually shift toward the rule. But let's face it, walk into most any Szechwan Palace or Hunan Garden -to use 2 popular styles- and ask where the owners or cooks are from and I doubt the answer will be Sichuan or Hunan. Furthermore, and a bit of an aside, just what percentage of the dishes on the menu are actually based on Sichuanese or Hunanese food? Consider as well the popular personalities who have influenced what we know of Chinese food. A brief check of their bios will likely include some variation on: born in southern China/grew up in Hong Kong/born to Chinese parents/made their way to Taiwan/now lives in (fill in Western country). Western experts like Barbara Tropp and Nina Simonds were trained in Taiwan. Look as well at popular cookbooks to find the Hong Kong/Taiwan influence. The caveat again is that there are always exceptions and certainly none of this makes these people or these books any less authoritative (certainly compared with me) - just simply that there are an enormous gaps in our knowledge. >Overseas Chinese who came to this country in the mid-19th century may have invented Chop >Suey, but it is still part of the Chinese culinary Diaspora. Some of the best master chefs >of the mid 20th century left China around 1950 when the Communists took over. They took >their craft and traditions to other countries, where they may have continued true to >tradition or may have adapted to local tastes. Also very true and this point raises an economic argument to this issue: these highly trained master chefs brought with them a rather narrow range of expertise. Those professionals with the connections, money, and/or good luck to be in the right place to get out of China were certainly not cooking dumplings or fried noodles for ordinary people, but likely at or near the top of their profession working in considerably more prestigious positions. So, to a great degree, what was left behind in China was much of the ordinary cooking that so many people have commented on in this thread. While these chefs likely could reproduce these more humble dishes (or perhaps worked their way up from cooking them), their minds certainly weren't focused on recreating them. Arguably then, what we would consider "authentic" Hunan or Sichuan food, to continue to use these two popular styles, is likely today to be the work of chefs trained in those styles far from Sichuan or Hunan. The recipes themselves might be ones -or descendents of- those of older master chefs who escaped the Mainland. To put this "in a larger global Chinese food context" as you stated below, it then becomes much more problematic to even define what "Sichuan" or "Hunan" cuisine really is. >I find it important and exciting to take note of what culinary life is like in Northern China in 2003, yet >to be dismissive of what is happening Chinese food wise in the US, Britain, or on the Italian Riviera >and to dismiss it as not authentic is short sighted and provincial. It is the nature of humans to >adapt to local conditions in order to feed ourselves. To me it is more meaningful and important to >talk about what people are >experiencing in a particular time and place and understand it in a >larger global Chinese food context. >Just the way Chinese cooking has adapted itself and blossomed in the US, so goes it all through >China and around the world. In fact THIS may be one of the most significant aspects of the whole >discussion: Chinese cooking has spread around the world and adapted more successfully than any >other cuisine in modern civilization. These adaptations are part of the evolution of life and >civilization. On their own they are neither good or bad. I believe the impetus behind the original post was the reaction to the amazing variety of foods and food preparations in China versus the stupefying similarity found in American Chinese restaurants...and in the original poster's own experience. Therefore, it's arguable that much of this "blossoming" of Chinese food hasn't really taken place, rather that much of this adaptation has been an endless repetition of the same formula and the same dishes from a very narrow range of sources (see above). A good analogy would be the similarity of Indian restaurants: just as the model of Punjabi cooking (naan, tandoori, saag paneer, etc. etc.) was first adapted and spread by the first waves of immigrants from India, so is it that a model of Chinese food has developed and been copied over and over. However wrongly, Chinese food cogniscenti would probably view this trend as quite "provincial." Of course, "giving the people what they want" is a perfectly reasonable counter-argument, however depressing. Yet again, I will repeat that there are going to be plenty of exceptions but the fact that this thread is as long as it is means that there is much truth to be found in this argument. Fortunately, with the interest growing in the U.S. in "authentic" regional styles of food and with China's increasing economic openness, we can hopefully look forward to a fresh influx of creativity. It's happened with Indian food as waves of new immigrants have brought new regional styles with them.

I think it would be helpful to define "salad." If you mean lettuce mixed with a kitchen-sink assortment of raw vegetables smothered in Ranch dressing, then certainly the answer would be no. However there are any number of cold dishes -often eaten as starters- in Chinese cuisine, many that feature raw vegetables. You could say the most basic of these is the cucumber eaten whole, a popular snack on trains. Liang cai are preparations of cold vegetables in a spicy dressing, sometimes mixed with bean starch noodles and/or meat. In Sichuan, there are restaurants that specialize in leng dan bei, cold dishes that can be vegetable- or meat-based. Come spring, they will often advertise by laying out a spread on a table outside in front of the restaurant. San si indicates a dish of 3 types of shredded/julienned vegetables (or often, bean starch vermicelli) in a light dressing. One of my favorite cold dishes is suan ni huang gua, raw cucumber dressed with vampire-defeating amounts of chopped garlic and dressed with oil. To my knowledge, these are not "adaptations." Historically, it's true that the Han have always been quite involved with the intricacies of cooking and seasoning food, frequently using it as an analogy for inner harmony and gentlemanly refinement. Many elaborate Shang bronze vessels were for the cooking of ritual foods. Raw food, on the other hand, doesn't really register on the radar screen. The LI JI (BOOK OF RITES) contains a passage indicating the Han differentiated themselves from the "barbarians" on their borders by their consumption of cooked, as opposed to raw, food. However, by food, the passage is referring to meat. Also from the LI JI, we know that mourning ritual involved eating no meat, fruits or vegetables, only water and grain, eventually moving up to meat after the inclusion of fruits and vegetables. This shows that to the Han, grains were the essential staff of life while meat was the food that distinguished the refined from the coarse, the food that through abstention would most show humility. So where does that leave fruits and vegetables and the myriad possiblities they present? Certainly they were part of the diets of all Han, but much of the primary knowledge died with the countless generations of peasants most responsible for the Chinese understanding of the edible and medicinal properties of plants. The most important legacies of peasant knowledge are the SHI JING (BOOK OF SONGS), a collection of folk songs/poems containing many references to fruits and vegetables, and the various Materia Medica, the most important of which were collected by scholars who wandered the country recording folk wisdom of plants and plant foods. Unfortunately, as history is most concerned with men of greatness, humble but no less important knowledge like the daily fare of the common people (among all sorts of other knowledge of the discovery and transmission of foods and foodstuffs) has mostly been lost to the ages.