"Asian Dining Rules" -- Fat Guy's new book

[Fat Guy]

Sam:

Yes, I would absolutely say that curry is a part of English cuisine. (Would any English people care to note their perceptions on that issue?)

And I don't see why French haute cuisine should be dismissed as irrelevant to the discussion of authenticity. Rather, French haute cuisine (and other globalized, not-regionally-dependent cuisines, e.g., sushi) demonstrates why the concept is untenable.

In terms of Cajun-Creole, would it make any difference to you if France had maintained sovereignty over Louisiana? Or, if all the 5+ million Italians who came to America had instead settled in one place in Africa and called it a colony of Italy -- would that then count as a regional Italian cuisine? Or do all nations and cuisines need to be contiguous?

[slkinsey]

Yes, I would say that all national cuisines need to be contiguous or relatively contiguous (e.g., mainland Italy and Sicily -- which, I should point out, has many absolutely unique features that distinguish it from mainland Italian cooking and culture).

Unless it's the case of an outlying and relatively isolated "colony" that is heavily culturally invested in maintaining strong cultural ties to the "mother country" -- as was the case with the (failed) Norse colony in Greenland that continued to raise and eat cattle instead of fish. The food in your hypothetical North African Italian colony might atart out as "Italian cooking" -- but after a hundred years or so, it wouldn't be "Italian cooking" any more than Brazilian food is "Portugese cooking."

This is becoming less and less so as the "world becomes smaller" due the effects of mass media, rapid transportation, the internet, etc. Lines between different cuisines are increasingly blurred and we are headed towards a great sameness. Even upstart regional American cooking is becoming less distinctive as mediocre white clam chowder and pulled pork are available coast to coast. But most, if not all national/regional cuisines grew up around contiguous peoples. I'm not sure what non-restaurant, pre-20C "cuisine" exists that did not arise from a contiguous people (and, per other discussions, although one can make the argument that they represent their own distinct category of "cuisine," I don't think things like "haute restaurant" or "general menu" are "cuisines" the same way that French cuisine and Indian cuisine are).

You still haven't answered my question about Cajun cooking (there is no such thing as "Cajun-Creole food" -- Cajun and Creole cooking historically come from distinctly different populations with different influences and histories, and they are quite different).

Anyway... this is all getting pretty far afield from the thread subject, and probably not interestingly so.

Edited June 18, 2007 by slkinsey (log)

[Fat Guy]

You still haven't answered my question about Cajun cooking

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I don't have enough information to answer. I didn't even realize one wasn't allowed to say Cajun-Creole! (I'm also not sure why the answer matters to the conversation.)

[Peter Green]

Also eating utensils/methods (hand w flat bread, chopssticks, spoon, whathave you)

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Know your tools........... At first I was about to go on about the importance of using the right implement at the right time. But, as our original topic was on dining in Asian restaurants in America, how vital is this?

Good chopstick skills are generally essential (even if just to avoid hitting people at neighboring tables with your food), but should we be carrying table etiquette beyond that point? Should we avoid putting our forks in our mouths in Thai restaurants? Should we take our khao niao with our hand in an Essan restaurant in Alabama? What happens when these restaurants are actually staffed with Chinese mainlanders who have no idea about the niceties are of Indochine dining?

Still, there's nothing wrong with knowing the rules.

(On a side note, I've got to try out this idea posted in the thread of Kentucky fried phat Thai....this could be the next big thing after deep fried pizza)

[Fat Guy]

Good point, Peter. One thing I've found that's kind of weird is that Americans expect -- nay, demand -- chopsticks in Southeast Asian restaurants. Yet, in Southeast Asia, you don't really see chopsticks -- except in Chinese restaurants (or restaurants serving Chinese-derived noodle dishes). It's kind of amusing when people choose to struggle with chopsticks in a Thai restaurant because they feel they're being faithful to the tradition.

[Fat Guy]

Another weird chopstick behavior: eating sushi with chopsticks. Again, it's just easier to do it with your hands -- and hands are the appropriate tool from the standpoint of Japanese etiquette. Yet, a lot of folks bend over backwards to use chopsticks.

[Fat Guy]

Somewhere, it needs to be explained that traditionally, the rice or noodles are the core of the meal, with other things being regarded as sauces or side dishes that are added to the rice or noodles.

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I've heard this stated many times, particularly in the context of food-and-nutrition discussions (you can Google and find thousands of variants of the statement "Rice is the main dish, the other stuff with the meat and sauce is just the topping"), but is it actually correct? I can see how if you're a peasant eking out your existence in an infertile, inland area there's no choice: you eat starches to survive and you get whatever bits of meat and vegetables you can. But if you go to a restaurant in Asia, or a middle class home, you don't see people eating huge piles of rice and using meat as garnish. You sometimes don't even see a plain starch item on the table at all. If anything, what I've noticed is that Americans eat more rice than Asians. Especially at these buffet places, I constantly see white people loading up their plates with a thick layer of rice, then putting the other food on top of that and eating it all in a gloppy mess.

Another thought about chopsticks, pertaining to rice (I'm accumulating a good list of "things you didn't know about chopsticks" here, so I welcome ideas), is that a lot of non-Asians try to eat rice from a flat plate with chopsticks, and they continually drop rice and stuff all over the place. They don't seem to get that you're supposed to use a bowl for that sort of eating. You put some food on top of the rice in the bowl and bring the bowl to your face and sort of push the food in. At least, that's how I've seen Chinese people doing it, especially during staff meal at restaurants.

[SheenaGreena]

also why do koreans not pick up their bowls and not eat rice with chopsticks? I don't get it? Whatever I will always eat rice with my surgical metal chopsticks and pick up my bowl (i'll only do the last thing by myself and NOT in front of my mother).

it's so weird that koreans eat a lot differently than the chinese and japanese.

ps: metal chopsticks are the best and easies to use in my opinion, but Im sure that only peter will agree with me on that one

[Fat Guy]

I personally find metal chopsticks difficult to work with because their surfaces are so slippery. They don't get a good grip on the food and I don't get a good grip on them. I feel the same way about plastic, and about fancy lacquered ones like a lot of Japanese folks seem to favor. I like unfinished wooden chopsticks with a rough texture.

I don't like the ones you have to break apart, though. I've never figured out a way to get 100% success on that procedure.

[SheenaGreena]

I like metal chopsticks, because they have such small ends for picking up things with ease.

wooden chopsticks stink because they are way too short. I feel like a little kid when I eat with them. My 21 year old little sister still eats with wooden hello kitty chopsticks for little kids - what a nerd.

[Fat Guy]

I don't like the short break-apart ones that are prevalent today, but I do like the longer bamboo chopsticks that used to be the norm in Chinese restaurants. They used to come in red packets with instructions on them, written in English so bad it's the stuff of legends. ("Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. Please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history and cultual.")

[Big Bunny]

Another possible sidebar is "little dishes of dipping sauce."

There are so many variations on this, usually very specific to a given region.

BB

[phaelon56]

I don't know that this is the case in large metro areas such as NYC but elsewhere I most often see Korean food in the context of Korean-Japanese restaurants. And those establishments are nearly always run by ethnic Korean operators.

Thus my puzzlement...

Why do we see in so many areas a number of Korean-Japanese restaurants and also "Japanese only" restaurants but a far smaller number of "just Korean food" restaurants? And why do the operators of the Korean-Japanese restaurants appear to nearly always be Korean? Why don't we see Japanese-Korean restaurants with Japanese operators?

In the same vein I have long wondered why one doesn't typically see Chinese-Korean or Chinese-Japanese places. Are Korean and Japanese ingredients and cooking style so similar that it's just a logical fit or are there other factors at work?

[SheenaGreena]

I don't know that this is the case in large metro areas such as NYC but elsewhere I most often see Korean food in the context of Korean-Japanese restaurants.  And those establishments are nearly always run by ethnic Korean operators.

Thus my puzzlement...

Why do we see in so many areas a number of Korean-Japanese restaurants and also "Japanese only"  restaurants but a far smaller number of "just Korean food" restaurants?  And why do the operators of the Korean-Japanese restaurants  appear to nearly always be Korean?  Why don't we see Japanese-Korean restaurants with Japanese operators?

In the same vein I have long wondered why one doesn't typically  see Chinese-Korean or Chinese-Japanese places.  Are Korean and Japanese ingredients and cooking style so similar that it's just a logical fit or are there other factors at work?

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we see a lot of japanese-korean or japanese restaurants run by koreans because (in my opinion) japanese food (sushi) caters mostly to western tastes. Koreans will get more business from americans if they have japanese food on the menu as well as korean food. Korean food just isn't that popular as japanese or chinese food. You do see chinese food at korean places except these places serve things like: jajangmyun, tangsooyook, jampong, jelly fish salad, etc. They don't serve americanized chinese food, rather the chinese food you find in korea.

Edited June 19, 2007 by SheenaGreena (log)

[Big Bunny]

we see a lot of japanese-korean or japanese restaurants run by koreans because (in my opinion) japanese food (sushi) caters mostly to western tastes.  Koreans will get more business from americans if they have japanese food on the menu as well as korean food.  Korean food just isn't that popular as japanese or chinese food.  You do see chinese food at korean places except these places serve things like: jajangmyun, tangsooyook, jampong, jelly fish salad, etc.  They don't serve americanized chinese food, rather the chinese food you find in korea.

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Here in Baltimore, there are many Korean families in which the parents run small businesses to send the kids to college ... the great American tradition.

I imagine that this increases the number of Korean-Whatever places because of the demand for "whatever".

Of course, there are also Korean restaurants which cater to a mainly Korean clientele. Our Korean population is large enough to support quite a few of these.

BB

[SheenaGreena]

we see a lot of japanese-korean or japanese restaurants run by koreans because (in my opinion) japanese food (sushi) caters mostly to western tastes.  Koreans will get more business from americans if they have japanese food on the menu as well as korean food.  Korean food just isn't that popular as japanese or chinese food.  You do see chinese food at korean places except these places serve things like: jajangmyun, tangsooyook, jampong, jelly fish salad, etc.  They don't serve americanized chinese food, rather the chinese food you find in korea.

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Here in Baltimore, there are many Korean families in which the parents run small businesses to send the kids to college ... the great American tradition.

I imagine that this increases the number of Korean-Whatever places because of the demand for "whatever".

Of course, there are also Korean restaurants which cater to a mainly Korean clientele. Our Korean population is large enough to support quite a few of these.

BB

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yeah I think most koreans mainly come to the us now to send their kids off to a good school. It used to be because of the korean economy, now its to get a better education. Times have really changed in the past 50 years or so.

[baophac]

Good point, Peter. One thing I've found that's kind of weird is that Americans expect -- nay, demand -- chopsticks in Southeast Asian restaurants. Yet, in Southeast Asia, you don't really see chopsticks -- except in Chinese restaurants (or restaurants serving Chinese-derived noodle dishes). It's kind of amusing when people choose to struggle with chopsticks in a Thai restaurant because they feel they're being faithful to the tradition.

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I always get a laugh when I see people struggling with chopsticks and plates. If all I get is a plate to eat on, it's forks all the way.

If you have soup in your meal, is it easy to keep the bowl for eating after or you have to fight with the waitperson ?

[Carlovski]

Indian food and curry in particular has definitely become part of British culture an cusine. For an interesting history try reading this book.

It's a very similar situation here with Indian restaurants (and takeaways) as with chinese in the USA - a large number of fairly identical, usually uninspiring but keenly priced places, mainly offering the same dishes prepared in the same way along with a handful of more distinctive 'authentic' offerings. And we now have more style led 'Modern' indian restaurants, both at the high end , and low/mid range chain type places (though many of these quickly find they have to offer the standard range of dishes to stay afloat).

But even the most standard local curry house will do some dishes better than others - as a rule vegetable side dishes are usually quite good as they tend to be made from scratch (preprepared and just warmed up, but a lot of dishes stand up to this quite well - dal for isntance) rather than made from the generic sauce. Most places have a few 'specials' too - most of them are basically the same as the rest of the dishes but with extra ingredients but you do get some more interesting dishes. And if you are a regular they will make dishes to your liking or mention if they have something you might want to try.

The best dishes I have ever had though have been at what are in effect Indian cafe's/diners in city centres - Manchester has a selection. they usually offer 3 vegetable and three meat dishes (though some are all vegetarian) rice and breads and usually have one special dish that revolves on a daily basis i.e Friday will always be lamb chops. They are very cheap and the special dish is usually excellent (if you get there before it sells out).

[AzianBrewer]

Somewhere, it needs to be explained that traditionally, the rice or noodles are the core of the meal, with other things being regarded as sauces or side dishes that are added to the rice or noodles.

←

I've heard this stated many times, particularly in the context of food-and-nutrition discussions (you can Google and find thousands of variants of the statement "Rice is the main dish, the other stuff with the meat and sauce is just the topping"), but is it actually correct? I can see how if you're a peasant eking out your existence in an infertile, inland area there's no choice: you eat starches to survive and you get whatever bits of meat and vegetables you can. But if you go to a restaurant in Asia, or a middle class home, you don't see people eating huge piles of rice and using meat as garnish. You sometimes don't even see a plain starch item on the table at all. If anything, what I've noticed is that Americans eat more rice than Asians. Especially at these buffet places, I constantly see white people loading up their plates with a thick layer of rice, then putting the other food on top of that and eating it all in a gloppy mess.

Another thought about chopsticks, pertaining to rice (I'm accumulating a good list of "things you didn't know about chopsticks" here, so I welcome ideas), is that a lot of non-Asians try to eat rice from a flat plate with chopsticks, and they continually drop rice and stuff all over the place. They don't seem to get that you're supposed to use a bowl for that sort of eating. You put some food on top of the rice in the bowl and bring the bowl to your face and sort of push the food in. At least, that's how I've seen Chinese people doing it, especially during staff meal at restaurants.

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Push??? More like shove it in that mouth.

[baophac]

The most important topic of all for most Asian cuisines. Somewhere, it needs to be explained that traditionally, the rice or noodles are the core of the meal, with other things being regarded as sauces or side dishes that are added to the rice or noodles.

To give a different perspective, we have rice every meal at home. We also order steamed (white) rice at the chinese restaurant. One time my parents said that it's not a complete meal if there isn't rice. Even if we have pho or other noodle soups at home, there will be steamed rice and some vegetable dish along with the meal. I don't know if this is because my parents were poor when they were kids and maybe comfort/home food for them == rice + vegetables.

When I eat vietnamese dishes, any kind of starch will do but I prefer the rice vermicelli (a more detailed post on this later). My brother doesn't feed his kid rice but he eats rice about 3 meals a week. My sister has rice only with asian dishes.

In some families, they always make a full cooker worth of rice and then leave it on warm until it is finished or dried out (and then it becomes fried rice). This is something that is expected to be always available, no matter what time of the day.

rice for breakfast - a sunny side up egg with maggi, reheated leftovers, a quick vegetable stirfry, reheated soup broth with small amount of rice

rice in a snack or light meal - cold cooked vegetables with a bit of nuoc mam (fish sauce) [not nuoc cham which is another beast altogether and I may have another detailed post about it too ]

Noodles aren't a staple like rice in Vietnamese cuisine. They are eaten as part of a specific soup or dish. You can't just have noodles in place of rice arbitrarily.

A bit of background: Parents are born, raised, educated and married in Vietnam. Kids are born in Vietnam but raised and educated in Canada. One is married to a chinese wife, one to an american man, one forever unmarried. I'm the foodie of the house but I don't cook vietnamese.

[AzianBrewer]

Howzabout different uses of soy and soy products/sauces in the various Asian cuisines?  I always think of tofu in Chinese food and miso soup, but would love some guidance toward tofu in Korean food, for example.

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Tofu. Check. Definitely need to do something on that.

Another idea I had overnight: desserts.

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I can think of several desserts...

Shaved ice: Malaysian and Taiwanese (Chendol for Malaysian and Tapioca Pearl for Taiwanese)

Red bean (azuki bean) pancake: Shanghaiese (Joe Shanghai)

Azuki bean/Green Tea/Ginger ice-cream: Japanese or fake Japanese joint runs by Non-Japanese

Caramelized sweet potato/apple: Korean-Chinese (Sam Won Gak)

Kamquat (extincted)/Fortune Cookie/Almond Cookie - Chinese or "Polynesian.

Lassi/Kufti and other sweets soaked in rose water - Indian

Vietnamese Coffee/flan/jackfruit or othr fruits over ice.

Red bean soup - Cantonese

Mango with coconut flavor sticky rice - Thai

Mango or Ube Ice Cream/Halo-Halo - Filipino

And of course almond tofu!

[Peter Green]

Howzabout different uses of soy and soy products/sauces in the various Asian cuisines?  I always think of tofu in Chinese food and miso soup, but would love some guidance toward tofu in Korean food, for example.

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Tofu. Check. Definitely need to do something on that.

Another idea I had overnight: desserts.

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I can think of several desserts...

Shaved ice: Malaysian and Taiwanese (Chendol for Malaysian and Tapioca Pearl for Taiwanese)

Red bean (azuki bean) pancake: Shanghaiese (Joe Shanghai)

Azuki bean/Green Tea/Ginger ice-cream: Japanese or fake Japanese joint runs by Non-Japanese

Caramelized sweet potato/apple: Korean-Chinese (Sam Won Gak)

Kamquat (extincted)/Fortune Cookie/Almond Cookie - Chinese or "Polynesian.

Lassi/Kufti and other sweets soaked in rose water - Indian

Vietnamese Coffee/flan/jackfruit or othr fruits over ice.

Red bean soup - Cantonese

Mango with coconut flavor sticky rice - Thai

Mango or Ube Ice Cream/Halo-Halo - Filipino

And of course almond tofu!

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And the Khmer thingy where they have the congealed coconut thingy inside the banana leaves.....I've really got to look up that stuff.

And the sweet Indian carrot dessert.

I'm getting hungry again.....

but how many of these can we find in America?

[Fat Guy]

Speaking of sushi, I got some good help both online (on this topic) and off from eGullet Society members in Japan, and thought I'd share the first draft of this thing:

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WHAT DO PREGNANT WOMEN IN JAPAN EAT?

When my wife was pregnant with our son, her obstetrician gave her a list of food dos and don’ts. Chief among the don’ts: alcohol, unpasteurized cheeses, and raw fish. Meanwhile, every French woman I know who has ever had a baby has consumed alcohol and unpasteurized cheese in moderation, and my friends in Japan laugh at the notion of avoiding sushi during pregnancy.

The Japanese government, like many modern governments, publishes informational pamphlets for pregnant women, based on the latest medical research. There’s one about good nutrition during pregnancy, and there’s one about mercury in fish. But there isn’t one about sushi. It’s just a given that pregnant women in Japan will eat sushi made from raw fish. Indeed, it’s seen as part of good neonatal nutrition.

It’s not as though Japanese babies or mothers are suffering from this approach. The Japanese, of all ages, are among the healthiest people on the planet by just about every available measure (the ground they’ve lost in the past couple of decades is largely attributable to increased consumption of Western foods). The Japanese government is fanatical about public health, and Japanese medical scientists are among the best in the world. You can be sure that, were there documented complications resulting from pregnant women eating sushi in Japan, there would be swift, massive government intervention.

Yet, in the United States, it is taboo for a pregnant woman to eat raw fish. A pregnant woman seen eating any sushi other than a California roll or a cucumber roll will be summarily tried and convicted by her peers: she is clearly a delinquent mother.

Why are pregnant women in the United States commanded to avoid sushi made from raw fish? It’s not because any study or scientific research has shown that unborn children have been damaged by it. Rather, it’s because the speculative risk of foodborne illnesses, especially parasites, has captured the public imagination.

There are several reasons, however, that these fears are unfounded.

While raw fish is culturally identified with sushi and Japan, Americans have been eating raw fish for centuries: namely, oysters and clams. And it is these raw mollusks, not the fish typically associated with sushi, that are responsible for the overwhelming majority of seafood-related illnesses. As the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Institute of Medicine concluded in its “Seafood Safety” report: “Most seafood-associated illness is reported from consumers of raw bivalve mollusks . . . . The majority of incidents are due to consumption of shellfish from fecally polluted water.”

The main risk of illness from non-mollusks is not from anything having to do with the fish being raw. Rather, as the NAS reports, “A lesser risk of microbial disease associated with other seafoods – resulting from recontamination or cross-contamination of cooked by raw product, or to contamination from other sources – is usually associated with time/temperature abuse.” In other words, no matter what you order in a restaurant, if it’s not kept a proper temperature and protected from cross-contamination, you’re at risk.

Conversely, if the restaurant observes good food safety practices, there is little to worry about. In my personal experience, having been inside the kitchens of dozens of restaurants of all kinds in the process of researching this and my other books, Japanese kitchens are on the whole the cleanest, most careful, most conscientious kitchens in the business. Moreover, sushi bars are out in the open for all to see, and anybody who has spent a few minutes observing a sushi bar and a typical American diner’s griddle area can tell you which type of restaurant has higher standards for cleanliness.

Sushi may not be cooked, but it has for the most part been frozen. FDA guidelines require that, prior to being served as sushi or sashimi (or in any other raw form) fish be flash-frozen to destroy parasites. According to a New York Times article titled “Sushi Fresh From the Deep . . . the Deep Freeze,” published in April 2004, “if the sushi has not been frozen, it is illegal to serve it in the United States.” While the fish you see in the sushi-bar display case is fresh in appearance, it has almost certainly been frozen at some point in the distribution system. This freezing process kills any parasites as sure as cooking would.

Most species used for sushi don’t have parasites anyway, though. Fish like tuna are not particularly susceptible to parasites because they dwell in very deep, very cold water, and most sushi restaurants use farmed salmon to avoid any of the parasite issues wild salmon are known to face. Most of the fish species that are likely to have parasites, such as cod and whitefish, aren’t generally used in sushi-making. As the NAS observes: “Seafood-related parasitic infections are even less common than bacterial and viral infections . . . . In general, parasitic infections have resulted from consumption of raw or partially cooked fresh- and salt-water fish of particular species (e.g., whitefish, salmon).”

Nor does pregnancy increase susceptibility to parasites. Healthy women who’ve been eating sushi when not pregnant and having no problems are not at increased risk when pregnant. The same resistance and immunities function before, during, and after pregnancy.

But rational analysis doesn’t hold sway with the pregnancy police. “Why take any risk?” they ask. The medical establishment and the culture at large have twisted logic around to the point where zero risk – which is simply impossible – is taken seriously as a concept. So powerful is this Puritanical impulse that, once a health objection is raised, however irrational the recommended behavior, it’s considered irresponsible to behave any other way.

There’s a temptation to say there’s no harm in this type of thinking – that women should simply not eat sushi for nine months, that it’s no big deal. There are, however, several problems with this approach. For one thing, the sure fire way to harm a fetus is through under-nourishment. When you add up all the irrational health scares – remember, raw fish is only one target; there’s also a whole body of unfounded mercury scares – it turns out pregnant women are being scared off fish altogether. And that’s bad news, since the Omega fatty acids in fish are the ideal nourishment for a developing baby. For another thing, pregnancy should be a time of joy, not stress. The sum total of the over-regulated pregnancy is stress, fear and negativity. And for still another thing, it’s insulting to Japanese culture, and speaks of ignorance and prejudice, to reject one of that culture’s foundational foods based on unfounded health claims.

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[Hiroyuki]

Good going!

The Japanese, of all ages, are among the healthiest people on the planet by just about every available measure (the ground they’ve lost in the past couple of decades is largely attributable to increased consumption of Western foods).

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In Japan, it is said that Japanese meals around the 50s of Showa (1975 to 1984), that is, traditional Japanese food plus animal protein, were ideal. The Japanese now tend to eat more meat than fish.

Maybe you could write about hijiki seaweed, raw eggs, and even whale meat in this or another book.

[SheenaGreena]

don't forget about desserts in korea!!!!!! We mainly eat fruit for dessert, but its considered more of a snack than a dessert or can be considered a drinking snack - anju. Koreans love to eat fruit in the summertime like korean melons and watermelon (which is incredibly expensive and tiny). There are also red bean/adzuki bean desserts there and the famous pat bing soo which is a red bean shaved ice dessert with lots of add-ons.

My grandmother (the italian one) is reading a book that states that the nepalese (is that the correct word?) have the longest longevity in the world. I had to explain to her that the author of the book was incorrect and the healthiest people in the world were in fact the japanese. This is true, correct? This book is a self-help/diet book written in 2002 by a so called M.D. I think that the Okinawans actually live longer than the mainland japanese