On 12/08/2017 at 0:37 AM, cdh said:Somebody has done some of the work demystifying the asian greens section for me already: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/05/asian-green-guide.html
Do those with personal knowledge think this article comports reasonably well with reality?
I know the article. and it is useful and reasonably accurate, although not without a few minor errors. For example, it says the celtuce tops (AA Choy here) is Lactuca sativa. Well, yes it is, but so are all varieties of lettuce. You really need to be more specific. It is Lactuca sativa var. asparagina.
It is also a bit limited, to my mind, in its selection, but that may reflect what's available in the author's local Asian market. There are many more Asian greens than are covered here.
It's biggest failing, I would say, is the lack of any Chinese characters for the names. They can be so helpful in clearing confusion. As @Shelby mentioned above, you can print them and take them along if there is something you particularly want.
The cooking notes are certainly useful.
About a year ago, I was asked (away from eG) to put together something similar but declined. My reasoning was that for every type of greens there is a plethora of names and I don't know them all. I guess no one does. The Saveur article only has a fraction of the possible names. AA Choy, for example, is commonly known as 油麦菜 yóu mài cài both in mainland China and in Taiwan. Saveur doesn't give this name. Nor does it give the most common Chinese name for water spinach - 空心菜 kōng xīn cài (hollow heart vegetable.
Secondly, I know Mandarin Chinese but many of the Asian market people will speak Cantonese or some other Chinese language which I don't know. The names Saveur gives are predominantly Cantonese.
Historically, Cantonese has been the main language of the Chinese diaspora, although that is rapidly changing with Mandarin becoming more common to the point where, in some cities, it outnumbers other languages (as it does by a huge margin in China)). This is another reason for giving characters. Characters are nearly always the same across Chinese languages and dialects although the pronunciation differs widely. For example, 菜, meaning vegetable, is pronounced cài in Mandarin, but choy in Cantonese, yet the character is the same.
It is not my intention to be negative about the Saveur article. It is mostly correct and useful. I am just trying to illustrate the complexity of the issue. I have a number of short articles on Chinese greens on my website (along with other foods), but I always stress that any names I use are possibly local. Maybe some day, I will expand them and repost here.
