"Chinese" food as it appears in different countries

[Toliver]

On 4/26/2020 at 3:18 PM, haresfur said:

I don't think baby ears of corn were exactly indigenous.

Look away, @liuzhou ! Avert your eyes! 

[liuzhou]

On 4/27/2020 at 6:18 AM, haresfur said:

I don't think baby ears of corn were exactly indigenous.

 

No. But today China's production of corn is  second only to the US and catching up. The  fools love the  stuff. That said, I have never seen baby corn here.

[Kim Shook]

I love pickled baby corn, but never eat it without thinking of Tom Hanks in Big! 😂

[suzilightning]

Two well written books on the subject in both the US and Canada are:

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee

Chop Suey Nation by Ann Hui and who knew there was a Cantonese restaurant on Fogo Island?

[nickrey]

8 hours ago, suzilightning said:

Two well written books on the subject in both the US and Canada are:

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee

Chop Suey Nation by Ann Hui and who knew there was a Cantonese restaurant on Fogo Island?

I'll add one from Australia to that list:

 

Banquet: Ten Courses to Harmony by Annette Shun Wah and Greg Aitken.

 

The book covers the history of Chinese food in Australia from the Gold Rush to its publication date of 1999. It includes recipes and other memorabilia such as the following quote from Willie Sou San's 1951 book Chinese Culinary in Plain English "When blade is in action do not life the blade too high over the knuckles, as a little mishap may result in obscene and cursing language."

[liuzhou]

On 4/28/2020 at 9:42 AM, liuzhou said:

That said, I have never seen baby corn here.

 

Damn! That cornvirus is spreading! As soon as I say I've never seen baby corn in China, look what turns up in the supermarket!

 

 

Did I buy it? Don't be ridiculous!

I'd rather mainline disinfectant .

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by liuzhou (log)

[Duvel]

The localized “Chinese” food in the UK is nicely covered in Kenneth Loo’s “Chinese Cuisine”. It starts with “Everything suffers a sea change when removed from its original ...”.
I like the book a lot, as it introduces the westernized versions first, and in the second part brings out “real” chinese recipes from several provinces of China, all nicely sorted by region and season. 
It was my first cookbook on Chinese food and I keep my (fully desintegrated) second copy together with my essential books ...

[Eatmywords]

Liu, off topic i.e opposite of this thread, but when we traveled through eastern China 10yrs ago the most surprising menu item we found in restaurants of varying scale were french fries.   They were everywhere and usually better than what we find in the US.  Have they been common for a long time? Part of the fast food invasion?  

[liuzhou]

18 minutes ago, Eatmywords said:

Liu, off topic i.e opposite of this thread, but when we traveled through eastern China 10yrs ago the most surprising menu item we found in restaurants of varying scale were french fries.   They were everywhere and usually better than what we find in the US.  Have they been common for a long time? Part of the fast food invasion?  

 

 

I cooked them for some young friends 20 years ago and they were baffled, but delighted. Although , they wanted to put sugar on them until I stopped them. But yes, shortly after that they became relatively common, led by KFC, then McD's.

Western food in China is as strange as Chinese food in the west!

Edited April 29, 2020 by liuzhou (log)

[Eatmywords]

1 hour ago, liuzhou said:

 

 

I cooked them for some young friends 20 years ago and they were baffled, but delighted. Although , they wanted to put sugar on them until I stopped them. But yes, shortly after that they became relatively common, led by KFC, then McD's.

Western food in China is as strange as Chinese food in the west!

 

That's funny.  I remember a desert, a type of potato, maybe yam, cubed, fried and formed in tower and covered in a sticky sugar sauce that we saw locals going nuts for.  We didn't get the allure.   

[chromedome]

1 minute ago, Eatmywords said:

That's funny.  I remember a desert, a type of potato, maybe yam, cubed, fried and formed in tower and covered in a sticky sugar sauce that we saw locals going nuts for.  We didn't get the allure.   

I guess it's not *that* different from the candied chestnuts that Europeans have eaten since forever. Sugary starch, right?

 

...which, come to think of it, describes a lot of desserts.

[Eatmywords]

19 minutes ago, chromedome said:

I guess it's not *that* different from the candied chestnuts that Europeans have eaten since forever. Sugary starch, right?

 

...which, come to think of it, describes a lot of desserts.

 

No, this was stickier as in caramelized plus I love candied chestnuts.   Kind of like this:

Edited April 29, 2020 by Eatmywords (log)

[haresfur]

4 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

Damn! That cornvirus is spreading! As soon as I say I've never seen baby corn in China, look what turns up in the supermarket!

 

 

Did I buy it? Don't be ridiculous!

I'd rather mailnline disinfectant .

 

 

 

Apparently most of it comes from Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia. 

[FauxPas]

On 4/26/2020 at 11:09 AM, liuzhou said:

 

Yes. A lot of my cooking is “vaguely Asian“. I just get irritated on the internet (especially YouTube) when I see things labelled as “Chinese” when someone has decided to add a drop of soy sauce to their shepherd's pie or the like.

 

Or even worse when things are described as “Chinese“ because they contain Japanese ingredients!

 

 

 

How about Sapporo Ichiban's Chow Mein Yaki Soba?  There might be a bit to unpack here. 😄

 

 

I think the Chow Mein term might be there to gently help people who don't know what Yaki Soba is. And maybe vice-versa? The original would probably be Japanese yakisoba (should be one word as far as I know, but what do I know) but may have come from China, says some random Internet source. And it doesn't use soba noodles, which these aren't anyway, whew.

 

(And I think yakisoba in Japan uses Worcestershire sauce in its preparation, which I think has English origins. But that's a bit of a tangent.)

 

I like these noodles (just like I enjoy Sapporo Ichiban Original Flavored Soup, my husband jokes he doesn't know what "original" tastes like, but there's no hyphen, he is such a critic) and although I have tried using the noodles while making a vaguely Japanese yakisoba with pork and cabbage and their not-entirely-delicious seasoning packet, I prefer to use them to make a dish that my husband is happy to call chow mein when he wants me to make it. I like to sprout my own mung beans and then sauté them along with julienne-cut onions, carrots and celery and the cooked noodles and add vague amounts of ginger and garlic and soy sauce (while I put the seasoning packet in a drawer where it sits with its little friends until we sell that particular home and have to move and I finally clean the drawer out - you know that drawer, I bet you have one too!). 

[Toliver]

8 hours ago, liuzhou said:

I cooked them for some young friends 20 years ago and they were baffled, but delighted. Although , they wanted to put sugar on them until I stopped them...

Isn't that interesting?  Americans put lots of sugar on their french fries, too...in the form of ketchup.  

[liuzhou]

2 hours ago, FauxPas said:

And I think yakisoba in Japan uses Worcestershire sauce in its preparation, which I think has English origins. But that's a bit of a tangent.

 

 

Indeed, but Worcestershire Sauce is also popular in China, especially Shanghai. They even make their own and very good it is, too.

 

[liuzhou]

7 hours ago, Eatmywords said:

That's funny.  I remember a desert, a type of potato, maybe yam, cubed, fried and formed in tower and covered in a sticky sugar sauce that we saw locals going nuts for.  We didn't get the allure.   

Yes. A very popular dish. 反沙芋头 (fǎn shā yù tóu). It's usually taro. I don't get it, either.

 

Not normally served as a dessert, though. It just turns up at random with the other dishes at banquets.

 

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by liuzhou (log)

[Eatmywords]

13 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Yes. A very popular dish. 反沙芋头 (fǎn shā yù tóu). It's usually taro. I don't get it, either.

 

Not normally served as a dessert, though. It just turns up at random with the other dishes at banquets.

 

 

 

Yes that's it! (I knew in the back of my head it wasn't the yams : ) and yes it didn't come out as desert per se just in the later courses!  Bizarre dish.

[Steve R.]

When this thing blows over, go to one of the Dongbei restaurants in Flushing (Fu Ran closed but I think Golden Palace on Cherry St (off Main) is still going to still be there.  At any rate, they both put this dish out just about every time I've been there over the years.  Sometimes during the meal, mostly at the end.  Never on a dish, always sticking to the edges of what it was cooked in.  A solid mass needing statue carving implements after awhile, but satisfying a month's sugar craving all the same.

[Eatmywords]

31 minutes ago, Steve R. said:

When this thing blows over, go to one of the Dongbei restaurants in Flushing (Fu Ran closed but I think Golden Palace on Cherry St (off Main) is still going to still be there.  At any rate, they both put this dish out just about every time I've been there over the years.  Sometimes during the meal, mostly at the end.  Never on a dish, always sticking to the edges of what it was cooked in.  A solid mass needing statue carving implements after awhile, but satisfying a month's sugar craving all the same.

 

Noooooo Steve,  it's so heavy,  last thing you want after 18 dishes.   Though I would like that cumin lamb that's been evading me for so many years  : )   

 

So nice to see your shadows!

[Kim Shook]

Well, I already posted last night's dinner on the dinner thread, but considering what it was (and will be again tonight!), I thought I'd post it here, too.  This was from our favorite local Chinese-American restaurant.  We've been going there for more than 30 years.  They've watched our daughter grow from lump in my tummy to a 36 year old who goes by herself sometimes.  The owner greets us with "It's my PuPu ladies".  LOL. We have  a lot of time and family tradition invested in this place and we want it to stay open.  So it has been our choice more often than anywhere else during the quarantine.  I've already told Mr. Kim and Jessica that it is my choice for Mother's Day.  We started with fried noodles and wonton soup, egg roll, and crab Rangoon:

 

My crispy honey shrimp on rice and a little of Mr. Kim’s orange beef:

 

 

 

[liuzhou]

@Kim Shook

 

Very American Chinese! 😁🥢

[KennethT]

1 hour ago, liuzhou said:

@Kim Shook

 

Very American Chinese! 😁🥢

Definitely. It reminds me of the Chinese restaurant we'd frequent when I was a kid. The waiters all wore mustard yellow jackets (not that it was a fancy place - it wasn't). Brings back a lot of memories.

[heidih]

2 hours ago, KennethT said:

Definitely. It reminds me of the Chinese restaurant we'd frequent when I was a kid. The waiters all wore mustard yellow jackets (not that it was a fancy place - it wasn't). Brings back a lot of memories.

 

Our local favorite. Good fresh food but increasingly dumbed down.I interviewed one of the owners and she said they try to adjust to the local aging white peeps. For reference there are very few blond white kids in the local schools. The kids pile in the car at lunch and go to the Mitsuwa -(Japanese) and similar https://mitsuwa.com/tr/Plaza.  - it is the seniors who go "old school".  https://www.yelp.com/biz/fu-yuan-low-rollng-hills-estates  Oh of course Panda Express inside the grocery 

Edited May 2, 2020 by heidih (log)