Authentic Chinese food

[herbacidal]

An advertising friend of mine was living in Hong Kong.  She was working on a large campaign for Kraft cheese.  After a long, grueling meeting where folks tried to understand why their campaign was not as successful as they expected, she raised her hand:  "Um, Chinese people don't like cheese?"

how long ago?

i'm guessing it was before they figured out how much of the population was lactose intolerant, not to mention haven't grown up with it.

[chaste_nosferatu]

Cheese and butter when on the off chance I find them in a supermarket here I clean the shelf. And people relish your avocados, they have NONE. Upon our return stateside there will be serious damage done to any mexican food that crosses my path.

Tonkichi-- Sounds like you were on a "Chinese Tour"... we can commiserate horror stories some time. That's the food I am talking about, it is what the Chinese eat. A "Westerner's Tour" would have been different, experienced one of those for a day in Guilin.

Still working on the fermented rice recipes...

[tissue]

Still working on the fermented rice recipes...

Cooke it with tang yuen (sweet glutinous rice balls filled with black sesame paste). Supposed to be good for women.

[herbacidal]

Jon, for breakfast here the most common items sold on the street are these big flatbreads they cook in heavy oil and then eat with hot soy milk.

that sounds interesting. it does fit what i would expect of the region.

IN hotels and restaurants breakfast is usually some gruel, very very watery stuff with a few pieces of rice in it, absolutely NO flavor to this. 

that would be what in cantonese is called jook.

i've noticed that everywhere in china that i've been to, including hong kong, it is much more watery than i'm used to from growing up eating it here in the US.

also less variations. just plain jook, without fish, meat, etc. in it.

[herbacidal]

On the McD's thing it does have some advantages... the best loos in china!!! (aircon AND with bogroll!).

yea, that's definitely true. although i think the big glitzy indoor malls in beijing and other large cities had nice lavatories.

especially relevant in comparision to the decrepit public bathrooms available otherwise.

[herbacidal]

with bogroll!).

i suppose this means toilet paper?

[ecr]

First post for me, and I thought I'd jump in because what I have to add, when compared with chaste_nosferatu's (CN) post, will illustrate the regional diversity of Chinese food and demonstrate what alot of previous posters have noted, that is the futility of trying to define a single "Chinese cuisine".

I lived in Chengdu mid-80s, Shanghai mid-90s, and have spent alot of time in Nanjing (3 hrs by train from Shanghai) and Dalian (NE, on the coast) mid-90s as well.

What Chinese have available to them varies so much region to region, even in these days of improved transportation. CN reports that the quality of the produce available to him is a "crap shoot"; this is a function of his geographic location, not indicative of the situation in all of China. In Chengdu even back when private produce markets had just been allowed to make a reappearance early 80s, the produce was mind-boggling in its variety and its quality. Sichuan is China's breadbasket, and we would stagger home from the market with some of the biggest, most beautiful tomatoes seen outside of New Jersey, sweet corn on the cob, peas, and shell beans in the spring, cukes that actually had flavor, crisp greens (it's where I learned to love rabe) --- you get the picture.

The produce situation in Shanghai 10+ years later was not as good, IMO -- simply because the variety wasn't as great. But overall quality in the wet markets (we never bought fruit/veg in the supermarket, unless it was imported) was/is high, even if we were sort of stuck with a constant repertoire: sturdy lettuce, cabbages, green beans, eggplant, cauliflower, green peppers and, in season, beautiful tomatoes. As for fruits I recall sweet mandarins and "Asian pears" in Sichuan in the fall. In Shanghai everyone looked forward to peach season mid-to-end summer .... almost-too-sweet white ones and tarter, but equally as delicious peaches with a startlingly bright school bus-yellow flesh.

Yeah, the meat/poultry sections of the market are kind of gross, and you definately want to shop there early in the day ... in the summer, certainly not after 7am. But what poultry! I roasted the tastiest chicken ever in Shanghai, I don't know if the variety of bird is special or the fact that what we were eating for dinner has been alive less than 12 hours earlier --- but the flavor was just beyond compare. What I liked, as a cook, about the meat and pork in China is that the fat hasn't been bred out ... resulting in some truly memorable pork chops and roasts, and beef daube. I'm not so crazy about the fish, OTO, primarily bec most of it was not ocean fish and tasted muddy. The exception is places on the coast .... like Dalian. Those cold ocean waters produce some mightly tasty crab, lobsters, and prawn and fish.

I guess what I'm trying to emphasize is that depending on where you are in China (and not just in big cities) the variety of fruit and especially veg can be great .... and usually the quality is very good. At least, in my opinion, meats poultry and produce in China (like alot of Asia) still have real *taste*. But again --- region counts. It's not the same everywhere (I've been in Beijing in the winter and been faced with a choice of cabbage, cabbage, or cabbage. Maybe some carrots.)

As for what do pple eat, at breakfast zhou (congee) is common in the west, south, and east, though the consistency varies from thickish in Guangdong to more watery northward. Big fat steamed baozi stuffed with pork were a regular breakfast for me in Chengdu. In the north? CN can answer that. I fondly recall enjoying mantou (steamed bread) with a little soup in Dalian, but don't know if this is the case in all the north. Lunch is usually a noodle-type thing (or maybe I should say "noodle dough -based"). Wonton in a mild poultry broth with a few chives thrown in are more common in Shanghai and that part of the eastern coast whereas in Chengdu, fat jiaozi (dumplings) stuffed with pork and jiucai (garlic chives), steamed and dipped in lajiao (chili flakes steeped in oil), or more delicate-skinned, pork only-filled dumplings served in a sauce of chili oil, soy, sugar, and ginger are favorites. Noodles are everywhere .... in Shanghai la mian ("pulled noodles") float in a slightly curryish broth speckled with chopped coriander. Thick, uneven noodles cut by hand from a loaf of dough into a boiling pot are preferred in Chendgu, in soup or fried. Cool noodles too, either with a peanut or sesame-based sauce or simply dressed with la jiao, sugar, soy, and ginger/garlic pounded together with a bit of water. More variations, too much to cover. Obviously folks eat regular dishes at lunch too, if they go to a restaurant, but your average office worker will run out to the local noodles shop for dumplings, noodles, or dim sum-y type things.

For dinner, friends (mostly couple who both worked) would stir-fry at home one or two simple dishes --- pork with beans, pork with tomatoes, egg with tomatoes, anything along those lines --- and perhaps prepare a thin soup with greens floating in it. Even in "big city" Shanghai alot of pple still shop for dinner at lunchtime as they did 15 years ago. Workers will head back to offices with a bag or two of greens and put them under their desk, to avoid having to shop before or after what is often an hour or more commute home. Factory workers (not many of those in Shanghai anymore) and govt workers have a longer lunch break and usually go home. In Nanjing the library where I was doing research closed for 2 1/2 hours at lunchtime. Everyone went food shopping, then home for a meal and a nap.

I'd like to, in a friendly way, counter a couple of CN's observations. I've also interviewed elderly people in China, but in the mid-central area. Diets have indeed changed and improved, at least for these folks, over the last 50 years. It was during the Great Leap Forward (late 50s) rather than the Cultural Revolution, that most of the deaths due to starvation occurred (Chinese govt has yet to acknowledge the extent of the disaster), and they occurred most heavily in the middle of the country. There were a few years where folks were not allowed to grow their own vegetables on small plots, and even when this restriction was loosened in some especially poor areas no money was available to buy seeds or fertilizer. So again --- great regional variation.

And Shanghai is indeed China, the real China as much as anyplace else in the country (what exactly is the "real" China anyway?). And Shanghai food is purely Chinese food, as much as food in Liaoning or Sichuan. I myself prefer less touristed and, perhaps, less "cosmopolitan" parts of China to Shanghai, Beijing, etc. And I frankly prefer northerners and westerners to easterners and southerners. And I'll take Sichuan food over any food from any part of China anyday! But I had to laugh at CN's friend's description of the big cities as "China diluted for western minds and tongues". Chinese living outside the metroplises denigrade the metroplises all the time, just as ludicrously as Shanghainese and Beijingers, etc. denigrade the "country bumpkins" living in places like that which CN calls home. And folks from Jiangsu or Sichuan would probably suggest that folks in CN's neck of the woods are not as "Chinese" as they are bec. they have been "Koreanized".

Anyway, Chinese love to argue. If not about food then about who's province or region is "better" than the other's.

And overall I agree with CN's observation (why I started this longwinded post anyway) that Chinese food in China tastes nothing like Chinese food in restaurants elsewhere. The photographs in Ken Hom's Taste of China really convey the deciciously homey quality of what IMO is the best Chinese cooking ... in all its oily glory ('cept for Guangzhou food).

[jhlurie]

ecr,

Thanks for the counter-point. Very educational.

[Jon Tseng]

Hullo e (do you mind the diminutive?), and welcome to the madhouse!

>I lived in Chengdu mid-80s, Shanghai mid-90s, and have spent alot

>of time in Nanjing (3 hrs by train from Shanghai) and Dalian (NE, on

>the coast) mid-90s as well.

Blimey. Now THAT is a China Hand!

The big difference I noticed about Chinese markets is they were (and still are) highly seasonal - toffee hawthorns and roast sweet potatos in the winter, strawberries, lychees in the summer along with big tubs of live crayfish. This means that when the stuff is in the height of season (eg fresh, juicy lychees shipped up from the South) it is REALLY good. Kind of spoiled lychees for me wherever else I go, now.

I agree that Sichuan food is fantastic - one of my great beefs is you can't get it here in the UK AT ALL

cheerio

J

[Pan]

Loved your post, ecr! I hope you stick around.

I've spent only part of one summer in China (c. 4 1/2 weeks, 10 days of which were in Hong Kong), but I do have one comment:

I did find I was often unfavorably comparing food I had in China in 1987 to the great Chinese food I had had in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand between 1975 and 1977, but my conclusion was that the most important element of delicious food was good ingredients, and that good ingredients were a product of a society that is in some sense wealthy. Most Malaysians I knew were poor - though that is a relative term, and most were not as poor as most Chinese ten years later, I daresay - but the country was wealthy in excellent and affordable fresh produce. It seemed to me in my admittedly limited travels that that was much less true of the east coast of China in 1987 (by the way, this excludes Guangdong, which I didn't visit), but it was true of Hong Kong then (which had a wealthy enough populace to cause local markets to be chock-full of fresh produce from every neighboring region), and that helped make Hong Kong food excellent. But there was one place I visited in China then where delicious food was found at every turn: Hangzhou. And I think that had a lot to do with the fertility of the local farms and the availability of excellent fresh-water fish and shrimp from Xi Hu.

Edited May 22, 2003 by Pan (log)

[eatingwitheddie]

I’ve been reading this thread with great interest and think that there are some important points left out.

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.

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 20thy 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. To my mind this kind of adaptation needs to be noted, but it certainly doesn’t make them any worse or their adaptation/tradition less Chinese. Are residents of Peking any less Chinese because they eat at KFC?

It is the nature of foodways that science, history, pestilence, bounty, politics and all sorts of factors affect what we eat and how we prepare it. From my point of view there is value in knowing and understanding how these things work, yet what I find important is the perpetuation and recognition of high quality food preparation. Along, of course, with the essential fact that we must eat to live.

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. Ultimately it comes down to feeding the world’s people with what is at hand, and on a secondary level making the best of the different elements.

Just give me good ingredients that are well prepared. I’m interested in categorizing them, but for me this part of the process is absolutely secondary, to good and nutritious cooking. I’d much rather have a delicious meal cooked by a Westernized chef rather than an authentic one which isn’t as good. To my mind it is this type of adaptation, which is one of the most exciting parts of the Chinese culinary tradition.

[Pan]

Excellent post, Ed.

During my visits to Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia and my stay in Malaysia, I was struck by the fact that the local Chinese communities have developed new types of Chinese cuisine based on a combination of the food of the "Old Country" (whether that be Guangdong, Hainan, Hakka, Hokkien, or what have you), the influence of local ingredients, and the influence of aspects of non-Chinese cuisine in those countries (especially Thailand, it seemed to me in my brief trip there). While I'm skeptical of Chinese-Western fusion because I've found that it tends to water down what's tastiest about Chinese cooking, fusions of Chinese and Thai cuisine and fusions of Chinese cuisine with influences from other cooking they encountered in Malaysia and Singapore is terrific.

[ecr]

Eddie, a thoughtful post. I do find the whole "authentic or inauthentic" debate to be a waste of time no matter which cuisine one is referring to, though if a restaurant serves mapo dofu I darn well expect it to have some huajiao in it (not always the case)! Perhaps we can argue for the presence of "key flavors/ingredients" if not for preparation to be a standard?

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". Of course, as you point out, cuisine in China is changing --- because of globalization, because of rises in standards of living (the most obvious example, of course, being the increased ratio of meat to veg in most dishes). The food that I ate in the nineties that most reminded me of food I ate in the eighties (good, basic flavors, heavy on vegetables over meat, big bowls of rice served with the meal rather than a small bowl served after) was had in rural Anhui --- because, of course, that part of the country is still rather poor. And of course in China politics and social change are interlinked with food trends (witness the appearance of "eat bitterness" / Cultural Revolution nostalgia restaurants in the nineties) and changes in the way people eat in China, as they are everywhere.

(An aside --- can Chinese immigrants to the US really claim to be the sole inventors of chop suey? I saw an awful lot of chop suey shacks in Sri Lanka. )

Jon Tseng, you are spot on about the seasonality of Chinese markets. I think if I tried to explain the whole "eating locally" movement in the US to a Chinese friend they'd see it as yet another example of how bizarre the US is. Those brazier-roasted sweet potatoes spoiled me for the ones baked in a regular oven! And Guangdong lychees .... but you know what, Thai and Vietnamese lychees are just as good, if you're ever in either country in May.

[Bux]

Those brazier-roasted sweet potatoes spoiled me for the ones baked in a regular oven!

There was a time in NYC when one could buy roasted sweet potatoes (or they may have been yams) from a pushcart on the streets. My guess is that even back in the forties, one could only do this in a few neighborhoods. They were nowhere to be seen where I grew up, but on Saturdays I would sometimes go with my father on his rounds visiting his customers and in one particular area of Brooklyn, we would run across these vendors and I would be treated to a hot roasted sweet potato with a smokey flavor. Another treat was an old fashioned (even for then) ice cream parlor along the regular route. Other than that it was a generally boring day for me, but my mother thought it good to get me out of the house.

[mags]

When I was in China in the mid-90s, I was lucky enough to have lunch with several families in their homes, and also -- a few times -- in the workers' cafeterias at a couple of factories. The workers' lunches were very heavy; I remember huge bowls of doughy steamed pork dumplings and little fish fried and then steeped in some kind of extremely viscous oil. Not delicious, but interesting.

What interested me about the family lunches was the amount of frozen food involved; I got a lot of fish sticks and lamb patties coated in something like panko (served, usually, with fresh-steamed greens). And once we had a bucket of KFC . I still don't know whether this was standard-issue home-style lunch, or if it was a case of putting on the dog for the honored guest -- if the frozen, "Western"-style food was considered ritzier than, say, a bowl of homemade soup and some fermented egg.

On that trip, I spent about a month in Shanghai, and my favorite breakfast was extremly yu,mmy yogurt made by one of two factories that had recently opened, at the government's behest. It had recently become known that many Chinese -- or maybe just Shanghainese -- were lacking in calcium, and that they could digest yogurt despite the lactose-deficiency, so there were bilboards all over encouraging people to eat yogurt.

[chaste_nosferatu]

Good points being added by all.

I especially agree with you, Ed on the adaptability of Chinese cuisine. Though sometimes I think it gets too far afield to still be "Chinese".

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.

I'd like to pass along an interesting social phenomenon I have been recording. Teaching at various primary schools in this one city I have noticed a huge difference in development of the children. Kids of the same age and sex can vary as much as ten inches and twenty pounds from one school to the next. The school districts are strictly by neighborhood. And the neighborhoods are usually very homogenous in terms of the residents' per capita income. 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.

[snowangel]

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.

I note the same thing in Minneapolis with the Hmong population. The parents and grandparents, raised "in thehills" are far smaller than their chidren and grandchildren, the latter born and raised in the U. S.

Question: I know that when I lived in Bangkok, delivery food (as in noodle, fruit, stir-fry, etc. carts traversing the streets, ringing their bells, stopping at houses as residents trundled out with their bowls; this would not be deliver of the "phone for pizza" variety) was a way of life. Does this exist in China? I remember well how much my sister and I loved the nights my parents were out at a party and we'd wait for a particular bell and run out with our bowls for baa mi.

[herbacidal]

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.

I note the same thing in Minneapolis with the Hmong population. The parents and grandparents, raised "in thehills" are far smaller than their chidren and grandchildren, the latter born and raised in the U. S.

Question: I know that when I lived in Bangkok, delivery food (as in noodle, fruit, stir-fry, etc. carts traversing the streets, ringing their bells, stopping at houses as residents trundled out with their bowls; this would not be deliver of the "phone for pizza" variety) was a way of life. Does this exist in China? I remember well how much my sister and I loved the nights my parents were out at a party and we'd wait for a particular bell and run out with our bowls for baa mi.

well, definitely.

here in the US more sugar in everything, more than asians are used to. they always gain weight. i've seen it in my family, others in chinatown, etc.

i'm not aware of that kind of delivery being available in china, at least not in the various places I've been (see above post).

[chengdude]

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.

[chengdude]

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.

[Jon Tseng]

Blimey

That's some catching up!

Must toddle off to digest it all

In the meantime, a warm welcome city dude!

cheerio

J

[herbacidal]

yea, opposite side of pond from jon,

but i gotta take some time to digest all that. comments later.

[mags]

Really interesting, Chengdude. It's silly, but I found your comments about the yogurt of particular interest, because the yogurt I remember eating was very definitely not sweet (I hate sweetened yogurt). It was...well...yogurt. Pretty good yogurt. But this was eight years ago, and I remember being told at the time that the Yogurt Initiative was relatively new. I guess they've added the sugar (and dumbed down the quality) in the meantime.

[Pan]

I forget whether I've commented previously in this thread about the "sour milk" I drank when I was in Beijing in July of 1987. It was sold from pushcarts, and to my taste, it was whey. If it was sweetened, such sweetening was very light and fooled me into thinking it was untreated whey. Mainly, the drink was refreshing on those 95-or-whatever-degree afternoons in the dry, desert-influenced summer climate of Beijing.

[chengdude]

Really interesting, Chengdude. It's silly, but I found your comments about the yogurt of particular interest, because the yogurt I remember eating was very definitely not sweet (I hate sweetened yogurt).  It was...well...yogurt. Pretty good yogurt. But this was eight years ago, and I remember being told at the time that the Yogurt Initiative was relatively new.  I guess they've added the sugar (and dumbed down the quality) in the meantime.

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."