Golden fried rice, crispy egg rolls, flavorful orange chicken. How can something so delicious be
so cheap? Well, here's the lowdown on why Chinese food is such a low-cost cuisine in the U.S.
American Chinese food is precisely that: an Americanized variation
of Chinese-style dishes. Either way, this leads us to an essential reason
for Chinese food's low prices in the U.S. — the cuisine generally consists
of recipes amended to incorporate what's popular and readily available in the U.S.
If you're unsure how the lack of authenticity found in most U.S.-based Chinese restaurants
translates to cheaper costs for consumers, it's much simpler than you're imagining. After all,
the use of locally found ingredients rather than potentially imported foods
drastically lowers the overall costs for Chinese food business owners.
Now, you might believe American Chinese food was created with the intent of appealing to the
American palate. But it actually sprung from Chinese-American chefs adapting to their new
circumstances to create dishes that would please their fellow Chinese immigrants. Of course,
this meant American Chinese food was apt to attract U.S.-born diners as well.
Popular dishes like beef and broccoli were originally developed in China,
and their ingredients stayed affordable in the U.S. General Tso's chicken, on the other hand,
is a dish adapted to the U.S. palate. Both of these popular dishes and so many others,
utilize cost-friendly ingredients that help keep meal prices low.
"Shrimp fried rice! Shrimp fried rice! Shrimp fried rice! Shrimp fried rice."
One glance at a Chinese food menu reveals a variety of different fried rice styles,
with any number of added meats or vegetables available to customers.
But rather than making new, individualized batches of rice for each new fried rice order,
most Chinese food restaurants use a large batch of premade rice as a base,
adding additional ingredients only as needed. This shortens the time it takes to serve a completed
dish while potentially reducing the overall labor costs for fried rice in the process.
The dish appears to have roots as a single-pan-type dish favored by the lower
classes and prepared to simplify the cooking process while consolidating whatever available
food was on hand. In other words, if fried rice wasn't looked upon as a high-cost menu item by
Chinese-American immigrants, why would they have expected U.S. consumers to pay a premium price?
Additionally, takeout fried rice is usually made with affordable
white rice varieties in the U.S., which plays a hand in the item's
general cost-effectiveness among American Chinese food items as well.
"At Moe's, we serve good, old-fashioned home cooking - deep fried to perfection.”
Here in the U.S., we have a tendency to deep fry everything. Of course, the fact this cooking style
is beloved partially explains why so many American Chinese food products are prepared through this
method. But it also illustrates a prominent reason for the cuisine's many low-priced options. After
all, deep frying quickly cooks food in large, uniformly prepared batches, thus lowering the
cost and time spent preparing those items — keeping them cheap for consumers as well.
Now, the simple fact that so many types of American Chinese food dishes are prepared in
deep-fried cooking oil isn't the sole reason for their general cheapness. But it certainly
is a reason Chinese food is going to cost a substantial amount more than the Americanized
variations; after all, virtually no traditional Chinese food is prepared via the deep fryer.
For anyone wondering how frying foods reduces expenses, most cooking oils are actually quite
affordable. And while restaurants aren't required or even encouraged to pass on
these savings to the customer, it seems many Chinese food restaurants have chosen to do so.
The entire basis of capitalism tends to revolve around a business making as much
money as possible, often with little to no regard for the financial well-being of
the world around it. In that sense, one of the less savory explanations for how
some Chinese food restaurants keep menu prices low is by underpaying employees.
Now, we may not like to think about the stunningly low and unfair rate of pay for
labor in some professional sectors. But the reality is this sort of tradeoff with Chinese
food establishments — where many employees' required workloads far exceed their pay so
customers can reap the benefit of low prices — has become part of modern U.S. culture.
Avvy Go, a lawyer and director of Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic,
reported to CBC that hundreds of Chinese restaurant workers
have flagged unfair wages with the Ontario Ministry of Labour. She said,
"They come to us with the same story and same complaints — no overtime pay, no minimum wage."
"I can't look at these menus, there's so much. Oh,
you know what? I should just ask them. They know what they're doing."
The relationship between the U.S. and China has been historically rocky. In fact,
a wide-ranging resentment toward all-things-China has handicapped
U.S. diners' perspective of Chinese food over time, keeping the food inexpensive. After all,
the prevailing wisdom in the U.S. states anything associated with China must be cheap.
The historical discrimination of Chinese-American immigrants has kept Chinese cuisine from rising
in stature alongside other ethnic food categories. After all, as Krishnendu Ray,
an associate professor of food studies at New York University, told The Atlantic in 2016,
"With China, [Americans] are still filled with this funny disdain that
it is about cheap and crappy stuff, including about cheap and crappy food."
Can we envision many U.S. residents positively changing their opinion of China and, consequently,
Chinese-American immigrants in the near future? Not really. So it appears we can expect American
Chinese food to remain cheap — though we're less thrilled by that prospect than we'd like to be.
Any American who's ever stepped outside their culinary comfort zone likely knows many ethnic
restaurants come with a considerable price tag. Of course, whether it's a matter of prestige,
or a willingness to pay a premium for imported and custom ingredients, we're never shocked
when expected to pay an exorbitant sum for a meal at an Italian or Japanese establishment.
In other words, if you'd like to experience the very best of authentic Chinese food,
you'll likely have to venture past your neighborhood takeout spot — and
prepare to spend a pretty penny in the process.
There are countless highly skilled culinary artisans from China, or of Chinese descent,
around the world eagerly working to shift the cultural perception
of Chinese food — thereby elevating the cuisine to its deserved pedestal.
Whether a majority of the U.S. population will ever become comfortable with the idea
of paying a fair price for Chinese food is impossible to say. But if
you're curious about the real deal when it comes to, say, Hunan or Sichuan cuisine,
accept the upcharge, and give authentic, properly priced Chinese food a try.