Chop suey, fortune cookies, beef and broccoli? What if we told you
that isn’t authentic Chinese at all? And is soy sauce used in literally
everything? Keep watching to learn all the lies you've been told about Chinese cuisine!
Chinese-American cooking may be all about stir fry, but there are many
different ways to get food ready to suit the tastes of a discriminating crowd.
Tofu, seafood like shrimp or squid, and pieces of chicken can be breaded and deep-fried
in hot vats of oil so they are made crisp and flavorful with a few shakes of salt and pepper.
Xiaolongbao and dim sum are small bites that are steamed in artful little bamboo baskets before
they’re served. Tough meats are "red stewed" or cooked in a clay pot over a very low flame for
hours in a sauce with soy sauce, sugar, wine, ginger, five-spice powder, chili, and cilantro.
Hotpots are boiling soups into which vegetables,
noodles, and pieces of meat are cooked quickly before they’re dipped in sauces and consumed.
There’s also roasts which include ducks, geese, and pork which feature a crispy,
seared skin that crackle when cut. Ultimately, this crispy shell gives way to tender,
flavorful meats beneath. Sounds more varied than your typical stir fry, doesn’t it?
The world of Chinese cooking is vast – so vast that it encompasses at least
eight different regional cuisines. Some of these cuisines include the use of soy sauce,
while others embrace chilies and specialty peppercorns that numb the mouth.
This may explain why soy sauce…
"Sneaky, sneaky soy sauce."
…though a popular condiment, isn't exactly at the center of the cooking universe that
is Chinese cuisine. Instead, it shares the limelight with vinegar,
cooking wine, chili sauces, and soybean paste.
While it may be true that Chinese diners do enjoy salty foods,
spicy foods reign supreme among most regional cuisines. And, when special diets take spicy
condiments out of the flavor equation, soybean pastes and tahini come in second and third.
No one can deny that fortune cookies are a pleasantly sweet way to end a
delectable Chinese dinner, regardless of the hit-or-miss quality of the fortunes themselves.
"Ah, and now to read my fortune. 'Geese can be troublesome.' What the hell is that
supposed to mean!"
The history of America's favorite Chinese dessert was uncovered by
Jennifer 8. Lee as she was writing her book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles.
Lee had the chance to speak with Yasuko Nakamichi, a food scholar who spent a
considerable amount of time trying to trace the history of the fortune cookie. Nakamichi thinks
the cookies are inspired by a Japanese pastry that hails from its ancient capital city, Kyoto.
But unlike their American cousins, the Japanese versions of the cookie are flavored with miso,
and their messages are written on the outside of the pastry,
instead of on the inside on a sheet of paper.
A Japanese confectionary was the main supplier of fortune cookies until World
War II forced Japanese Americans into internment camps. Following World War
II Chinese Americans began making their own fortune cookies — and the rest is history.
Today the biggest manufacturer of fortune cookies is Wonton Food,
which makes 4 million fortune cookies a day.
If you go to a Chinese restaurant in Asia, don't be surprised if your takeout comes to you in a
plastic bag or is packed into a nondescript box where a lid is held in place with rubber bands.
The origin of what we think is an awesome takeout box was the brainchild of an
American inventor who took a patent in 1894, for what he called a "paper pail."
Inspired by existing oyster pails of his time,
Wilcox's first invention was made with a single sheet of paper, creased into segments,
and folded into a nearly-leakproof container with a delicate wire handle.
One of the most prolific producers of this style of takeout container was a company
named Fold-Pak. In the 1970s, a graphic designer who worked for Fold-Pak went
on to add a pagoda and "Thank you" in what was meant to look like Chinese calligraphy.
For what it's worth, Fold-Pak doesn't remember who that graphic designer is,
but the company knows one thing — it doesn't sell the takeout boxes in China.
Chinese food in the U.S. has evolved since first appearing in the 19th century. Rather
than displaying traditional flavors, Chinese cuisine has been adapted to suit American tastes.
Case in point, chop suey restaurants made their first appearance in the
U.S. at the turn of the 20th century. Translated as odds and ends, the meat,
egg, and vegetable dish has little to do with authentic Chinese cuisine.
In fact, New York Times writer Jennifer 8. Lee highlighted in her 2008 TED talk that
most Chinese people don't even know about chop suey. Many dishes served at Chinese restaurants
in the U.S. are American inventions. General Tso's chicken is a prime example.
The boneless chicken dish was invented by a Hunan chef who cooked it for a visiting
American Navy Seal in Taiwan in 1952. After emigrating to America in 1973, the chef
opened a restaurant where he altered the dish to American tastes by including sugar in the sauce.
Orange chicken is another popular Chinese-American creation you're
unlikely to be served in China. This is because it was invented
by chef Andy Kao for the opening of a new Panda Express outlet in Hawaii in 1987.
The sticky meal pairs citrusy notes with sweet and sour elements typical
of Yangzhou, the hometown of Panda Express' co-founder Andrew Cherng.
Broccoli makes an appearance in a number of Chinese dishes, most notably beef and
broccoli. While broccoli is a healthy addition to any meal, the vegetable is by no means a
part of traditional Chinese cuisine. In fact, broccoli isn't even native to the Asian country.
Instead, broccoli comes from the Mediterranean and was first commercially cultivated in the
16th century. While president Thomas Jefferson is said to have brought seeds to the United
States from Italy in the 1700s, the vegetable didn't become popular until the early 1900s.
China has its own type of broccoli called kai-lan,
gai-lan, or Chinese kale. The vegetable has a thick stem,
flat leaves, and small florets. The broad leaves have a bitter and somewhat spicy flavor.
In the kitchen, Chinese broccoli is usually blanched and stir-fried. It
can also be boiled or used fresh in salads. Plus,
the versatile vegetable is a great source of iron, calcium, and vitamins A, C, and E.
Chinese cuisine is far from uniform which shouldn't come as a surprise
since the country occupies around 3,700,000 square miles.
"That's huge!"
"So huge!"
Oh, yeah! It's massive. So massive in fact, that China boasts eight
popularly recognized culinary styles: Cantonese, Szechuan, Zhejiang, Fujian,
Hunan, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Shandong. The cuisines come from different regions of
the country, each with distinct geographic, environmental, and historical characteristics.
The most internationally recognized style of Chinese cuisine is Cantonese food from
Guangdong. This is because most of the Chinese immigrants first coming to the
United States hailed from the province and brought the culinary style along with them.
The situation changed in the '60s and '70s with the easing of American immigration
policy. Migrants — and their culinary traditions — came from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
In 2016 there were over 45,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States,
all representing different styles of the country's cooking. That's more than the sum of McDonald's,
KFCs, Pizza Huts, Taco Bells, and Wendy's outlets combined.
If you've ever eaten at an American-style Chinese restaurant, you've probably come
across a multipage menu, complete with dish descriptions and photos. While
Chinese restaurant menus in the United States may seem huge, appearances can be deceiving.
As pointed out by a Reddit member,
many of the dishes simply contain a mix of the same ingredients in different
formulations. While some diners enjoy the large selection, others aren't so impressed.
Joe Stratan, a staff writer for the HuffPost,
disliked the fact that it took him three tries to eat a decent meal at a Sichuan
restaurant in Manhattan simply because there were 218 items on the menu. He wrote:
"No one kitchen can make 218 different dishes, or even 118 items, equally well."
To cater to both American and Chinese tastes,
some Chinese restaurants actually have two different menus.
If you want to avoid looking through pages of American-style Chinese dishes,
it may be a good idea to inquire about this secret menu. Just
be careful not to make a fool of yourself while ordering more exotic dishes.
"Hi!"
"How y'all doin', you got any eel?"
"Sure."
"How's your…camel hump?"
While some Chinese dishes use generous amounts of oil, this is by no means the
case for all Chinese food. The cuisine is extremely varied and many meals include
light stir-fries, steamed, boiled, and baked preparations, as well as some oilier foods.
In addition, most Chinese feasts come with rice and vegetables which aren't inherently fatty.
Even if some Chinese food may appear oily,
this is for a good reason. Chinese cuisine uses oil rather than sauce as a medium for flavors.
Consequently, this food isn’t meant to be ingested in large amounts. If you
use chopsticks to eat your food, you are likely to leave most of the oil behind.
Unfortunately, many Westerners who aren't chopstick literate end up eating Chinese
food with a spoon and fork which means they consume more oil than desired.
In the United States, there is a misconception that Chinese food is
cheap. However, this isn't the case in many other countries. In Japan,
for instance, Chinese food is considered high-class cuisine.
Meanwhile, in China, restaurants range from cheap hole-in-the-wall
joints to elegant establishments that deliver a five-star dining experience.
Even in the United States, a number of Chinese restaurants cost a pretty penny.
So why is Chinese food often perceived as cheap? Some experts assert that it's due to a, quote,
"global hierarchy of taste". To sum up this idea, the wealthier and more powerful the immigrants
from a certain country are viewed to be, the more prestigious — and expensive — their cuisine.
It's believed that Americans seem to still hold an antiquated view of Chinese immigrants,
and thus associate their food with being low class and low quality.
Jing Gao, founder of the condiment company Fly by Jing,
agrees with this notion. According to her, Chinese food commanded such low prices in
the United States in the 19th century primarily because staff in restaurants
were paid terribly. She went on to say the following in an article for Food & Wine:
"Real food, real ingredients, ethical sourcing, and manufacturing come at a cost. Our food,
our culture, and our people have value, and it's about time our compensation reflects that."
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