Chinese cuisine in the western world?!
i know its a pretty broad question but i cant find any articles about it on the net...can any one help me ??
Answers: how has chinese food translated over to the western world ???
i know its a pretty broad question but i cant find any articles about it on the net...can any one help me ??
Most of it is considered pseudo-Chinese food, leaning heavily towards deep-fried stuff, food drenched with heavy sauces, thick & gluggy soups, excessively greasy & salty, use of MSG to disguise poor ingredients & lack of culinary skills. You get better stuff in the good (and more expensive) restaurants & traditional ones frequented by the Chinese & Asians, but for many Westerners their only experience of Chinese food is their local takeaway & small Chinese eatery whose primary concern is survival & making a living, and not any noble & lofty ideal of upholding traditional culinary integrity. You get inventions like chop suey, fortune cookies, General Tso's Chicken that can't be found in Asia (except perhaps American-influenced places like the Philippines). Some dishes with the same names are also vastly different.
There are many cases of Chinese chefs determined to set up restaurants serving authentic food in Western countries, but eventually had to either close down or forced to amend their dishes to pander to the local perception of 'Chinese' food. In recent years, things are slightly looking up due to greater awareness & demand for authentic tastes (often when ethnic & exotic food becomes the "in" thing), but many Westerners remain resistant to change in their tastes. This has unjustly forced on Chinese food the reputation of being unhealthy, when the reality is that most Chinese cuisine is light & healthy, with many dishes being steamed, boiled or stir-fried/pan-fried with little oil.
Well, Chinese immigrants brought some of their dishes over. Americans "Americanized" them, and now, the dishes are very common here. By Americanized, I mean adding battered dishes, sweet sauces or sweet sides, and more oil (although Chinese food contains quite a bit of oil in the first place).
For example, take cream cheese wontons. It was probably a Westerner's or Chinese American's idea to make a Chinese dish that would appeal to a wide American audience. The person used a Chinese part (the wonton) and a Western part (the cream cheese filling) and created a dish that was a fusion of American and Chinese cuisine.
How do I know that? Never in all of my years have I ever seen traditional Chinese food like cream cheese wontons. Chinese people eat dumplings with soy sauce and pork filled wontons, but not wontons with cream cheese. The only dairy that is a traditional part in Chinese culture is milk. Chinese cooking rarely uses milk, too (and pretty much never uses cream cheese).
Before milk was industrially produced and shipped to various countries around the world, the only Chinese that drank milk were the Northern Chinese. That group of people would include the Northern Chinese and Mongolians. The nomads had sheep and goats, so sheep and goat milk was occasional. However, the rest of China drank soy milk instead of milk.
A really good article to read is on Wikipedia. Go to wikipedia.org and type in American Chinese cuisine, it is very informative.
the earliest chinese food u can find in western country is pasta, brought in by mr polo. some say ice cream was originate frm china too, only they dun mix it with milk.
American Chinese cooking places more emphasis on vegetables such as carrots and tomatoes, whereas Natives use more greens, such as Bok Choy.
American Chinese cooking uses less pungent spices than authentic cuisine from China.
the American Chinese cooks cook the meal quickly and use more oil and salt in the dishes..
American Chinese tables also will see more battered foods, suitable to the Western World's tastebuds.
A very excellent reference is at Wikipedia.org
I think the wok cooking (not necessary to have a wok to do it) style has gained world wide acceptance in the developed countries, at least..