Nearly all popular Chinese cuisine lose their ethnic essence due to some degree of Americanization.
Stripping a dish of its East Asian nature is as easy as heavily soaking it with a bottle of soy sauce, an act synonymous with the American's fixation with the salt shaker. Often, the challenge of opening five incredibly stubborn plastic packets of generic soy sauce will not deter him from intensely darkening the color of his food.
Too many times have I seen this needless ritual performed, especially on fried and steamed rice, as ignorant diners attempt to make their experience more Asian. Because they identify soy sauce with anything that is Chinese-as tomato paste is analogous to Italian food, the black fluid will be inappropriately added to foods such as egg-drop soup or even roast pork buns. Ironically, their efforts are usually in vain; the soy sauce offered by most restaurants doesn't even have soy bean as an ingredient.
Americanization is also responsible for the creation of non-Chinese foods such as the fortune cookie, the almond cookie and the ever-familiar sweet-n-sour pork. Due to its immense popularity, the latter seems to establish every American's frame of gustatory reference for Chinese cuisine, and I deem sweet-n-sour XXX ultimately responsible for its adulteration.
It is insulting that Americans credit Chinese culinary arts with the development of a piece of battered meat fried to a rock-hard, unchewable state. As for the sweet-n-sour sauce itself, the artificially colored and flavored syrup is joining the ranks of soy sauce, and diners will also abuse it without discretion.
The realm of Chinese food is not limited to moo shu pork, broccoli chicken, nor egg foo young; there is more to Cantonese or Szechwan cuisine than the happy family, General Tsao's chicken or pu-pu platter. For the real Asian experience, I recommend a culinary pilgrimage to any Chinese enclave, especially the Toronto Chinatowns.
After stepping through the doors of a certain Chinatown restaurant, never ask for an English menu, or you will just find yourself ordering the same artificial food you have always consumed at the local "Cantonese" place.
Instead, look at the walls, on which are usually posted a variety of dishes in Chinese and don't hesitate asking an employee for a translation. Don't be surprised either when he responds that you are inquiring about their platter of congealed pig blood or a roasted intestine appetizer. For appetites seeking less exotic delights, there is the noodle soup-a rarity that has been unfairly overshadowed by the commonplace lomien and chow mien.
Those who wish to savor small quantities of a vast assortment of treats should frequent a dim sum establishment, where one can find roasted chicken claw, Chinese custard pie, sweet-rice enveloped in plant leaves and a multitude of other goodies for which I only know the Chinese names. And before leaving Chinatown, be sure to stop by the local bakery to pick up several red-bean paste buns, curry beef buns, lotus cakes and moon cakes which, if all refrigerated, can prolong an unforgettable Far Eastern experience.
Most who do not have access to the nearest Chinatown can only live an unfulfilled life, but they are the ones to be blamed for such misfortune. The dearth of genuine Chinese food beyond Chinatown is mostly due to Americans' demand for non-Chinese slop such as sweet-n-sour XXX; their un-Asian tastebuds have perpetuated a very un-Asian institution to the point of no return.
Even those who visit the most worthy Chinatown restaurants will fail to discover the heaven of Chinese culinary arts. Many, I believe, will continue to be influenced by their irreversible, conditioned perception of "Chinese" food. I have seen people waste their time and money by ordering $15 plates of sweet-n-sour pork. During a visit to Taiwan, a family friend treated me to one of Taipei's finest restaurants where I even overheard an American customer asking for fried rice! How degrading!
The next time I go on a retreat to Chicago's Chinatown, I'll keep an open eye for someone drenching their sweet-n-sour XXX with a black mixture of water, salt and vinegar.
Eric Chang is a Trinity sophomore.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.