Edit: And you still dodged a good portion of my statement. There is a chance that it was called what it is because it resembled food from that region. Possibly it was prepared by people from said region.
Edit: And you still dodged a good portion of my statement. There is a chance that it was called what it is because it resembled food from that region. Possibly it was prepared by people from said region.
You go find out if that's the case then.
I've already said this thread has interested me in looking to find out. I'm currently supposed to be destroying two of our bathrooms before I remake them, though. So... no promises on an expedient search.
Fair, although I still don't think you're in a position to say what is prepared anywhere in Sichuan.
And you'd be very wrong. While I unfortunately haven't had the benefit of going there, I have spent nearly a year and a half in a high intensity Chinese course. I spent that time literally surrounded and taught by Chinese immigrants. To include language, culture, customs, and probably most important in China, the food. We spent over a month studying nothing but Chinese food. More so, I was lucky enough to live near Milpitas, CA while studying, a city with a whose majority is Chinese citizens/immigrants, and a place lauded by our teachers for being filled with actual Chinese food.
So yes, if you ignore my time studying Chinese and Chinese food with Chinese people, I'm nothing of an authority on an incredibly distinctive, well known, and obvious type of cuisine.
But that aside: What's served, broadly, in American restaurants is what we might academically label "American Sichuan-inspired cuisine." It's the kind of food that is generally marketable to Americans. There are a handful of places that serve what we'll call "authentic Sichuan cuisine", but they're hard to find because there aren't a lot of them because the food they prepare is not that marketable to people with an American palette.
Kay?
Now, you could snap your fingers and all the former places would be called "Fake Sichuan"— but that wouldn't make it any (or very much, anyway) easier for you to find the real places. The reason they're hard to find is because they're few and far between. That's why I'm saying the difference is mostly academic.
The difference is only academic if you don't care about what you eat.
This is based on the second comment of this blog post, which inquires as to the curiosity about how, as our tastes are refined, we start to enjoy the more lowest common denominator stuff less:
The relation between expertise and pleasure is one that an economist would probably be interested in. As I've learned more about coffee and beer, I find that I really can't drink bad versions of either. In part because of this experience, I've avoided learning much about wine and find I'm very content with whatever's cheapest at Trader Joe's.
I've had exactly the same experience. And, in relation to the blog post itself, having been to China I'm actually dreading the yearly Christmas Day excursion to a "Chinese" restaurant. I haven't been able to tolerate the stuff since I got a taste of the real deal.
This seems kind of an obvious relationship on the surface, the whole connoisseur rejecting the pedestrian, but why does it happen? Do our tastes genuinely get "refined" somehow? Why do you think it is, what happens? What experiences have you had with this? Are you an "expert" of some sort who has lost your tolerance for the average experience?
It's interesting how many fields this applies to as well. It's not just food and drink of course. Literature, music, and I've noticed my tolerance for certain playstyles in games like Magic: the Gathering diminished as my abilities blossomed.
I'm late to the party, but I think it's simply Darwinian selection.
There's an input (the food), a selective filter (the biological act and experience of eating) and an output (knowing whether or not you liked it).
If you allow the output to influence the input, and repeat this over and over again, the output is going to get more refined over time.
I have long been fascinated with Cook's Illustrated, a magazine which "tests" recipes by making them like 50 times, each time changing a variable and submitting it to a tasting panel for results. The recipes in the magazine are without exception outstanding.
But take that example that I pasted: that guy elects not to educate himself about wines, and as such is content to drink cheaper stuff. I don't think it's unheard of for people to genuinely enjoy "lower" foods or musics, even given repeated output-->input feedback... is it?
Isn't a lot of Indian food just the shit they were feeding to the British invaders rather than the actual standard local cooking?
Real Indian food is DELICATELY SPICED and in fact the average joe has eaten something that tastes quite like it when his mother was cooking, probably had noodles and clumps of pork.
Fake Indian is something that you would have probably been dared to eat when you were ten.
But take that example that I pasted: that guy elects not to educate himself about wines, and as such is content to drink cheaper stuff. I don't think it's unheard of for people to genuinely enjoy "lower" foods or musics, even given repeated output-->input feedback... is it?
I have trouble thinking of anything I do over and over again that I don't become pickier about.
Also, wine can be drunk with dual "outputs." You can drink wine to enjoy the complex flavors or whatever*, or you can drink wine to get yo' ass drunk. I suspect for people who drink wine as a "means to an end," their selective pressure filter just ignores the flavor profiles.
Note that these two outputs can both function at the same time. My roommate for example is a borderline alcoholic and he's become super-picky about beer flavors.
But take that example that I pasted: that guy elects not to educate himself about wines, and as such is content to drink cheaper stuff. I don't think it's unheard of for people to genuinely enjoy "lower" foods or musics, even given repeated output-->input feedback... is it?
I find the fact that we often set it up such that, "if you understand the finer qualities, you can not enjoy the simpler ones" to be sad. Sure, I know what a well prepared chili tastes like. I have hints about what a good wine should taste like. I can definitely understand the difference loose leaf teas have over the bagged variety. I will not deprive myself of enjoyment of the simpler and more accessible varieties, though.
But take that example that I pasted: that guy elects not to educate himself about wines, and as such is content to drink cheaper stuff. I don't think it's unheard of for people to genuinely enjoy "lower" foods or musics, even given repeated output-->input feedback... is it?
I find the fact that we often set it up such that, "if you understand the finer qualities, you can not enjoy the simpler ones" to be sad. Sure, I know what a well prepared chili tastes like. I have hints about what a good wine should taste like. I can definitely understand the difference loose leaf teas have over the bagged variety. I will not deprive myself of enjoyment of the simpler and more accessible varieties, though.
There's also the issue of whether or not something "simpler" actually "tastes worse."
In a double-blind taste-test, how much worse do simple, accessible foods perform than fancy "complex" foods?
And even if price or fanciness does correlate to double-blind deliciousness, I also suspect that the law of diminishing returns kicks in beyond a certain price level.
There is a chance that it was called what it is because it resembled food from that region. Possibly it was prepared by people from said region.
Again, if you are not willing to want to change the name of French fries, then you are simply trying to pick and choose what you want to apply this logic to.
Disclosure: I haven't been to the Sichuan province of China. I have lots of Chinese friends who either are Sichuanese or have visited there though, and given my unwillingness while in China to explore restaurants on my own, I allowed them to take me to "the good places".
What is typically found in American Chinese restaurants bears essentially no resemblance to actual Sichuan food, based on my experience in China. It is possible to find it in America though, and it's not that people don't know how to cook it. I've ordered an excellent dish in Chinese, and another time at another place I had a Chinese friend help me select from the "secret Chinese menu". It's simply a different food for a different clientèle.
As far as french fries go, there is an etymological logic to the name, and as far as I can tell, "french fries" is a name for a specific food that evolved out of a description of a style of cooking. If there is an issue with this, it strikes me as separate from the issue of "Chinese food".
But take that example that I pasted: that guy elects not to educate himself about wines, and as such is content to drink cheaper stuff. I don't think it's unheard of for people to genuinely enjoy "lower" foods or musics, even given repeated output-->input feedback... is it?
I have trouble thinking of anything I do over and over again that I don't become pickier about.
Tying your shoes? Sitting in a chair (I know my posture betrays that I am far from picky on how I sit). Wearing well cut clothes. Doing the laundry... I could probably go on till I hit something you do on a repeated basis that you are not as fundamentally picky about. Indeed, I would guess it is the things of leisure which you do fairly often that you are the most picky. Not just the things you do often.
As far as french fries go, there is an etymological logic to the name, and as far as I can tell, "french fries" is a name for a specific food that evolved out of a description of a style of cooking. If there is an issue with this, it strikes me as separate from the issue of "Chinese food".
That makes no bloody sense. They are both the same etymological reasons. We call Chinese food because years ago people did the same. Same with French Fries or French bread. Are these things legitimately French? No. Just as the foods are not legitimately Chinese.
Tying your shoes? Sitting in a chair (I know my posture betrays that I am far from picky on how I sit). Wearing well cut clothes. Doing the laundry... I could probably go on till I hit something you do on a repeated basis that you are not as fundamentally picky about. Indeed, I would guess it is the things of leisure which you do fairly often that you are the most picky. Not just the things you do often.
But those are all "means to an end" too! I mean, I don't tie my shoes for the experience of ... tying my shoes. I tie them so they stay on my feet. The less time I spend tying my shoes, the better, since I get zero "output" from the experience of tying my shoes itself. In fact for this reason I never tie or untie my shoes, I just slip them on and off like slippers.
Whereas, when you eat food, the experience of eating the food is typically extremely significant in and of itself. You could treat it as a means to an end of avoiding hunger, but it's hard not to notice that you like certain food more than others when you put it in your mouth and chew.
So I guess I should append my previous statement: anything I do repeatedly for the sake of the experience of that self-same thing, I get pickier about over time.
As far as french fries go, there is an etymological logic to the name, and as far as I can tell, "french fries" is a name for a specific food that evolved out of a description of a style of cooking. If there is an issue with this, it strikes me as separate from the issue of "Chinese food".
That makes no bloody sense. They are both the same etymological reasons. We call Chinese food because years ago people did the same. Same with French Fries or French bread. Are these things legitimately French? No. Just as the foods are not legitimately Chinese.
"French fries" is a name of a specific food, evolved out of the description "fried in the French way" or "French fried potatoes". The "french" is no longer capitalized in the term, as it's a common noun. I have no problem with this term as it was accurate back in the day, and though the fry has evolved quite a bit, I see the term as still being fundamentally accurate, as it was prepared way back when by Thomas Jefferson's French chef.
"Chinese" in "Chinese food" is an adjective, a description, and insofar as it's supposed to describe a food as being "Chinese" it's inaccurate. Same with "Szechwan beef" without the Sichuan peppers.
Tying your shoes? Sitting in a chair (I know my posture betrays that I am far from picky on how I sit). Wearing well cut clothes. Doing the laundry... I could probably go on till I hit something you do on a repeated basis that you are not as fundamentally picky about. Indeed, I would guess it is the things of leisure which you do fairly often that you are the most picky. Not just the things you do often.
But those are all "means to an end" too! I mean, I don't tie my shoes for the experience of ... tying my shoes. I tie them so they stay on my feet. The less time I spend tying my shoes, the better, since I get zero "output" from the experience of tying my shoes itself. In fact for this reason I never tie or untie my shoes, I just slip them on and off like slippers.
I use this method and I am irritated when the necessities of laces force me to use an inferior knot.
Tying your shoes? Sitting in a chair (I know my posture betrays that I am far from picky on how I sit). Wearing well cut clothes. Doing the laundry... I could probably go on till I hit something you do on a repeated basis that you are not as fundamentally picky about. Indeed, I would guess it is the things of leisure which you do fairly often that you are the most picky. Not just the things you do often.
But those are all "means to an end" too! I mean, I don't tie my shoes for the experience of ... tying my shoes. I tie them so they stay on my feet. The less time I spend tying my shoes, the better, since I get zero "output" from the experience of tying my shoes itself. In fact for this reason I never tie or untie my shoes, I just slip them on and off like slippers.
Whereas, when you eat food, the experience of eating the food is typically extremely significant in and of itself. You could treat it as a means to an end of avoiding hunger, but it's hard not to notice that you like certain food more than others when you put it in your mouth and chew.
So I guess I should append my previous statement: anything I do repeatedly for the sake of the experience of that self-same thing, I get pickier about over time.
Funny, I expressly picked tying of shoes as they are something that it is quite easy to get somewhat picky over. I am quite picky about the shoes I will buy, a small part of which is how well do the laces tie. Similarly, I will probably never buy velcro shoes, as I do like tied shoes more.
For chairs, many of us are quite picky on the types of chairs we will sit in. While I loath the way most leather chairs look, I do appreciate the ease of cleaning them. And I have grown quite fond of chaise lounges.
And this goes back to the intent of my statement earlier. There are many things which I could get pickier about, but I sometimes choose not to do so. It may be that I view these things as a means to and ends. Or it could be that I simply don't have the means to fully explore the topic.
As far as french fries go, there is an etymological logic to the name, and as far as I can tell, "french fries" is a name for a specific food that evolved out of a description of a style of cooking. If there is an issue with this, it strikes me as separate from the issue of "Chinese food".
That makes no bloody sense. They are both the same etymological reasons. We call Chinese food because years ago people did the same. Same with French Fries or French bread. Are these things legitimately French? No. Just as the foods are not legitimately Chinese.
"French fries" is a name of a specific food, evolved out of the description "fried in the French way" or "French fried potatoes". The "french" is no longer capitalized in the term, as it's a common noun. I have no problem with this term as it was accurate back in the day, and though the fry has evolved quite a bit, I see the term as still being fundamentally accurate, as it was prepared way back when by Thomas Jefferson's French chef.
"Chinese" in "Chinese food" is an adjective, a description, and insofar as it's supposed to describe a food as being "Chinese" it's inaccurate. Same with "Szechwan beef" without the Sichuan peppers.
Hmm... I believe this makes sense. You are saying that "chinese food" would be ok, but calling it "Chinese food" is not. I honestly just assumed people recognize the proper noun in Chinese food and so capitalize it. (I guess that belies an anti-French attitude in me? )
Same with "Szechwan beef" without the Sichuan peppers.
Frankly, I'm pretty sure if anyone saying otherwise merely had Sichuan Pepper in their actual food at the quantities normally found in Sichuan, they'd realize the difference is quite large.
For me, the increased enjoyment ascribed to "expertise" is about understand something to the point where you can appreciate the nuances. I am a home theater snob, for example. I can see the difference in color reproduction and black levels and so on between a $2000 Sony Bravia and a $600 Westinghouse. I can see the increase in detail of a 1080p TV versus 640 or 720. I can hear the difference between a $200 subwoofer and a $1000 (or more) subwoofer. And because I can pick out these differences, because my mind is aware of these things, I enjoy a movie more on a good HT setup than on a mediocre or poor one. On the upside, I enjoy movies more on a good setup than I would if I didn't know the difference. On the downside, I enjoy movies less on a lousy setup, because I'm conscious of what I'm missing. Generally it's a positive trade-off, because I watch most of my movies on my own stuff, which is pretty good.
And this holds in a number of areas. Food, film, music - as I've educated myself more, I've found more enjoyment in quality stuff, at the expense of less enjoyment of subpar stuff. If you have the means to surround yourself with that quality stuff, I fail to see it as a bad thing.
I suspect it is more than just appreciating the nuances, it is the fact that you may not have even noticed them before. The problem I have is simply that I want to enjoy what I have without having to explore every facet of it. I appreciate that others do take part in this exploration, and I am sure I benefit from the fact that they do so.
Yes, I agree. And cinema is a great example of that. Once upon a time, I knew dick about cinematography and direction. Movies were "good" or "bad" and that was about it. Now I get, for example, the difficulty in setting up Scorcese-like camera shot following a single character through a variety of sets for five minutes. Even if the movie isn't that great, I can pick up a detail like that and appreciate the difficulty that went into creating it. And if a movie is great, a little nuance like that will make it even better. On the other hand, an otherwise enjoyable movie might be harder to enjoy if there are things conspicuously bad about it. Bad camera work, poor timing and the like stand out really starkly.
And I don't think this is the result of just convincing myself that X is better because my refined sense tell me that X is better, as was suggested earlier. I can see that being the case with, say, the relative quality of different HDTVs. A person can imagine increased resolution. I don't think I'm really imagining that certain directorial or cinematography tricks are really hard to pull off, for example.
However, I will resent any implication that I must partake in the same things. I have the luxury of choosing my enjoyments, and this includes choosing what not to take notice of.
Oh, certainly. People who stare down their noses at others who don't enjoy things in the same way they do can choke on a cock.
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Fair, although I still don't think you're in a position to say what is prepared anywhere in Sichuan.
And you'd be very wrong. While I unfortunately haven't had the benefit of going there, I have spent nearly a year and a half in a high intensity Chinese course. I spent that time literally surrounded and taught by Chinese immigrants. To include language, culture, customs, and probably most important in China, the food. We spent over a month studying nothing but Chinese food. More so, I was lucky enough to live near Milpitas, CA while studying, a city with a whose majority is Chinese citizens/immigrants, and a place lauded by our teachers for being filled with actual Chinese food.
So yes, if you ignore my time studying Chinese and Chinese food with Chinese people, I'm nothing of an authority on an incredibly distinctive, well known, and obvious type of cuisine.
I don't mean to demean your personal experience, I just mean quite literally that no matter how much you've studied you can't speak authoritatively about what any one out of 90 million people cooks. It's just not possible.
I recognize that by any reasonable definition, what's billed as Chinese food in America is not what people eat in China. I only mean to address that "what people eat in China" cannot usefully be labelled as "Chinese food" any more than "what people eat in America" can be usefully labeled as "American food."
But that aside: What's served, broadly, in American restaurants is what we might academically label "American Sichuan-inspired cuisine." It's the kind of food that is generally marketable to Americans. There are a handful of places that serve what we'll call "authentic Sichuan cuisine", but they're hard to find because there aren't a lot of them because the food they prepare is not that marketable to people with an American palette.
Kay?
Now, you could snap your fingers and all the former places would be called "Fake Sichuan"— but that wouldn't make it any (or very much, anyway) easier for you to find the real places. The reason they're hard to find is because they're few and far between. That's why I'm saying the difference is mostly academic.
The difference is only academic if you don't care about what you eat.
The difference is academic because if you care about what you eat (although I think that's a rather disingenuous way to put what we're talking about) you're going to have to spend a certain amount of your time locating what you want regardless of what it is. There are restaurants, not many, but some, that prepare the kind of food you're looking for. They are hard to locate because you are looking for a kind of food which is rare in this part of the world. It would be helpful in finding the best burger in New England if only one burger joint was allowed to advertise as "The best burger in New England!", but unfortunately "best" is subjective and if you want to find the burger that you like the most you're going to have to either eat a lot of burgers or learn to cook. Unfortunately the same thing is true of "authentic" Chinese food.
I suppose you can downgrade my label from "academic" to "futile". If you want authentic Chinese food, your best bet is to go to China. Barring that, I think your best bet is to recognize that, in America, "Chinese food" does not mean "what people cook in China", and that while that makes locating it slightly more complicated, your main problem is just that it is very difficult to come by, and therefore to pursue other avenues to locate "what people cook in China."
However, I will resent any implication that I must partake in the same things. I have the luxury of choosing my enjoyments, and this includes choosing what not to take notice of.
Oh, certainly. People who stare down their noses at others who don't enjoy things in the same way they do can choke on a cock.
However, I will resent any implication that I must partake in the same things. I have the luxury of choosing my enjoyments, and this includes choosing what not to take notice of.
Oh, certainly. People who stare down their noses at others who don't enjoy things in the same way they do can choke on a cock.
What if they enjoy that?
Then they can drown in a vagina.
And if they still like that, I'll make it Rosie O'Donnell's vagina.
ElJeffe on
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However, I will resent any implication that I must partake in the same things. I have the luxury of choosing my enjoyments, and this includes choosing what not to take notice of.
Oh, certainly. People who stare down their noses at others who don't enjoy things in the same way they do can choke on a cock.
What if they enjoy that?
Then they can drown in a vagina.
And if they still like that, I'll make it Rosie O'Donnell's vagina.
This Chinese food business also applies to Italian food. American Italian food is very different from food that is eaten in Italy.
I imagine many ethnic cuisines are like this. There's a fusion element to any cuisine served in America.
A lot of it has to do with the differences between food as a necessity and food as a luxury.
I I think I have had authentic Chinese food, as indicated by the fact that it was in San Fran's Chinatown and it's where all of the Chinese people went and the folks there didn't speak a lick of English. Apparently the Chinese are not keen on cooking their meat all the way through and like everything to taste like fish.
(Authentic Mexican tends to rock, though. Except for beef tongue. Because it's fucking beef tongue. If I wanted beef tongue in my mouth I would make out with a cow.)
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When you serve something called char siu that is not prepared char siu style, you're selling fake char siu.
When you sell a dish called Bird's Nest that is a bunch of random ingredients and noodles "arranged like a nest" you're selling fake Bird's Nest.
I could go on, but the point is that American Chinese food is quite often some fake bullshit that insults intelligence and taste. I don't know where you've been getting your authentic szichuan and Mandarin food, but in places where there isn't a significant Chinese population, Chinese restaurants serve ass gravy like Lemon Chicken and cooked sushi.
Sushi should be cooked. I've never seen or heard of any sushi chef serving uncooked sushi. Maybe there's some avant garde guy doing it somewhere, but by your own logic that wouldn't be "authentic" sushi anyways.
Also, there are plenty of places in China and in West Coast Chinatowns that sell fake bird's nest. There's nothing about being ripped off that precludes an "authentic" Chinese food experience, any more than watching a bootleg DVD of Red Cliff is somehow not an "authentic" Chinese film experience.
I don't really get authentic regionalism anyways. You can walk into 2 restaraunts in China across the street from each other, and they'll have dishes that taste different.
Besides, the quest for authenticity can lead to some hilariously stupid ends
Southeast Asia hides old-school Chinese food unmarred by years of revolution, food shortages, and bourgeois purges. The best chefs kept their recipes, and their dignity, and trained the next generation. In the years under Mao, China's food culture suffered, while cooks in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong soldiered on. Their food is better for it.
So apparently even the (mainland) Chinese don't have authentic Chinese food. Thanks for letting the Chinese know the real score regarding authenticity, guy from Pennsylvania.
Sushi should be cooked. I've never seen or heard of any sushi chef serving uncooked sushi. Maybe there's some avant garde guy doing it somewhere, but by your own logic that wouldn't be "authentic" sushi anyways.
The only places that cook sushi are bad "Chinese" buffets, cafeterias, and midwestern restaurants/caterers that have never been within 1000 miles of the ocean. Unless this is some semantic playing around, knowing that sushi technically only refers to the vinegared rice, in which case, yes, the rice is cooked. (And excepting certain things like unagi.)
Back on track, are there any thoughts on the idea of diminishing returns in regard to areas of expertise? For instance, thanks to the D&D coffee thread, I decided to try out a french press instead of using the usual filter-drip method for making my coffee. And while I do think it's better... it's only marginally so. I'm not sure it will change my morning coffee-drinking habits in any significant way; I can accept the good/mediocre instead of the excellent. On the other hand, in the aforementioned case of sushi, I find that I can't even tolerate the mediocre. Even in Japan, 100-yen sushi places are just not acceptable in any way, shape, or form, to me.
Southeast Asia hides old-school Chinese food unmarred by years of revolution, food shortages, and bourgeois purges. The best chefs kept their recipes, and their dignity, and trained the next generation. In the years under Mao, China's food culture suffered, while cooks in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong soldiered on. Their food is better for it.
So apparently even the (mainland) Chinese don't have authentic Chinese food. Thanks for letting the Chinese know the real score regarding authenticity, guy from Pennsylvania.
I dunno, his own response in the comments to that article have a fair amount of truth to them, I think. I haven't been there, but supposedly Singapore is just a goddamn awesome place to eat. I think he overestimates how hard it is to find a decent Chinese restaurant in urban China though. You just have to know the right folks. Going where the elites go is also a typically safe bet.
There's a difference between good pornography and bad pr0n so I wonder if there are porn critics out there. Not armchair geeks tossing up commentary during a porno but professionals with backgrounds in photography and choreography giving their two cents. I've heard porn stars have award ceremonies but I'm thinking of something a little more academic.
Southeast Asia hides old-school Chinese food unmarred by years of revolution, food shortages, and bourgeois purges. The best chefs kept their recipes, and their dignity, and trained the next generation. In the years under Mao, China's food culture suffered, while cooks in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong soldiered on. Their food is better for it.
So apparently even the (mainland) Chinese don't have authentic Chinese food. Thanks for letting the Chinese know the real score regarding authenticity, guy from Pennsylvania.
I dunno, his own response in the comments to that article have a fair amount of truth to them, I think. I haven't been there, but supposedly Singapore is just a goddamn awesome place to eat. I think he overestimates how hard it is to find a decent Chinese restaurant in urban China though. You just have to know the right folks. Going where the elites go is also a typically safe bet.
I think we've stumbled upon is the difference between "authentic" and "good". The chinese food in China is pretty much authentic by definition, to the extent that we're defining "Chinese food" as "the food that Chinese people eat." Maybe it's gone to shit in recent years, and maybe the food from Singapore tastes better. Whatever.
I mean, I've had what I believe is "authentic" Italian pizza, inasmuch as it's what people in Italy would eat and call a "pizza". I would still much rather have an Italian Garlic Supreme from Round Table. I think Tex Mex is fucking delicious, even though it's not what Mexican folks eat in Mexico.
ElJeffe on
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There's a difference between good pornography and bad pr0n so I wonder if there are porn critics out there. Not armchair geeks tossing up commentary during a porno but professionals with backgrounds in photography and choreography giving their two cents. I've heard porn stars have award ceremonies but I'm thinking of something a little more academic.
I'm sure there are dozens if not hundreds of treatises on the subject from sexology majors. I don't know if they approach the sort of artistic criticism you're talking about here, though.
Sushi should be cooked. I've never seen or heard of any sushi chef serving uncooked sushi. Maybe there's some avant garde guy doing it somewhere, but by your own logic that wouldn't be "authentic" sushi anyways.
The only places that cook sushi are bad "Chinese" buffets, cafeterias, and midwestern restaurants/caterers that have never been within 1000 miles of the ocean. Unless this is some semantic playing around, knowing that sushi technically only refers to the vinegared rice, in which case, yes, the rice is cooked. (And excepting certain things like unagi.)
I've only ever known sushi to mean the rice. Raw fish is sashimi - a whole other word.
If you want to use "sushi" to mean the rice + topping, well, plenty of toppings are cooked too. Lots of the squid and octopus varieties are grilled, and tempura (fried) varieties aren't uncommon. There's also lots of fish toppings that are "cooked" via citric acid marinade, similar to ceviche.
I dunno, his own response in the comments to that article have a fair amount of truth to them, I think. I haven't been there, but supposedly Singapore is just a goddamn awesome place to eat. I think he overestimates how hard it is to find a decent Chinese restaurant in urban China though. You just have to know the right folks. Going where the elites go is also a typically safe bet.
I don't have a problem with the writer thinking Chinese food is tastier in Malaysia than in China. Saying it's more "authentic" in Malaysia is an eyebrow-raiser, however. Sure, maybe it's more old-school and wasn't influenced by the societal shifts of Mao. But Mao, AFAIK, is part of China too. The cooks in Malaysia and Singapore are missing the last 50+ years of development in Chinese food. Maybe that's better taste-wise, but I don't see how it can help authenticity-wise.
Southeast Asia hides old-school Chinese food unmarred by years of revolution, food shortages, and bourgeois purges. The best chefs kept their recipes, and their dignity, and trained the next generation. In the years under Mao, China's food culture suffered, while cooks in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong soldiered on. Their food is better for it.
So apparently even the (mainland) Chinese don't have authentic Chinese food. Thanks for letting the Chinese know the real score regarding authenticity, guy from Pennsylvania.
I dunno, his own response in the comments to that article have a fair amount of truth to them, I think. I haven't been there, but supposedly Singapore is just a goddamn awesome place to eat. I think he overestimates how hard it is to find a decent Chinese restaurant in urban China though. You just have to know the right folks. Going where the elites go is also a typically safe bet.
I think we've stumbled upon is the difference between "authentic" and "good". The chinese food in China is pretty much authentic by definition, to the extent that we're defining "Chinese food" as "the food that Chinese people eat." Maybe it's gone to shit in recent years, and maybe the food from Singapore tastes better. Whatever.
I mean, I've had what I believe is "authentic" Italian pizza, inasmuch as it's what people in Italy would eat and call a "pizza". I would still much rather have an Italian Garlic Supreme from Round Table. I think Tex Mex is fucking delicious, even though it's not what Mexican folks eat in Mexico.
That's true, I disagree with the thesis of his main article--which I think may have been chosen as an attention-grabber more than as good analysis--but I don't think he's totally off-base in regards to a lot of the observations he makes, particularly in the comments.
I don't mean to demean your personal experience, I just mean quite literally that no matter how much you've studied you can't speak authoritatively about what any one out of 90 million people cooks. It's just not possible.
Why yes, it is possible that out of the millions of people in Sichuan there's some guy who's making food utterly and completely differently from absolutely everyone else when he decides to make traditional Sichuan food. Excellent point.
What if I think authentic Chinese food sucks, and the Americanized version is better? It's a matter of taste. The most authentic version of something does not make it the best, it makes it the most authentic.
I don't mean to demean your personal experience, I just mean quite literally that no matter how much you've studied you can't speak authoritatively about what any one out of 90 million people cooks. It's just not possible.
Why yes, it is possible that out of the millions of people in Sichuan there's some guy who's making food utterly and completely differently from absolutely everyone else when he decides to make traditional Sichuan food. Excellent point.
Eh? There's no need for the attitude. I've been totally respectful of your opinion.
Posts
You go find out if that's the case then.
I've already said this thread has interested me in looking to find out.
So yes, if you ignore my time studying Chinese and Chinese food with Chinese people, I'm nothing of an authority on an incredibly distinctive, well known, and obvious type of cuisine.
Kay?
The difference is only academic if you don't care about what you eat.
But take that example that I pasted: that guy elects not to educate himself about wines, and as such is content to drink cheaper stuff. I don't think it's unheard of for people to genuinely enjoy "lower" foods or musics, even given repeated output-->input feedback... is it?
Real Indian food is DELICATELY SPICED and in fact the average joe has eaten something that tastes quite like it when his mother was cooking, probably had noodles and clumps of pork.
Fake Indian is something that you would have probably been dared to eat when you were ten.
Also, wine can be drunk with dual "outputs." You can drink wine to enjoy the complex flavors or whatever*, or you can drink wine to get yo' ass drunk. I suspect for people who drink wine as a "means to an end," their selective pressure filter just ignores the flavor profiles.
Note that these two outputs can both function at the same time. My roommate for example is a borderline alcoholic and he's become super-picky about beer flavors.
I find the fact that we often set it up such that, "if you understand the finer qualities, you can not enjoy the simpler ones" to be sad. Sure, I know what a well prepared chili tastes like. I have hints about what a good wine should taste like. I can definitely understand the difference loose leaf teas have over the bagged variety. I will not deprive myself of enjoyment of the simpler and more accessible varieties, though.
In a double-blind taste-test, how much worse do simple, accessible foods perform than fancy "complex" foods?
And even if price or fanciness does correlate to double-blind deliciousness, I also suspect that the law of diminishing returns kicks in beyond a certain price level.
Disclosure: I haven't been to the Sichuan province of China. I have lots of Chinese friends who either are Sichuanese or have visited there though, and given my unwillingness while in China to explore restaurants on my own, I allowed them to take me to "the good places".
What is typically found in American Chinese restaurants bears essentially no resemblance to actual Sichuan food, based on my experience in China. It is possible to find it in America though, and it's not that people don't know how to cook it. I've ordered an excellent dish in Chinese, and another time at another place I had a Chinese friend help me select from the "secret Chinese menu". It's simply a different food for a different clientèle.
As far as french fries go, there is an etymological logic to the name, and as far as I can tell, "french fries" is a name for a specific food that evolved out of a description of a style of cooking. If there is an issue with this, it strikes me as separate from the issue of "Chinese food".
Tying your shoes? Sitting in a chair (I know my posture betrays that I am far from picky on how I sit). Wearing well cut clothes. Doing the laundry... I could probably go on till I hit something you do on a repeated basis that you are not as fundamentally picky about. Indeed, I would guess it is the things of leisure which you do fairly often that you are the most picky. Not just the things you do often.
That makes no bloody sense. They are both the same etymological reasons. We call Chinese food because years ago people did the same. Same with French Fries or French bread. Are these things legitimately French? No. Just as the foods are not legitimately Chinese.
Whereas, when you eat food, the experience of eating the food is typically extremely significant in and of itself. You could treat it as a means to an end of avoiding hunger, but it's hard not to notice that you like certain food more than others when you put it in your mouth and chew.
So I guess I should append my previous statement: anything I do repeatedly for the sake of the experience of that self-same thing, I get pickier about over time.
"French fries" is a name of a specific food, evolved out of the description "fried in the French way" or "French fried potatoes". The "french" is no longer capitalized in the term, as it's a common noun. I have no problem with this term as it was accurate back in the day, and though the fry has evolved quite a bit, I see the term as still being fundamentally accurate, as it was prepared way back when by Thomas Jefferson's French chef.
"Chinese" in "Chinese food" is an adjective, a description, and insofar as it's supposed to describe a food as being "Chinese" it's inaccurate. Same with "Szechwan beef" without the Sichuan peppers.
I use this method and I am irritated when the necessities of laces force me to use an inferior knot.
EDIT FOR TAERIC'S POST BELOW ME: http://www.zappos.com/n/p/p/7545382/c/198995.html are excellent velcro shoes and as a shoe-tying fanatic I highly recommend them.
Funny, I expressly picked tying of shoes as they are something that it is quite easy to get somewhat picky over. I am quite picky about the shoes I will buy, a small part of which is how well do the laces tie. Similarly, I will probably never buy velcro shoes, as I do like tied shoes more.
For chairs, many of us are quite picky on the types of chairs we will sit in. While I loath the way most leather chairs look, I do appreciate the ease of cleaning them. And I have grown quite fond of chaise lounges.
And this goes back to the intent of my statement earlier. There are many things which I could get pickier about, but I sometimes choose not to do so. It may be that I view these things as a means to and ends. Or it could be that I simply don't have the means to fully explore the topic.
Hmm... I believe this makes sense. You are saying that "chinese food" would be ok, but calling it "Chinese food" is not. I honestly just assumed people recognize the proper noun in Chinese food and so capitalize it. (I guess that belies an anti-French attitude in me?
Frankly, I'm pretty sure if anyone saying otherwise merely had Sichuan Pepper in their actual food at the quantities normally found in Sichuan, they'd realize the difference is quite large.
Yes, I agree. And cinema is a great example of that. Once upon a time, I knew dick about cinematography and direction. Movies were "good" or "bad" and that was about it. Now I get, for example, the difficulty in setting up Scorcese-like camera shot following a single character through a variety of sets for five minutes. Even if the movie isn't that great, I can pick up a detail like that and appreciate the difficulty that went into creating it. And if a movie is great, a little nuance like that will make it even better. On the other hand, an otherwise enjoyable movie might be harder to enjoy if there are things conspicuously bad about it. Bad camera work, poor timing and the like stand out really starkly.
And I don't think this is the result of just convincing myself that X is better because my refined sense tell me that X is better, as was suggested earlier. I can see that being the case with, say, the relative quality of different HDTVs. A person can imagine increased resolution. I don't think I'm really imagining that certain directorial or cinematography tricks are really hard to pull off, for example.
Oh, certainly. People who stare down their noses at others who don't enjoy things in the same way they do can choke on a cock.
I don't mean to demean your personal experience, I just mean quite literally that no matter how much you've studied you can't speak authoritatively about what any one out of 90 million people cooks. It's just not possible.
I recognize that by any reasonable definition, what's billed as Chinese food in America is not what people eat in China. I only mean to address that "what people eat in China" cannot usefully be labelled as "Chinese food" any more than "what people eat in America" can be usefully labeled as "American food."
The difference is academic because if you care about what you eat (although I think that's a rather disingenuous way to put what we're talking about) you're going to have to spend a certain amount of your time locating what you want regardless of what it is. There are restaurants, not many, but some, that prepare the kind of food you're looking for. They are hard to locate because you are looking for a kind of food which is rare in this part of the world. It would be helpful in finding the best burger in New England if only one burger joint was allowed to advertise as "The best burger in New England!", but unfortunately "best" is subjective and if you want to find the burger that you like the most you're going to have to either eat a lot of burgers or learn to cook. Unfortunately the same thing is true of "authentic" Chinese food.
I suppose you can downgrade my label from "academic" to "futile". If you want authentic Chinese food, your best bet is to go to China. Barring that, I think your best bet is to recognize that, in America, "Chinese food" does not mean "what people cook in China", and that while that makes locating it slightly more complicated, your main problem is just that it is very difficult to come by, and therefore to pursue other avenues to locate "what people cook in China."
What if they enjoy that?
Then they can drown in a vagina.
And if they still like that, I'll make it Rosie O'Donnell's vagina.
I imagine many ethnic cuisines are like this. There's a fusion element to any cuisine served in America.
Now you're just trying to turn me on.
A lot of it has to do with the differences between food as a necessity and food as a luxury.
I I think I have had authentic Chinese food, as indicated by the fact that it was in San Fran's Chinatown and it's where all of the Chinese people went and the folks there didn't speak a lick of English. Apparently the Chinese are not keen on cooking their meat all the way through and like everything to taste like fish.
(Authentic Mexican tends to rock, though. Except for beef tongue. Because it's fucking beef tongue. If I wanted beef tongue in my mouth I would make out with a cow.)
Sushi should be cooked. I've never seen or heard of any sushi chef serving uncooked sushi. Maybe there's some avant garde guy doing it somewhere, but by your own logic that wouldn't be "authentic" sushi anyways.
Also, there are plenty of places in China and in West Coast Chinatowns that sell fake bird's nest. There's nothing about being ripped off that precludes an "authentic" Chinese food experience, any more than watching a bootleg DVD of Red Cliff is somehow not an "authentic" Chinese film experience.
I don't really get authentic regionalism anyways. You can walk into 2 restaraunts in China across the street from each other, and they'll have dishes that taste different.
Besides, the quest for authenticity can lead to some hilariously stupid ends
For Authentic Chinese Food, Skip China
So apparently even the (mainland) Chinese don't have authentic Chinese food. Thanks for letting the Chinese know the real score regarding authenticity, guy from Pennsylvania.
The only places that cook sushi are bad "Chinese" buffets, cafeterias, and midwestern restaurants/caterers that have never been within 1000 miles of the ocean. Unless this is some semantic playing around, knowing that sushi technically only refers to the vinegared rice, in which case, yes, the rice is cooked. (And excepting certain things like unagi.)
Back on track, are there any thoughts on the idea of diminishing returns in regard to areas of expertise? For instance, thanks to the D&D coffee thread, I decided to try out a french press instead of using the usual filter-drip method for making my coffee. And while I do think it's better... it's only marginally so. I'm not sure it will change my morning coffee-drinking habits in any significant way; I can accept the good/mediocre instead of the excellent. On the other hand, in the aforementioned case of sushi, I find that I can't even tolerate the mediocre. Even in Japan, 100-yen sushi places are just not acceptable in any way, shape, or form, to me.
I dunno, his own response in the comments to that article have a fair amount of truth to them, I think. I haven't been there, but supposedly Singapore is just a goddamn awesome place to eat. I think he overestimates how hard it is to find a decent Chinese restaurant in urban China though. You just have to know the right folks. Going where the elites go is also a typically safe bet.
I think we've stumbled upon is the difference between "authentic" and "good". The chinese food in China is pretty much authentic by definition, to the extent that we're defining "Chinese food" as "the food that Chinese people eat." Maybe it's gone to shit in recent years, and maybe the food from Singapore tastes better. Whatever.
I mean, I've had what I believe is "authentic" Italian pizza, inasmuch as it's what people in Italy would eat and call a "pizza". I would still much rather have an Italian Garlic Supreme from Round Table. I think Tex Mex is fucking delicious, even though it's not what Mexican folks eat in Mexico.
I'm sure there are dozens if not hundreds of treatises on the subject from sexology majors. I don't know if they approach the sort of artistic criticism you're talking about here, though.
I've only ever known sushi to mean the rice. Raw fish is sashimi - a whole other word.
If you want to use "sushi" to mean the rice + topping, well, plenty of toppings are cooked too. Lots of the squid and octopus varieties are grilled, and tempura (fried) varieties aren't uncommon. There's also lots of fish toppings that are "cooked" via citric acid marinade, similar to ceviche.
I don't have a problem with the writer thinking Chinese food is tastier in Malaysia than in China. Saying it's more "authentic" in Malaysia is an eyebrow-raiser, however. Sure, maybe it's more old-school and wasn't influenced by the societal shifts of Mao. But Mao, AFAIK, is part of China too. The cooks in Malaysia and Singapore are missing the last 50+ years of development in Chinese food. Maybe that's better taste-wise, but I don't see how it can help authenticity-wise.
That's true, I disagree with the thesis of his main article--which I think may have been chosen as an attention-grabber more than as good analysis--but I don't think he's totally off-base in regards to a lot of the observations he makes, particularly in the comments.
EDIT @ BubbaT: I agree.
Why yes, it is possible that out of the millions of people in Sichuan there's some guy who's making food utterly and completely differently from absolutely everyone else when he decides to make traditional Sichuan food. Excellent point.
then you're a fucking philistine
I do love the creamy cooked salmon though (the authentic one at real sushi restaurants, not the shit they had at the "chinese" place)
does anyone know what it's called?
I'd like to know why
Eh? There's no need for the attitude. I've been totally respectful of your opinion.