h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've eaten in lots of restaurants in
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the "Chinatown"
sections of Boston and San Francisco.

Some observations: Chinese food varies
tremendously in Taiwan. Nevertheless,
one common denominator seems to be
a liberal hand with the hot spices.
Chinese food in Hong Kong is often
quite similar to what people in the U.S.
Northeastern seaboard would expect to
find in a "Chinese" restaurant. This
should not be too surprising, as many
of the chefs that work in these U.S.
restaurants came over from Hong Kong.
There is a Hong Kong style of cuisine.
There is a Hunan (or Honan) style of
cuisine. Indeed, there are many, many
regional styles of cuisine in China.
I wouldn't rush to pass judgment on the
authenticity of your local "Chinese"
restaurant's food without knowing what
region's cuisine the chef is trying to
be true to. Also, make up your mind if you
want a meal you can enjoy, or a totally
authentic meal such as real Chinese people
might eat.

Here are some things that real Chinese people
might occasionally eat. I am not making this
up, by the way. I really saw people eating
these things: For snacks, bought at roadside
stands: cherries marinated in soy sauce and
then dried; crackers with fish paste mixed
in with the dough. In restaurants such as a
Chinese government official might eat at:
chunks of pork fat in gravy; pig's brain soup.
At more upscale restaurants: soup courses
in which you have no idea what ingredients
are floating around. Maybe they're sea
cucumbers. Maybe they're relatives of the squid.
I enjoyed most of the things that I ate while
in Asia (in some cases very much), but let's not
kid ourselves that everything authentic will
taste good to us.

In any event, the people who run Chinese
restaurants outside China are in the hospitality
business. In order to survive as businessmen,
they have to satisfy their customers. Since
there are differences of taste in North America
and Europe and elsewhere, I'm not too surprised
to learn that there may be variations in "Chinese"
food in these places. Of course, there are Chinese
people who live in these countries, too, so the
cuisine can't get *too* far from the original.

hmmm that explaines some of the food under the 'eurooean' section of the menu board of the local chinese. They make an interesting spring roll.

For my part I couldn't give a hoot about athenticity, I like the food or I don't.

Apparition was trying to make a point about common ground and I mearly ment to point out that Chinese food is a bad example.

The truth is, weather we like it or not, we all have much more in common than not. That does get lost in the heat of argument. The only reason we are able to get under each others skin like we sometimes do, is the fact that we do have enough history, culture, and values in common to be able to argue about the details in the first place.

I can vouch for Indian Indian food not being very similar to British Indian food.

Indian Indian tends to be cheap - 'chicken' usually refers to some inedible bone and skin dumped in your sauce to flavour it, whereas to a Brit the sauce is added to chicken-breast to flavour that. I suspect Chinese Chinese food is similar. Though I have never been remotely near the poorer (i.e. non-Hong Kong) parts of China, I suspect that crunchy, flavoursome vegetables need not apply. Likewise, I am pretty sure that cutting vegetables into pretty shapes is a European thing.

Foreign food gets 'Anglicised' (or insert adjective for relevant country) or it doesn't get sold. That said, I am sure that (bizarrely) outside China, Chinese food is pretty much the same.

Gif

>Likewise, I am pretty sure that cutting vegetables into pretty shapes is a European thing.<

Crinkle cut cucumber - warm.. Euuuyuck.

Liam.

Always remember it was a Brit who invented Chilli in the modern sense of the word.

He was, apparently, searching for something similar to curry...8-}

I would be surprised if Chinese food outside of China was he same the world over. I haqve noticed a number of differences between Indian food served in Glasgow to that served in the South of England. The most obvious being the humble pakora, eaten everywhere up north and practically nowhere down south. There is also the time at which people eat a curry. In Glasgow it was always eat then go to the pub, whereas down here it seems much more drink, and then go for a curry. All different and yet very similar.

Then again, there's no 11 o'clock closing time in Scotland.

Gif

In London, most cheap Indian restaurants are Bangladeshi, in fact (e.g. all the restaurants in Brick Lane).

Some Indian dishes created in Britain, for British palettes, have been imported into India, including the Chicken Tikka Masala.

I have had Indian food in India (New Delhi) and while it's different from typical British Indian fare, it was in the same ball-park. Slightly more exotic flavourings, I'd say. Friends who have travelled more widely in India say that most local cuisine is a one-way trip to disentry and stomach cramps, and not at all as nice as British Indian food (though this is a generalisation, and the different strokes for different folks rules apply I guess). The same friends who have travelled to Thailand, on the other hand, say that the local cuisine is very similar to Thai restaurant food in the UK.

"The truth is, weather we like it or not, we all have much more in common than not. That does get lost in the heat of argument. The only reason we are able to get under each others skin like we sometimes do, is the fact that we do have enough history, culture, and values in common to be able to argue about the details in the first place."

Good point

The truth is, weather we like it or not, we all have much more in common than not. That does get lost in the heat of argument. The only reason we are able to get under each others skin like we sometimes do, is the fact that we do have enough history, culture, and values in common to be able to argue about the details in the first place.
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