Steroid-laden chicken breasts and a defense of Chinese food from the New York Times
Easily one of the best aspects of living in China is eating the food. The sheer variety and selection of entire cruisines - not to mention dishes - sets this country apart.
Chinese food is, as many of us have discovered, a far cry from the MSG-laden, deep-fried slop that is served up in American or Canadian Chinese fast-food restaurants. As I often tell my Chinese friends, Chinese food abroad is similar to pizza: it's fast, you can order it directly to your house, and even when it's bad, it's still good.
But rarely - actually, never, according to my recollections - have I ever gone fine dining to a Chinese restaurant abroad. Again, like pizza, it's not really considered a "fine dining" kind of cuisine. So it's nice that in today's edition of the New York Times, we are treated to an article by Fred Ferretti, an apparent Asian food expert, who wants to set the record straight regarding Chinese cuisine.
Let's start at the beginning. Virtually all of today's so-called Chinese cooking in the United States can best be described as undistinguished, served in restaurants generally indistinguishable one from another.
The how of this is easy. The Chinese who sailed to the Golden Mountain of America to lay the ties and tracks of the transcontinental railroad were all men. In this womanless society, these workers ate a food of survival; unfamiliar ingredients were cooked in rudimentary Chinese fashion. This coarsened cookery is what evolved into the Chinese-American genre. It is bastardized food, prepared first to feed a worker and then to please an American palate that dotes upon overcooked vegetables and sauces thickened with cornstarch and sugar.
I've known that westerners are generally ignorant about Chinese food (not necessarily their fault), but the depths of the ignorance was surprising:
Over the years, news organizations with reputations for accuracy and thoroughness have told me the following about Chinese cuisine: The "spring roll is similar to a typical egg roll"; "Chinese black tea is difficult to find" in America; "yum cha" is Australian for "dim sum"; Italian prosciutto is virtually identical to, and may be substituted for, the hard salted hams of western China.
All of these are egregiously incorrect. What is one to make of an authoritative Chinese cookbook that suggests "chopped California dates" as a substitute for red bean paste; opines that string beans will stand in nicely for bamboo shoots; sweet potatoes for taro; almonds for ginkgo nuts; a bouillon cube for soy sauce; salt for fermented black beans?
We are told that beggar's chicken, traditionally cooked encased in clay or a hard dough, can be made authentically in an oven roasting bag. It cannot. It is reported that cutting up and sautéing a black-fleshed chicken is an authentic preparation. No, it is not. In China, black chickens are never eaten; rather they are steamed at length, with the resulting broth drunk as a health tonic and the meat discarded. In the last year, I have read that there are five, six or eight great regional traditions of Chinese cooking. In fact, there are four, always and ever four.
California dates for red bean? "Yum cha" is Australian? Bouillon cubes for soy sauce? No wonder Chinese food in America tastes the way it does.
This valiant defense of Chinese food is accompanied by another article in the New York Times - published on the very same day - called "Wary U.S. Olympians Will Bring Food to China".
When a caterer working for the United States Olympic Committee went to a supermarket in China last year, he encountered a piece of chicken -- half of a breast -- that measured 14 inches. "Enough to feed a family of eight," said Frank Puleo, a caterer from Staten Island who has traveled to China to handle food-related issues.
"We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive."
Now, as I've said before, there is an outcry internationally about Beijing's pollution, food, and environmental problems in the leadup to the Olympics. We want to make sure our atheletes are well cared for and looked after. The question is, what about the rest of us? I've seen enlarged chicken breasts in the supermarkets here, and must say, they are quite tasty. But have we really considered what we are putting into our mouths?
The US will be sending over pork, beef, and chicken for their athletes, and have asked several other companies to chip in.
The U.S.O.C. will send measuring cups because, as Ms. Hamilton noted, the United States does not use the metric system. Kellogg's has been asked to supply cereals like Frosted Flakes and Mini-Wheats, as well as Nutri-Grain bars, because those products are not readily available in China. Finding molasses, they learned, is next to impossible. Ice? Also a challenge.
Frosted Flakes, Mini-Wheats, and Nutri-Grain bars are hard to come by? They obviously didn't stop by Jenny Lou's or April's Gourmet in Beijing, or the countless foreign food markets that are popping up all over the country. As for molasses, well, I've never looked. And they are correct about ice, which is nearly impossible to find.
What I gather from these articles confirms my prior beliefs: Chinese food tastes good, but it isn't the healthiest option by any stretch. It must be somewhat insulting for Chinese people -- who take such pride in their cuisine -- to see foreign Olympic delegations bringing their own food.
For the record, I love Chinese cuisine, and feel blessed to have had authentic "yum cha" in the south and roast duck in the north (and everything in between). One hopes the athletes, following their competitions, will sample the local fare and help others more fully understand China's complex and delicious treats. Although they might want to take a pass on 14 inch (half) chicken breasts.
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I have tried; molasses is extremely difficult to find in Beijing, at least outside of places like Jenny Lou's. Carrefour and the major Chinese supermarket chains tend not to carry it.
And I've seen varying numbers of "famous cuisines" even in Chinese sources. Four is the most common (Shandong, Jiangzhe, Sichuan, Guangdong) but some people find another four (adding Anhui, Fujian, Hunan, and then splitting Jiangzhe into Jiangsu and Zhejiang). I haven't seen five or six, though.
"Yum cha" (drink tea) is the act of going to a restaurant to taste "dim sum" (snack/hor d oeuvres). In a real authentic "Yum cha" of olde, tea is the main course, and you only taste one or two pieces of the "dim sum". And it is supposed to be a quiet activity, when you read, or hold quiet conversation, listen to music. It is a breakfast, a afternoon snack, or a evening out event, never a meal.
Chopped dates (Actually meshed dates) is another filling for sweets, like lotus seed paste, red bean paste, green bean paste, etc. Red bean paste is used mostly in the south, and meshed dates are used in the north. Red bean paste is consider a cheap substitute for the better stuff.
Chinese cuisine can be categorized into 4 major cuisines (i.e. the so-called 四大菜系 si da cai xi):
- 粤菜 Yue Cai (Guangdong province) which includes Guangzhou cuisine, Chaozhou cuisine and Dongjiang cuisine (Guangzhou as the representative).
- 鲁菜 Lu Cai (Shandong provinces). Basically, it represents the cuisines in northern part of China. It used to be the biggest cuisine in China (I heard most of the state banquets are Lu cai). It's popularity is in decline these days.
- 川菜 Chuan Cai (Sichuan province). Everybody knows this one.
- 淮扬菜 Huai Yang Cai (Zhejiang and Jiangsu province) which includes Yangzhou cuisine, Huai'an cuisine and Zhenjiang cuisine.
It can also be categorized into 8 regional cuisines (i.e. the so-called 八大菜系 ba da cai xi):
- Anhui (Hui 徽)
- Cantonese (Yue 粵)
- Fujian (Min 闽)
- Hunan (Xiang 湘)
- Jiangsu (Su 苏 or Yang 揚)
- Shandong (Lu 魯)
- Szechuan (Chuan 川)
- Zhejiang (Zhe 浙)
It really depends how you categorize it. Don't worry, most people in China can't tell which one is which one either. :-)
Hi,
I just want to say that this article on NYTimes sounds like American propaganda against Chinese. It is quite sad to see one of the top newspapers of the world to put this kind of articles on the cover page. It looks Xinhua-style
@ Pumpkin:
How do you think it is propaganda against the Chinese? If anything, the article about Chinese cuisine works hard to explain it to Americans, and dispell any misconceptions.
As for the article on unsafe food, it mentions that Americans should sample Chinese food once they are finished their competitions.
Come on. An American wants to talk about "healthy food"? Are you kidding me? Look those food served in KFC, Varsity, Wendy's, Mcdonald. Look how fat Americans are. Give me more proof for your claim that American food is healthier than Chinese food
Richard, I think you're missing the point- no one's saying (at least not here) that American cuisine, in and of itself is healthier than Chinese cuisine. (That comparison would be pretty ridiculous anyway, given how diverse Chinese cuisine is and how undefined American cuisine is.) It's about how safe the ingredients are, especially for athletes.
Chinese food - very overrated. You thinks it has unrivalled variety and then you go to somewhere like Singapore and see what a real variety of food and cultures looks (and tastes like). In my opinion, of course.
And what;s all this even bad chinese food tastes good? no it doesn't, it tastes awful. pretty much like bad food anywhere. In my six years in beijing I had countless bad meals and a great number of arguments with waiting staff when asking that they give me something more edible.
all this romanticising about Chinese food - such a 'middle kingdom' trait. seriously, some Chinese food is good (well made sichuan) while some is dull and tasteless (a lot of north eastern dishes). variety is not always equatable with quality.
I agree, I'm kind of over Chinese food. There is certainly a lot of good stuff, but your typical cheap meals of noodles, jiaozi, baozi, or whatever, definitely lose their novelty. If I could only have food having originated in ONE country for the rest of my life, Chinese food would be a good choice, but I prefer the variety of food available (conveniently and at reasonable prices- no 30-60 minute trips and inflated prices like you pay for most non-Chinese foods in bigger Chinese cities) in any reasonably-diverse American town or city.
Personally, I've been pretty lucky with Chinese food; the only time I ever got seriously sick was in Hong Kong- although it was pretty bad, as I threw up nine times the next day. Well, and then there was the time that I accidentally let a huajiao go straight down my throat while eating hotpot, which made my throat close up and unable to breathe until I ran to the "bathroom" to throw up, but that was an anomaly.
However, I have had enough meals that left my gut churning in unfamiliar ways (and known enough people who've had far worse luck than myself) that I don't think it's at all unreasonable for Olympic competitors, who are extremely precise with their diets, to bring food from home. As a bonus, it will probably inadvertently irk some of the thinner-skinned Chinese patriots, which I always enjoy because I'm just a passive-aggressive jerk like that.
erm... 14 inch chicken breast? 1 foot 2 inches? half a breast? I think the guy needs to change his glasses, or learn his maths again.
I lived in China for about 10 years, and had never come across any chicken breast larger than 8 inches, be it supermarkets or individual stalls, in cities or in countryside. No doubt the food is not as hygiene, but that 'size' is definitely wrong. A turkey? Maybe. But Chinese don't fancy turkey. There is no Chinese cuisine prepared using turkey.
steroid chicken rocks!