Recently in Chinese Food Category

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.