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Rabbit: You need to account for the fact that the cultural revolution absolutely devastated Chinese cuisine. Many many dishes that were absolutely unique were completely lost from memory. Only the very popular and more generally appealing dishes have survived. Even in Taiwan, where many dishes have survived, that knowledge is being lost as children do not wish to follow in the culinary footsteps of their fathers.
Furthermore, you need to understand that the Chinese do not have as much of a fixation on sugar as other cultures do. That disinterest strongly informs their dessert options. One of my favorite things to do as a missionary was to get mini recess peanut butter cups from America and give them to children. They thought they were absolutely disgusting, far too much sweetness, the found it astounding that I could eat several at a time, with no apparent ill effect.
At a formal meal, there simply was no room for dessert. Food after food would be brought out, and it was the diversity that was important. Even when discussing the meal, saying, "MMMM this is so good!" does not carry nearly as much weight as, "My goodness, the variety at your table is so extensive!" As a matter of fact the phrase a host or hostess will use to traditionally denigrate the meal and provide you the opportunity to compliment them is "沒什麽蔡" (There's no vegetables). Meat is a sign of wealth in Chinese cooking, extensive and creative use of vegetables is a sign of prowess and adeptness.
But I'll confess, I'm biased against desserts, I just don't really eat them much.
edit: If you're interested. The movie "Eat Drink Man Woman" by Ang Lee (of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain) fame, demonstrates traditional Chinese family dynamics, with a specific emphasis on Chinese cuisine. It's one of the best movies ever made IMHO, and the ending is probably the only ending that chokes me up with happiness every time. The food is almost pornographic in it's appeal.
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In my experience desserts in general don't belong to Far-East food cultures. I've been to Japan, South-Korea, China, HK, Malaysia and Cambodia, and in none of those places desserts were ever offered. I dined with local people fairly often, and never saw a dessert on the table.
You might get a non-sweet soup or something similar in the end, but I wouldn't qualify that as a "dessert" anymore than the vodka shot in Russia.
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Didn't someone post that video a while back that attested they were actually a Japanese-American creation?
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: You're missing a critical difference in culture. Westerners, particularly North Americans, are notably provincial eating only from a small variety of foods. Asians, particularly the Cantonese, are cosmopolitan and will eat pretty much anything once (and dine out often).
We're simply that much more into eating good food and a big variety of it.
I've come to expect this kind of cultural chauvinism from you, however this generalization doesn't at all match my experience, either as a North American native or a European resident.
Yeah, yeah, you can find people in Idaho who never eat at ethnic restaurants or even have them available. I bet you could find plenty of people in China who don't have much of a worldly palette either. Seriously, how can you experience the world and actually believe crap like this? It's just blatantly fallacious.
I suppose it does no good reminding you that such a remark made by a Caucasian like myself about people in Asia would be dismissed as narrow minded and simplistic, not to mention *slightly* above my actual ability to demonstrate as even being generally valid. You wouldn't even give Americans who have lived in Asia the benefit of the doubt if they said something like this, because they'd be as wrong as you are. This all doesn't upset me too much, I'm just saddened that you find this kind of disparagement acceptable. By extension, I find this passive-aggressively racist type of remark, which is all too common, to be really disappointing, and I wish that Americans as a whole were less accepting of it.
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I couldn't tell whether you were being sarcastic or not, but quite frankly, I thought his statement was pretty accurate. (I'm a North American).
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I've come to expect this kind of cultural chauvinism from you, however this generalization doesn't at all match my experience, either as a North American native or a European resident.
You can call it whatever you want, but I'm sorry that reality doesn't match your wishes. On the most superficial level, you can simply wander into your local Chinese supermarket. If its anything like the ones in Canada, you'll find a bewildering array of seafood, meats, vegetables, and pre-prepared food that you'll never find in normal supermarkets. Businesses are already beyond this and know to focus on us as a group.
After all, we spend more on food...
quote:Loblaw is targeting a market whose households spend up to 23 per cent more on groceries than others in Canada, according to data last year.
They are members of the fast-growing South Asian and Chinese Canadian communities, and they account for about one-third – or $5.7-billion – of grocery spending in Toronto and Vancouver, a study last year by market researcher Solutions Research Group found.
It found that South Asian Canadians spend $154 a week on their groceries, or 23 per cent more than an average household in Toronto and Vancouver.
quote: Consumers in Asia dine out more frequently than others, but in Hong Kong in particular, nearly one-third eat at a restaurant one or more times every day. Europeans were least likely to go out for a meal, with the Dutch most likely to eat out less than once a month at 57 percent.
There's really not a lot to it. Plus the dark side of this has gotten plenty of press, lots of new pressure on global seafood, high inflation on food prices, even the world's most expensive truffles end up in Hong Kong. linkPosts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: It would take a pretty severe alcohol addiction to find vanilla extract remotely drinkable.
My sister used to pour vanilla extract into hot cocoa- she was only like ten. I doubt she knew there was even booze in it.
How much? Anywhere from 1/4 tsp. to a whole teaspoon would probably enhance the taste of a standard-size cup of cocoa. Much more than that would be nasty.
An entire 1 oz. bottle (the most common size, although it comes in 2 oz. and larger sizes too) of vanilla contains less alcohol than a shot of vodka. Less than or similar to the amount in a shot (1.5 oz) of most liqueurs -- extracts are typically 35% alcohol, and liqueurs range from about 20-45%, no?
Now, downing the super-family-size 12-oz. bottle is another story altogether.
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Wait, does that mean if you're mormon you can't use real vanilla es tract? That's the good stuff.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I've come to expect this kind of cultural chauvinism from you, however this generalization doesn't at all match my experience, either as a North American native or a European resident.
You can call it whatever you want, but I'm sorry that reality doesn't match your wishes.
I said "experiences." I won't talk to you at all if you're gonna play that kind of game.
quote: If its anything like the ones in Canada, you'll find a bewildering array of seafood, meats, vegetables, and pre-prepared food that you'll never find in normal supermarkets. Businesses are already beyond this and know to focus on us as a group.
Serious question: How many countries have you lived in? Because the blanket assertion here, that I'm seeing, is that Asians eat more variety or are more worldly in their tastes based on a certain kind of supermarket? Your generalization doesn't work for me straight off the bat- I shop in Asian markets too- I shop in one at Vytony almost every day!
Firstly, please, Asian supermarkets exist outside of Asia to service Asians and other people who want Asian products (and by the way, contrary to your assertions, I shop in Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese supermarkets all the time to get the basic things I'm used to eating from California). These stores are obviously a special case. Aside from that, I have shopped in "American" grocery stores across Europe, and they stand apart from local groceries in their variety, not to mention their prices. Big fat surprise. Your argument that Asians actually eat better food (from a qualitative standpoint, not one of health standards or nutrition) because it costs more? Please give me a break. You're basing that assertion off of groceries in Canada- how in the world do you expect that to sound like convincing evidence of anything at all?
I'm not arguing against Asian food or even anything Asian at all, mind you. I'm arguing against the idea that you can generalize or deduce anything useful out of a west v. east set of postulates, especially when you base them on your own experiences, plus a couple of dubious anecdotes about one type of food costing more- which btw, says nothing about asians being "cosmopolitan" when it comes to non-Asian foods. I'm sure many Asians *are* cosmopolitan, but you're going to have one hell of a time providing evidence that that's a general state of affairs anywhere- your assumptions are artifacts of your own experiences, and I simply object to your assumption that you know enough to make such conclusions. I assure you, you do not.
Look, I could provide a bunch of anecdotes to "prove" something about any country. I'm in Paris at the moment, and on my street there is a Chinese grocery, two french grocers, a high end butcher shop, two produce markets, a fish shop, an italian restaurant, two french restaurants, a bottle shop (wine mostly), a bakery, a cheese shop, a desert shop, two cafes and a handful of convenient stores- all of them have huge and surprisingly varied selections for such small places. On the weekends there is a farmer's market under the metro platforms that sells an ungodly assortment of meets, cheeses, prepared foods, candies, produce, fish, sauces, etc. It's really an incredible place to live if you're looking for food. I've shopped in all these places in the past two weeks, and had a varied and interesting diet. Have you been here? Have you seen it? No? Have you been to every country in Europe, every city in America, every neighborhood with its unique variety of offerings? No? Then you don't know what you're talking about. Anyone who claims to know crap like that is full of it himself.
posted
Once, in a dim sum shop, I bought a round, flat dumpling filled with a black bean paste that was quite sweet. And very tasty. I have also had bao that was filled with a struesel-like substance that reminded me of, for some reason, of pineapple. I don't know how authentic these foods were, but my Chinese relations liked them well enough.
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DANG IT! If I had a jar of jelly out all night, (This all fruit stuff) can I still eat it? Plus it's cold in here and this stuff is 2.39!
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DANG IT! If I had a jar of jelly out all night, (This all fruit stuff) can I still eat it? Plus it's cold in here and this stuff is 2.39!
Jelly does fine without refrigeration. The pH and water activity are both low enough in most jellies to prevent any microbial growth.
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Doctrine and Covenants Section 89, or the Word of Wisdom, says of alcohol and coffee 1)Wine should only be used for the Sacrement, 2)When it is used, it should be "of your own make", 3)"Strong drinks" are for external use only, 4)"Hot drinks" are not to be drunk.
That "hot drinks" refer to coffee and tea made from the tea plant is something that came from a later revelation. The total prohibition of alcoholic beverages, I was told although I do not have any references, came into effect because there was at one time a fashion among the saints of neglecting their tithes in order to maintain their wine cellars.
It's a bit of a stretch to call vanilla extract either strong in alcohol or a drink.
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Orincoro: They're not personal anecdotes. They're studies drawing conclusions based on surveys and statistics. I'm sorry that your background has ill-prepared you to handle the difference.
It would be useful to understand that if a person says something like Americans use more gasoline than Europeans, it does not mean that each and every American uses more gasoline than each and every European. And one doesn't have to personally visit every single country and every neighborhood to verify that. One simply has to look at the data, its right there in the links, stats on international food preferences.
But I tire of you and your narrow-focus on getting offended by my statements out of context. Indeed, even this time I said that the supermarket example is merely "the most superficial level" before going onto the actual data.
If you're seeking to be offended, I won't stand in your way. In fact, I may even encourage it as a good way to release your emotions and whatever problems that are really bothering you.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Orincoro: They're not personal anecdotes. They're studies drawing conclusions based on surveys and statistics. I'm sorry that your background has ill-prepared you to handle the difference.
It would be useful to understand that if a person says something like Americans use more gasoline than Europeans, it does not mean that each and every American uses more gasoline than each and every European. And one doesn't have to personally visit every single country and every neighborhood to verify that. One simply has to look at the data, its right there in the links, stats on international food preferences.
But I tire of you and your narrow-focus on getting offended by my statements out of context. Indeed, even this time I said that the supermarket example is merely "the most superficial level" before going onto the actual data.
If you're seeking to be offended, I won't stand in your way. In fact, I may even encourage it as a good way to release your emotions and whatever problems that are really bothering you.
Spare me please, I don't need your condescension or your false magnanimity. I'm responding to the conclusion *you* drew, which was that Asians are more cosmopolitan in their tastes than westerners. None of what you cited addresses that- the gasoline analogy doesn't fit for that conclusion. It's an unprovable hypothesis, and the generalization serves no useful purpose other than to reinforce, once again, your cultural chauvinism.
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• prepare (fruit) for long-term storage by boiling it with sugar : [as adj. ] ( preserved) those sweet preserved fruits associated with Cremona.
noun 1 (usu. preserves) food made with fruit preserved in sugar, such as jam or marmalade : home-made preserves.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: ... It's an unprovable hypothesis, and the generalization serves no useful purpose other than to reinforce, once again, your cultural chauvinism.
Again, your inability to conceive of a way to measure it does not mean there actually is not a way. In fact, its already been done.
Plus, I never actually said it was a useful conclusion. Its just the truth.
What is more interesting is your assumption that I find it useful which probably means that you're assigning some personal significance to this comparison, which is beyond me.
In short, I'd like ask you: what's eating you?
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Plus, I never actually said it was a useful conclusion. Its just the truth.
:snort: Whatever. Keep baiting me with your ad hominems- it's very effective at proving that your opinion is "the truth." Go read some Theodor Adorno- you'd love him.
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*shrug* The record shows that I've provided proof for my assertions while you have not.
In fact, while I've been speaking in generalities which say little about my own eating habits, you've gone out of your way to detail "your" shopping habits and what "you've" eaten. While its pleasing that you seek validation (and thats a good thing), it highlights that you're taking this on a much more personal level than I am. As does, well, your insults.
I'm confident that if you take some time to consider, you'll realize that your beef is really not with me but with yourself. I'll leave you to it.
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Again, stop condescending to me, and stop offering your false magnanimity. Your assertions about my state of mind are both incorrect and unwelcome- spare me your attempts at manipulation.
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quote:Originally posted by Jamio: ... I have also had bao that was filled with a struesel-like substance that reminded me of, for some reason, of pineapple.
This may or may not be "chicken tail" bao. For some reason, it usually tastes like pineapple to me, but I'm told its actually coconut. (It should be fairly new)
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quote: One of my favorite things to do as a missionary was to get mini recess peanut butter cups from America and give them to children. They thought they were absolutely disgusting, far too much sweetness, the found it astounding that I could eat several at a time, with no apparent ill effect.
This being so, why was that a favourite thing? Did you follow up by pointing out the Bible verse where it's said that the faithful shall be able to drink poison without ill effect? I can see where that would be pretty convincing to someone being exposed to American candy for the first time.
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quote:Originally posted by Tuukka: In my experience desserts in general don't belong to Far-East food cultures. I've been to Japan, South-Korea, China, HK, Malaysia and Cambodia, and in none of those places desserts were ever offered. I dined with local people fairly often, and never saw a dessert on the table.
You might get a non-sweet soup or something similar in the end, but I wouldn't qualify that as a "dessert" anymore than the vodka shot in Russia.
I'm Chinese-American, with parents who grew up in Cambodia. You probably haven't seen many desserts because they aren't typically offered in a conventional western sense-- in companion to a meal. At least in my experience, "desserts" are mostly eaten as snacks. When my family and I dine in an Asian (Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai and Cambodian places in the LA) restaurant for lunch or dinner, we rarely accompany the meal with a dessert. In many Asian cultures, desserts aren't so much a course in a meal, but simply a category of food... and it's definitely a big part of any Asian food culture that I've encountered.
Here are just a few of the obvious examples of the desserts.
posted
Zomg. I've been meaning to make some sticky rice and mango. You, good sir/ma'am, have just encouraged me to do so.
To everyone else in this thread, BOO to all of you. BOO because you have access to cool supermarkets and Asian food and French markets and...stuff. Fort Worth, Texas is the least cosmopolitan city in the universe, and I don't need evidence to back that up. In fact, I refuse to go look for it.
quote:In short, I'd like ask you: what's eating you?
Probably an Asian. Westerners are generally too culinarily timid for Orincoro meat.
I look appetizing, but I'm pretty tough and gamy- of course, savage westerners just cover me with honey and barbecue and sweet and sour sauce because unlike Asians, they are barbarians with no culinary tradition or taste. :nod:
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Orincoro: They're not personal anecdotes. They're studies drawing conclusions based on surveys and statistics. I'm sorry that your background has ill-prepared you to handle the difference.
Mucus, If you are actually referring to studies on the topic, can you please provide a reference. So far, all you have provided are assertions and anecdotes many of which are not consistent with my personal experience. I would very much like to see the details of the studies to which you refer. Those details make a big difference. Were they comparing Western vs. chinese diet in 2000, 1950 or 1600. Were they comparing Hong Kong with Boise Idaho, or Hong Kong with Paris and New York. How did they define variety? For example, would the 100 different kinds of cheese available at the Muenster Farmers market be considered "cheese" or 100 different things. It would be very easy to define variety in a way that is highly culturally biased.
Your Asian grocery example demonstrates this very clearly. I shop routinely at Asian markets because I use many of the gluten free flours I use (rice, tapioca, potato etc) are more readily there and I cook commonly with Asian spices and vegetables. I will agree that you can find a large variety of things in an Asian grocery that you won't find in a good generally American grocery store. But I could also list hundreds of items that you won't find in an Asian grocery that are routinely available in a good American grocery store. For example, the fruit selection in Asian groceries is generally abysmal. Cheeses and cured meats aren't available at all. Grocery stores in the Western US will generally carry at least a dozen different types of hot peppers, I typically find only 1 at asian groceries. There are some spices and seasoning that I can find only at an Asian grocer and others that simply are not available at Asian stores. On the other hand, I can get 5 or six different kinds of eggplant at the Asian grocery, but I've never seen more than 2 at the regular grocery.
Please, give us your references so I can check and see what has actually been studied.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Oh, then pray tell me why I can't think of one really good Chinese or Japanese dessert? Why is it that none of the dessert you find on the menu at a chinese restaurant or Japanese restaurant are actually Chinese or Japanese?
Thats basically an argument from ignorance. In fact, if you're at a Chinese restaurant where none of the desserts are actually Chinese then that's probably a sign you're at a restaurant for Westerners. In which case, you may as well ask why you can't think of a non-greasy or non-fried Chinese food.
You are making an entirely incorrect assumption. I am very well traveled and have eaten in very authentic Chinese and Japanese restaurants in those countries. I also have good friends from both Taiwan and the main land who cook for me frequently.
quote:In fact, in a proper Chinese restaurant the default dessert provided at the end of a dinner is usually red bean based and it should have any number of other desserts based upon red bean, green tea (as BlBl noted), tofu, taro, or lotus. And increasingly, bubble tea at the establishments more aimed at youth.
Yup, I've had them and they just aren't very good. Yeah, I know that's an objective opinion but I think you will observe its a pretty wide spread objective opinion. I've also been informed by several chinese friends that serving any dessert with a Chinese meal is non-traditional and reflects Western influence. A traditional chinese meal is conclude with soup, not a sweet dish. Sweets were something eaten as "snacks" and very rarely as part of a meal.
quote:Heck, we have a very popular holiday that is effectively devoted to cake.
I've had steamed rice cakes. I'm still waiting for a single example of a really good Chinese dessert
quote: Explain why it is that French and Viennese pastry shops are opening on ever street corner in Japan but red bean cakes and sticky rice balls just haven"t really caught on in the west?
You're missing a critical difference in culture. Westerners, particularly North Americans, are notably provincial eating only from a small variety of foods. Asians, particularly the Cantonese, are cosmopolitan and will eat pretty much anything once (and dine out often).[/quote]
That's just nonsense as an answer to the question at hand. Chinese restaurants are popular in virtually every town in the US with a population over 1000. If the town is big enough to have a restaurant, it nearly always has a chinese restaurant. It may not be that authentic, but I wouldn't argue that most of the french pastry shops in Tokyo were very authentic either. There is no shortage of Asian food or Asian restaurants in the US -- what there is a shortage of are Asian desserts. If Asian sweets are really that terrific, why aren't they available in the US and Europe when virtually every other kind of Asian restaurant is ubiquitous in the west? It's just silly to claim this is because Americans have very narrow provincial tastes and Asians do not. In my experience, with the one exception of desserts, western restaurants are not nearly as common in Asia and Asian restaurants are in the west.
[ July 26, 2009, 08:28 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Rabbit: try reading the thread, such as the links he already provided that make direct reference to the marketing studies involved. And we shouldn't be surprised they don't match your own experience since
1) you are outside the norm in many ways
and
2) the numbers found by the marketing studies are trends and tendencies, not hard and fast rules about how everyone behaves.
edit: I should also say I think you're both mostly talking past each other. It is entirely possible for urban populations in China and Japan to both dine out and enjoy a greater variety of food and to not have originated any particularly great desserts. For instance. So why one keeps being raised as a counterpoint to the other, I'm not really sure. (And that Japanese urban residents dine out more I have absolutely no doubts about; there's a reason Tokyo did so amazingly well when Michelin went there.)
still edit: variety is a much trickier question, though. I saw two actual western restaurants in the Kansai region when visiting Osaka (and a day in Kyoto) for a week recently. One was a German restaurant (tucked behind a shrine in Osaka), and one was an English pub (on the outskirts of the Kyoto tourist district). Every other "western" restaurant was an entirely predictable malaise of pseudo-western dishes, much like Chinese restaurants tend to be in the US. Of course, the Japanese and other asian restaurants had an incredible variety of food, but an appreciation for variety in western food (beyond cute drinks in cafes) was not in evidence. Finding sweet desserts wasn't a problem; most were takes on sundaes and other ice cream desserts.
quote:Rabbit: try reading the thread, such as the links he already provided that make direct reference to the marketing studies involved. And we shouldn't be surprised they don't match your own experience since
1) you are outside the norm in many ways
and
2) the numbers found by the marketing studies are trends and tendencies, not hard and fast rules about how everyone behaves.
Fugu, No need to be so condescending. If there is someplace where I have actually argued that my experience doesn't support the statistics please point it out. I believe all I've argued is that my experience does not match the anecdotal evidence Mucus has used to support his interpretation of the statistics.
Unless I've missed something, which is possible, mucus linked to two articles. One of which quoted data indicating that Asians in Canada spend 23% more on groceries than the average Canadian and the other of which reported that Asians eat out more than Americans and Europeans. Neither article supports mucus' broad contention that Asians are more cosmopolitan in their tastes. There are numerous explanations for this other than those suggested by mucus. For example, I'm not sure about Canada, but in the US Asians have higher average household incomes than other groups which might easily explain why they spend more on average on food. According to my students from Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Thailand, its common in southeast asian cities for people to eat out because they have no kitchen in their homes (apartments). The fact that they eat many or most of their meals out reflects differences in living conditions that have little to do with having more cosmopolitan tastes.
quote:edit: I should also say I think you're both mostly talking past each other. It is entirely possible for urban populations in China and Japan to both dine out and enjoy a greater variety of food and to not have originated any particularly great desserts. For instance. So why one keeps being raised as a counterpoint to the other, I'm not really sure.
You don't seem to have been following the progress of the argument. I pointed out that European/Western style desserts have become quite popular in Asia while the converse is not true. Mucus argued that this had nothing to do with the actual preference for Western dessert over Asian desserts but simply that Asians had more cosmopolitan diverse eating habits. This explanation falls flat on two counts, first Mucus has failed to provide any convincing evidence that Asians have more cosmopolitan eating habits and second it is inconsistent with the fact that asian cuisines (other than sweets) are enormously popular in the US, Canada and Europe.
quote:And that Japanese urban residents dine out more I have absolutely no doubts about; there's a reason Tokyo did so amazingly well when Michelin went there.)
Dine out more than who? I have absolutely no doubts that residents of Manhattan dine out more than residents of Bozeman MT and residents of Paris dine out far more than residents of Metz.
As a side note, I worked with a graduate students from Beijing who after completing his doctorate went to work in Manhattan. About a year later I saw him at a conference and asked him how he liked New York. His comment was that he loved the food. He said that in Chinese cities, you typically only get cuisine from that region, but in Manhattan you could find restaurants specializing in cuisine from every region of China and all other parts of the world as well. There may be some cities in Asia that are like that too, but it is no more correct to conclude that most Japanese have very cosmopolitan tastes because Tokyo is a very cosmopolitan city than it would be to claim that most American eat little but potatoes and barbeque.
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: Wait, does that mean if you're mormon you can't use real vanilla es tract?
IIRC, it varies.
Anyway, they could always use vanilla beans instead.
I don't know a single mormon who interprets the Word of Wisdom so strictly that they won't eat food flavored with vanilla extract or use extracts and flavorings that contain alcohol. That doesn't mean there aren't any, but they are certainly extremely unusual.
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quote: One of my favorite things to do as a missionary was to get mini recess peanut butter cups from America and give them to children. They thought they were absolutely disgusting, far too much sweetness, the found it astounding that I could eat several at a time, with no apparent ill effect.
This being so, why was that a favourite thing? Did you follow up by pointing out the Bible verse where it's said that the faithful shall be able to drink poison without ill effect? I can see where that would be pretty convincing to someone being exposed to American candy for the first time.
Har Har... TBH I don't think I referenced that scripture the entire two years I was a missionary. I wouldn't put it past the Chinese however to have some dish that must be cooked with snake venom.
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I haven't really noticed Asian people being more cosmopolitan in their tastes. Instead they seem to have a heavy emphasis on local cuisine - This from personal experience.
Personally I would argue that westerners are much more likely to eat Asian food at restaurants, than Asians are to eat western food at restaurants. The reason for this I think is very simple: The Asian restaurants in the west are almost without exception founded by Asian immigrant families, and a lot of western countries have notable Asian immigrant populations.
But on the other hand very few westerners immigrate to Asian countries, and those who do, don't typically want to work in the restaurant business. When you see a western-type "restaurant" in an Asian country, it's likely to be called "MacDonald's", or "Subway".
Someone mentioned Tokyo being a very cosmopolitan eating place... I don't agree, really. The very centre of Tokyo is reasonably cosmopolitan, Shinjuku, etc, but Tokyo and Japan in general are isolationist by nature, instead of cosmopolitan. One exception for this is Okinawa, where western food culture is visible for obvious reasons.
Probably the most cosmopolitan place you can find in Asia is Hong Kong, which does have an extremely varied and rich food culture.
I would say that immigration is a crucial element in making the local food culture more cosmopolitan. Immigrants bring their culture with them. Which is the reason why places like London or New York are extremely varied in their food culture. The less there are immigrants, the less there is variety in food.
Same goes for Asia. Because westerners don't often immigrate to Asia, the impact of western food culture is small. There is internal immigration in Asia, and Asian cities which have a lot of immigrants from other Asian countries, also have varied Asian cuisine. For example Malaysia has very large Indian and Chinese population, so the whole country is basically a meeting place of three different food cultures.
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quote:Originally posted by Tuukka: ... Personally I would argue that westerners are much more likely to eat Asian food at restaurants, than Asians are to eat western food at restaurants. The reason for this I think is very simple: The Asian restaurants in the west are almost without exception founded by Asian immigrant families, and a lot of western countries have notable Asian immigrant populations.
But on the other hand very few westerners immigrate to Asian countries, and those who do, don't typically want to work in the restaurant business. When you see a western-type "restaurant" in an Asian country, it's likely to be called "MacDonald's", or "Subway".
I think you've got this exactly backwards. Asian restaurants in the West are very often founded by Chinese immigrant families, true. But watch the Jennifer 8 Lee video from TED linked earlier. You'll find that what they cook has very little similarity to what is eaten in China. What Americans call "Chinese food", note the glaring error with the fortune cookie above by Adenum, is more often than not really just "American" food. Very few Americans actually eat real Chinese food.
This is actually crucial to explain the whole success of "Chinese" food in the West. Each Western country has an adapted "Chinese" food that is really just an adaptation of local cuisine. Jennifer Lee uses the line that "[this] Chinese food is more American than apple pie." Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking it per say. The success of this is a great testament to the adaptiveness and inventiveness of Chinese immigrants, but they rarely actually eat this stuff.
On the other hand, although I've explained a few examples of Western food adapting in China, on the whole they don't (and the few that do, the cha chaan teng's for example are fading out). You can go to even an obscure Chinese city in the Chinese rust belt and it will still have an authentic MacDonalds and KFC serving almost exactly the same food they do in the US. The Daily Show notes this to great effect on their Olympics special.
So on one hand, even the most remote peasant in China will know about American cuisine and will have tried an authentic piece of it, even if just once. On the other hand, as was noted above you can have places like Fort Worth(?) as above where you probably can't get authentic Chinese food even if you tried.
There is simply a large informational disparity here.
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Man, this this thread is really weird. The first post is references a ludicrous joke about Obama, and the actual discussion that has emerged is the most heated, vitriol argument about whether or not Americans eat a variety of foods I have ever seen.
My person experiences as an American are in line with what Mucus is arguing, but even it wasn't, I'd like to think I wouldn't be reacting with the indignation I'm seeing here. If we can't discuss eating habits without getting huffy, is it any wonder people are complaining about the quality of the forum going downhill?
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Yup, I've had them and they just aren't very good. Yeah, I know that's an objective opinion but I think you will observe its a pretty wide spread objective opinion.
Only in the West. Asian desserts are doing quite well as noted by Azile. And you'll note that dovetails neatly with my assertion about Asians being more cosmopolitan. Asians will very often eventually eat both, Americans even one as traveled as yourself often won't.
quote: I've also been informed by several chinese friends that serving any dessert with a Chinese meal is non-traditional and reflects Western influence. A traditional chinese meal is conclude with soup, not a sweet dish. Sweets were something eaten as "snacks" and very rarely as part of a meal.
This is true and yet not a problem.
Snacks are big business in China. In fact, one could say thats the major innovation of Dim Sum, a form of restaurant that allows you to eat snacks in a random order, including desserts.
quote:Heck, we have a very popular holiday that is effectively devoted to cake.
I've had steamed rice cakes. I'm still waiting for a single example of a really good Chinese dessert
I was referring to moon cakes actually as in googling "moon cake festival"
quote: In my experience, with the one exception of desserts, western restaurants are not nearly as common in Asia and Asian restaurants are in the west.
Tuuka noted the differential in immigration. If there are few Western immigrants to, say, China there will naturally only be few Western restaurants for Westerners only. On the other hand, the large immigration flow of Chinese immigrants to North America creates supply and demand for two tracks of restaurants. Western-Chinese restaurants for the local population and Chinese restaurants for the immigrants themselves. This effectively explains the very large difference in restaurant density between the two areas. Not only is does the difference in immigrant populations contribute, but the differing demand.
So I disagree with the explanation for the balance of Western/Asian restaurants, I think immigration explains more than taste. That said, I don't observe a large imbalance between the success of dessert and non-dessert Western restaurants in China. In fact, I would say the top most successful Western food providers are KFC, MacDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks. There are Haagen-Daz and Dairy Queens for sure, but I don't see them actually doing as well as the first bunch.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: I think you've got this exactly backwards. Asian restaurants in the West are very often founded by Chinese immigrant families, true. But watch the Jennifer 8 Lee video from TED linked earlier. You'll find that what they cook has very little similarity to what is eaten in China. What Americans call "Chinese food", note the glaring error with the fortune cookie above by Adenum, is more often than not really just "American" food. Very few Americans actually eat real Chinese food.
This is actually crucial to explain the whole success of "Chinese" food in the West. Each Western country has an adapted "Chinese" food that is really just an adaptation of local cuisine. Jennifer Lee uses the line that "[this] Chinese food is more American than apple pie." Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking it per say. The success of this is a great testament to the adaptiveness and inventiveness of Chinese immigrants, but they rarely actually eat this stuff.
On the other hand, although I've explained a few examples of Western food adapting in China, on the whole they don't (and the few that do, the cha chaan teng's for example are fading out). You can go to even an obscure Chinese city in the Chinese rust belt and it will still have an authentic MacDonalds and KFC serving almost exactly the same food they do in the US. The Daily Show notes this to great effect on their Olympics special.
So on one hand, even the most remote peasant in China will know about American cuisine and will have tried an authentic piece of it, even if just once. On the other hand, as was noted above you can have places like Fort Worth(sic.) as above where you probably can't get authentic Chinese food even if you tried.
There is simply a large informational disparity here.
Yes, Asian people who have restaurants in the West tend to slightly adapt their food for the western taste. But it's still Asian food.
I've ate local food with local people in several Asian countries. And these restaurants were filled with local people, with no tourists in sight. Frankly, they have the same cuisines that Asian restaurants have in the west. Obviously there is some stuff that simply doesn't sell that well in the West, like intestines, but this simply means that the Asian restaurants in the West usually don't have everything that people in Asia eat. They couldn't, in fact, because there are just way too many different cuisines.
Whatever differences you are talking about, they are generally very small, and Asian cuisines culture is extremely varied anyway. You can have countless of different versions of the same cuisine, depending on the country, region and the restaurant.
I've heard sometimes people in the west say when they eat in for example Chinese restaurant, that the food doesn't taste authentically Chinese. What they mean is that it doesn't taste like in the restaurant they have eaten in China. But China is a massive country with very different regional cuisine cultures. And not only that, each cook has his own way of making food. So there is no one right way to make a certain cuisine, and there is no one right way for a cuisine to taste - Even if it might share the same name in every place.
It's hard to believe that you would think MacDonalds is a better representative of the Western cuisine culture, than an Asian restaurant which can have hundreds of different authentic Asian cuisines is as a representative of Asian cuisine culture.
I could also add that immigrant restaurants are often primarily serving other immigrants.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Tuuka noted the differential in immigration. If there are few Western immigrants to, say, China there will naturally only be few Western restaurants for Westerners only. On the other hand, the large immigration flow of Chinese immigrants to North America creates supply and demand for two tracks of restaurants. Western-Chinese restaurants for the local population and Chinese restaurants for the immigrants themselves. This effectively explains the very large difference in restaurant density between the two areas. Not only is does the difference in immigrant populations contribute, but the differing demand.
So I disagree with the explanation for the balance of Western/Asian restaurants, I think immigration explains more than taste. That said, I don't observe a large imbalance between the success of dessert and non-dessert Western restaurants in China. In fact, I would say the top most successful Western food providers are KFC, MacDonald's, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks. There are Haagen-Daz and Dairy Queens for sure, but I don't see them actually doing as well as the first bunch.
I don't understand what you are saying here.
I don't know where to find statistics, but I think it's pretty much common sense, that immigrants bring their local food culture with them. That's simply how it goes. The more there are immigrants in a city, the more there are restaurants that serve their cuisine.
You can see this very easily, if you compare places with low and high immigrant populations.
The more local culture and the immigrant culture interact, the more both learn from each other's cuisine culture. The more they also eat each other's foods.
Are you denying any of this?
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Unless I've missed something, which is possible, mucus linked to two articles. One of which quoted data indicating that Asians in Canada spend 23% more on groceries than the average Canadian and the other of which reported that Asians eat out more than Americans and Europeans. Neither article supports mucus' broad contention that Asians are more cosmopolitan in their tastes.
The second also reports that Asians are among the most likely to eat food from a different country when they go out whereas Europeans are the least likely. Combined with a higher rate of going-out in the first place, the conclusion seems to be pretty obvious. There are a lot of Asians eating food from a different country and more of it.
quote:There are numerous explanations for this other than those suggested by mucus. For example, I'm not sure about Canada, but in the US Asians have higher average household incomes than other groups which might easily explain why they spend more on average on food.
No, IIRC, the same study noted that both South Asians and East Asians were more likely than the rest of the population to go to discount supermarkets. Given that US Asians typically have lower obesity levels than the general population, they're probably not simply buying more food at lower prices. The obvious conclusion is that many Asians are either buying a greater variety of food (and exotic foods cost more) or that they're dual-tracking their own kitchens, preparing both their own style of food and North American food.
quote: According to my students from Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Thailand, its common in southeast asian cities for people to eat out because they have no kitchen in their homes (apartments). The fact that they eat many or most of their meals out reflects differences in living conditions that have little to do with having more cosmopolitan tastes.
Its a contributing factor yes, but the difference in dining-out rates persists even with Chinese Canadians. There is definitely a cultural element here which persists across architectural differences. For example, Chinese Canadians have a tradition of going out for dim sum on weekend mornings. WASPs have a tradition of going out for church on Sundays. Its a lot easier for the former to mutate to eating different foods than for the latter to mutate into dining out.
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: ... If we can't discuss eating habits without getting huffy, is it any wonder people are complaining about the quality of the forum going downhill?
Hmmmm, I'll keep that in mind.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: ]The second also reports that Asians are among the most likely to eat food from a different country when they go out whereas Europeans are the least likely.
I read the article, but I didn't see them saying that. Can you give a quote?
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