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The Chinese food culture is substantially different than the Western food culture, and I don't just mean the items on the menu. Things I've noticed about the p

The Chinese food culture is substantially different than the Western food culture, and I don't just mean the items on the menu. Things I've noticed about the particular Chinese food culture of my girlfriend: Ginger goes in Chicken soup. Garlic does not. Broccoli is only cooked until bright green. Black pepper is used, basically never. All vegetables are to be rinsed, even the things in Trader Joe's packages that say "Triple Washed, Ready to Use." Almost no claim on the package should be trusted, ever. Meat is always well cooked. (And there are plenty of ways to make meat very tasty without having it be super-rare.)

Spellman 10y ago
Well, unless the meat is particularly fresh. Then you only cook to barely cooked. See steamed chicken where often it will be served with the marrow still red. And it's blasphemy to overcook fish.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  And it's blasphemy to overcook fish. Thanks. I think I just figured another one out!
contingencies 10y ago
These are pretty good general rules of thumb. Interestingly the Vietnamese, by contrast, are very much in to rare meats. Broccoli and other vegetables are cooked only slightly because it is considered wasteful of the natural qualities of the food to overcook it (and probably because it wastes fuel also, which is also the reason for everything being cut small before cooking).
- digitalzombie 10y ago
  > Interestingly the Vietnamese, by contrast, are very much in to rare meats. I blame the French. Indochina happened. The biggest evidence for this is Vietnamese word for beef is Bo. Which is a borrowed French word. http://www.asian-central.com/stuffasianpeoplelike/2010/05/21/featured-topic-french-loan-words-in-vietnam/ http://www.asian-central.com/stuffasianpeoplelike/2010/05/21...
  - contingencies 10y ago
    It does seem likely that bo is French boeuf-derived, but according to Wiktionary[0] the historical Vietnamese pronunciation of the Chinese character for beef (牛) was ngưu, ngọ, ngỏ, ngõ, ngâu. It is interesting that these are so similar to pan-Taic languages neua and Cantonese ngau. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%89%9B#Vietnamese https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%89%9B#Vietnamese
    - meric 10y ago
      Probably because two thousand plus years ago the area that is now called Guangdong, and the area that is now Vietnam, was inhabited by the same people; And then the Guangdong area was conquered by China. The people who lived in Guangdong inter-married with the Chinese migrating south and also had a lot of influence on Cantonese. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southward_expansion_of_the_Han_dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southward_expansion_of_the_Han... Vietnam is "Yue-nam" in Chinese, and Cantonese is "Yue-yu" in Chinese, whose literal meaning is "Language of Yue". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiyue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiyue
      - SilverCurve 10y ago
        Vietnamese here. I don't think your explanation is correct. First, most of the Viet-Cantonese words are likely brought by Chinese migration since the 15th century. When the Ming dynasty fell, many Chinese fled to South Vietnam and helped Viet people annex that land from the Cambodians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_people Second, tt's true that we "might" have lots of connections with the ancient Yue people, but this is still in debate. Just like the Romans called everyone on the other side of the Rhine "Germans", the Chinese of 2000 years ago called everyone south of them "Yue", even though they can be different tribes or nations. Being named the same thing by the Chinese doesn't actually mean anything. Genetically we have many similarities with the people of south China, but the history of vocabularies can be more complicated than that.
        meric 10y ago
scurvy 10y ago
> All vegetables are to be rinsed, even the things in Trader Joe's packages that say "Triple Washed, Ready to Use." Almost no claim on the package should be trusted, ever. < This is really good advice. Food contamination happens, even in your triple washed, plastic bagged veggies.
rsynnott 10y ago
> Broccoli is only cooked until bright green. I mean, that's the correct way to cook it in any context, I would have thought. The whole massively overcooking vegetables thing is thankfully mostly dying out now.

Spellman 10y ago

Well, unless the meat is particularly fresh. Then you only cook to barely cooked. See steamed chicken where often it will be served with the marrow still red. And it's blasphemy to overcook fish.

stcredzero 10y ago
And it's blasphemy to overcook fish. Thanks. I think I just figured another one out!

contingencies 10y ago

These are pretty good general rules of thumb. Interestingly the Vietnamese, by contrast, are very much in to rare meats. Broccoli and other vegetables are cooked only slightly because it is considered wasteful of the natural qualities of the food to overcook it (and probably because it wastes fuel also, which is also the reason for everything being cut small before cooking).

digitalzombie 10y ago
> Interestingly the Vietnamese, by contrast, are very much in to rare meats. I blame the French. Indochina happened. The biggest evidence for this is Vietnamese word for beef is Bo. Which is a borrowed French word. http://www.asian-central.com/stuffasianpeoplelike/2010/05/21/featured-topic-french-loan-words-in-vietnam/ http://www.asian-central.com/stuffasianpeoplelike/2010/05/21...
- contingencies 10y ago
  It does seem likely that bo is French boeuf-derived, but according to Wiktionary[0] the historical Vietnamese pronunciation of the Chinese character for beef (牛) was ngưu, ngọ, ngỏ, ngõ, ngâu. It is interesting that these are so similar to pan-Taic languages neua and Cantonese ngau. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%89%9B#Vietnamese https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%89%9B#Vietnamese
  - meric 10y ago
    Probably because two thousand plus years ago the area that is now called Guangdong, and the area that is now Vietnam, was inhabited by the same people; And then the Guangdong area was conquered by China. The people who lived in Guangdong inter-married with the Chinese migrating south and also had a lot of influence on Cantonese. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southward_expansion_of_the_Han_dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southward_expansion_of_the_Han... Vietnam is "Yue-nam" in Chinese, and Cantonese is "Yue-yu" in Chinese, whose literal meaning is "Language of Yue". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiyue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiyue
    - SilverCurve 10y ago
      Vietnamese here. I don't think your explanation is correct. First, most of the Viet-Cantonese words are likely brought by Chinese migration since the 15th century. When the Ming dynasty fell, many Chinese fled to South Vietnam and helped Viet people annex that land from the Cambodians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_people Second, tt's true that we "might" have lots of connections with the ancient Yue people, but this is still in debate. Just like the Romans called everyone on the other side of the Rhine "Germans", the Chinese of 2000 years ago called everyone south of them "Yue", even though they can be different tribes or nations. Being named the same thing by the Chinese doesn't actually mean anything. Genetically we have many similarities with the people of south China, but the history of vocabularies can be more complicated than that.
      - meric 10y ago

scurvy 10y ago

> All vegetables are to be rinsed, even the things in Trader Joe's packages that say "Triple Washed, Ready to Use." Almost no claim on the package should be trusted, ever. < This is really good advice. Food contamination happens, even in your triple washed, plastic bagged veggies.

rsynnott 10y ago

> Broccoli is only cooked until bright green. I mean, that's the correct way to cook it in any context, I would have thought. The whole massively overcooking vegetables thing is thankfully mostly dying out now.