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> I literally had never had any form of Chinese ... They had the best Crab Rangoon What the hell is that stuff? I lived most of my life in Asia, but went to a

> I literally had never had any form of Chinese ... They had the best Crab Rangoon What the hell is that stuff? I lived most of my life in Asia, but went to a Chinese buffet on a visit to the USA. Crab Rangoon sounded exciting... but it was full of cream cheese or something? Absolutely shocking. I'm very confident that's not a Chinese (or Burmese) dish.

elil17 3y ago
Chinese-American cuisine is it's own thing with dishes that reflect the ingredients available to Chinese immigrants in the 19th and 20th century and the demands of American consumers. It's typically a sweeter version of Guangdong food, with one or two Hunan or Sichuan dishes thrown in, and maybe some Japanese food as well. Then you've got uniquely Chinese-American food, like Egg Foo Young.
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Around here (Midwest) we joke, it's not a complete Chinese Buffet unless it has mac-n-cheese.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    In Shanghai, if you visit a Papa John's Pizza, you will have no trouble ordering black pepper beef chow mein. But I would hesitate to call that "pizza" just because of the name of the restaurant. I would not even call it "American food". That's not why it's on the menu.
  - eru 3y ago
    Mac-n-cheese is very popular in (at least) Singapore, and that includes amongst our ethnically-Chinese people. So it's Chinese enough by that standard.
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      In Shanghai, cheese is something of a novelty item, but milk is sold in every convenience store. I find this surprising given that more than 90% of Chinese are lactose intolerant. On the other hand, I have gotten the comment several times from a cashier while buying milk, "wow, I've never seen anyone buy that much milk at once!" How much milk do you need to buy to trigger that comment? One gallon. I drink that much in about two days. (This is several cartons; the largest carton you can buy is 1350 mL of milk.) So I conclude that Chinese people expect to be able to buy milk, but regardless of that expectation, they actually buy almost zero milk. The concept of lactose intolerance doesn't seem to be well known. I had someone react with horror when she asked what I was going to have for lunch and I said milk. She assured me that if I were to drink milk on an empty stomach, I would suffer from diarrhea. She was confused when I responded that that wouldn't happen to me because I'm white.
      - k8svet 3y ago
        You drink half a gallon of milk a day? Wow. I'm about as white as they make 'em, and if I drank a half gallon of milk, I'd absolutely have an incident.
        exhilaration 3y ago
        There's a famous weight-gaining diet called Gallon Of Milk A Day (GOMAD) recommended by strength coaches, most recently Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength. He gets asked about it a lot: https://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/general-q-and-a/86130-drink-gallon-milk-day-mark-rippetoe.html https://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/general-q-and-a...
        eru 3y ago
        Well, he didn't exactly recommend it outright. It was more like a dare, along the lines of: if you claim that you can't gain weight, just take whatever you are currently doing, and add a gallon of milk a day. A jar of peanut butter a day would also work. Or just increasing your intake of calories overall.
      - 3y ago
    - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
      Wha? Then General Cho's Chicken is American, because it's very popular in Iowa. Including amongst our ethnically-whitebread people.
      - showerst 3y ago
        Ironically you picked one of the American-Chinese food dishes that is, effectively, American. There's a fantastic documentary about it (and the Chinese food complex in American in general) -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Search_for_General_Tso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Search_for_General_Tso
        JoeAltmaier 3y ago
        Hm. I thought it was one of the dishes mandated in China, to replace the old decadent menus with party-acceptable simple-ingredient menu item? Anyway, point taken.
jghn 3y ago
It's cream cheese. Sometimes there's some crab or krab mixed in. My understanding is a lot of those fried American Chinese appetizers were introduced as part of the whole Trader Vics thing when he was getting underway
ska 3y ago
for reference: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-crab-rangoon https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-crab-rangoon
thepasswordis 3y ago
Some version of this comment has been smugly posted on every single discussion about Chinese food since the beginning of time. If you are living in America, and you want the food made by the people in your community who are Chinese, would it make sense to call it Chinese food? Chinese food, as in: the food the Chinese people make. Italian food, as in: the food Italian people make. Indian food, as in: the food that Indian people make. America is a country made up of immigrants from other countries, so when they are here making the foods that they used to make in their home countries, we call it "Chinese food", "Italian food" etc. I understand why this can be confusing to people who aren't used to living in culturally diverse countries. It is normal in The United States to interact with people from all over the world. Saying "Chinese food" does not literally mean food from China, it means food made by Chinese immigrants to The United States.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > If you are living in America, and you want the food made by the people in your community who are Chinese, would it make sense to call it Chinese food? That still wouldn't include crab rangoon. It's just as homespun American as key lime pie. No Asians of any variety were ever involved, as you can tell by the fact that it is made of cheese. > Saying "Chinese food" does not literally mean food from China, it means food made by Chinese immigrants to The United States. Not even close. It means food that is sold in restaurants that are called Chinese restaurants. If it meant food made by Chinese immigrants, it would include Mongolian barbecue (which is Chinese food) and all Japanese cuisine (which isn't, but the Chinese like opening Japanese restaurants because the American price of Japanese food is higher). > America is a country made up of immigrants from other countries, so when they are here making the foods that they used to make in their home countries, we call it "Chinese food", "Italian food" etc. This seems to contradict the rest of your comment. Are you taking the position that "Chinese food" refers to food that is made by American Chinese for whatever reason, or that it refers to food that is made by Chinese in China? If the second, what are you objecting to in your parent comment?
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  On the topic, "Chicken Tikka Masala" is actually of British origin, and "Butter chicken", while purportedly developed in India, caught on more in the Western world as a representation of Indian food than it did in India.
dragonwriter 3y ago
There is food of the ethnic Chinese in America, and food from China. Those are overlapping, but different, categories, and “Chinese food”, without additional qualifications, in the US usually refers to the former (and/or food of Chinese-themed restaurants in the US catering to general American tastes, with some inspiration from from it), without regard for whether or not it is also the latter. (This is true of “<ethnicity> food” in the US generally, its not specific to Chinese food.)
- dllthomas 3y ago
  In this case it was purportedly invented by a Chinese-American barback in a Polynesian themed establishment quite visibly owned by a white guy, named after a city in Burma, and then later adopted by a slice of American Chinese restaurants. I think it's reasonable (but not required) to consider it less Chinese than food developed more solidly within the American Chinese food tradition. > (This is true of “<ethnicity> food” in the US generally, its not specific to Chinese food.) Outside the US too. I remember ducking into a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in Poland and finding that everything was served with a very Eastern European cabbage and carrot salad.

elil17 3y ago

Chinese-American cuisine is it's own thing with dishes that reflect the ingredients available to Chinese immigrants in the 19th and 20th century and the demands of American consumers. It's typically a sweeter version of Guangdong food, with one or two Hunan or Sichuan dishes thrown in, and maybe some Japanese food as well. Then you've got uniquely Chinese-American food, like Egg Foo Young.

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Around here (Midwest) we joke, it's not a complete Chinese Buffet unless it has mac-n-cheese.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  In Shanghai, if you visit a Papa John's Pizza, you will have no trouble ordering black pepper beef chow mein. But I would hesitate to call that "pizza" just because of the name of the restaurant. I would not even call it "American food". That's not why it's on the menu.
- eru 3y ago
  Mac-n-cheese is very popular in (at least) Singapore, and that includes amongst our ethnically-Chinese people. So it's Chinese enough by that standard.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    In Shanghai, cheese is something of a novelty item, but milk is sold in every convenience store. I find this surprising given that more than 90% of Chinese are lactose intolerant. On the other hand, I have gotten the comment several times from a cashier while buying milk, "wow, I've never seen anyone buy that much milk at once!" How much milk do you need to buy to trigger that comment? One gallon. I drink that much in about two days. (This is several cartons; the largest carton you can buy is 1350 mL of milk.) So I conclude that Chinese people expect to be able to buy milk, but regardless of that expectation, they actually buy almost zero milk. The concept of lactose intolerance doesn't seem to be well known. I had someone react with horror when she asked what I was going to have for lunch and I said milk. She assured me that if I were to drink milk on an empty stomach, I would suffer from diarrhea. She was confused when I responded that that wouldn't happen to me because I'm white.
    - k8svet 3y ago
      You drink half a gallon of milk a day? Wow. I'm about as white as they make 'em, and if I drank a half gallon of milk, I'd absolutely have an incident.
      - exhilaration 3y ago
        There's a famous weight-gaining diet called Gallon Of Milk A Day (GOMAD) recommended by strength coaches, most recently Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength. He gets asked about it a lot: https://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/general-q-and-a/86130-drink-gallon-milk-day-mark-rippetoe.html https://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/general-q-and-a...
        eru 3y ago
        Well, he didn't exactly recommend it outright. It was more like a dare, along the lines of: if you claim that you can't gain weight, just take whatever you are currently doing, and add a gallon of milk a day. A jar of peanut butter a day would also work. Or just increasing your intake of calories overall.
    - 3y ago
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    Wha? Then General Cho's Chicken is American, because it's very popular in Iowa. Including amongst our ethnically-whitebread people.
    - showerst 3y ago
      Ironically you picked one of the American-Chinese food dishes that is, effectively, American. There's a fantastic documentary about it (and the Chinese food complex in American in general) -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Search_for_General_Tso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Search_for_General_Tso
      - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
        Hm. I thought it was one of the dishes mandated in China, to replace the old decadent menus with party-acceptable simple-ingredient menu item? Anyway, point taken.

jghn 3y ago

It's cream cheese. Sometimes there's some crab or krab mixed in. My understanding is a lot of those fried American Chinese appetizers were introduced as part of the whole Trader Vics thing when he was getting underway

ska 3y ago

for reference: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-crab-rangoon https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-crab-rangoon

thepasswordis 3y ago

Some version of this comment has been smugly posted on every single discussion about Chinese food since the beginning of time. If you are living in America, and you want the food made by the people in your community who are Chinese, would it make sense to call it Chinese food? Chinese food, as in: the food the Chinese people make. Italian food, as in: the food Italian people make. Indian food, as in: the food that Indian people make. America is a country made up of immigrants from other countries, so when they are here making the foods that they used to make in their home countries, we call it "Chinese food", "Italian food" etc. I understand why this can be confusing to people who aren't used to living in culturally diverse countries. It is normal in The United States to interact with people from all over the world. Saying "Chinese food" does not literally mean food from China, it means food made by Chinese immigrants to The United States.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> If you are living in America, and you want the food made by the people in your community who are Chinese, would it make sense to call it Chinese food? That still wouldn't include crab rangoon. It's just as homespun American as key lime pie. No Asians of any variety were ever involved, as you can tell by the fact that it is made of cheese. > Saying "Chinese food" does not literally mean food from China, it means food made by Chinese immigrants to The United States. Not even close. It means food that is sold in restaurants that are called Chinese restaurants. If it meant food made by Chinese immigrants, it would include Mongolian barbecue (which is Chinese food) and all Japanese cuisine (which isn't, but the Chinese like opening Japanese restaurants because the American price of Japanese food is higher). > America is a country made up of immigrants from other countries, so when they are here making the foods that they used to make in their home countries, we call it "Chinese food", "Italian food" etc. This seems to contradict the rest of your comment. Are you taking the position that "Chinese food" refers to food that is made by American Chinese for whatever reason, or that it refers to food that is made by Chinese in China? If the second, what are you objecting to in your parent comment?
pcthrowaway 3y ago
On the topic, "Chicken Tikka Masala" is actually of British origin, and "Butter chicken", while purportedly developed in India, caught on more in the Western world as a representation of Indian food than it did in India.

dragonwriter 3y ago

There is food of the ethnic Chinese in America, and food from China. Those are overlapping, but different, categories, and “Chinese food”, without additional qualifications, in the US usually refers to the former (and/or food of Chinese-themed restaurants in the US catering to general American tastes, with some inspiration from from it), without regard for whether or not it is also the latter. (This is true of “<ethnicity> food” in the US generally, its not specific to Chinese food.)

dllthomas 3y ago
In this case it was purportedly invented by a Chinese-American barback in a Polynesian themed establishment quite visibly owned by a white guy, named after a city in Burma, and then later adopted by a slice of American Chinese restaurants. I think it's reasonable (but not required) to consider it less Chinese than food developed more solidly within the American Chinese food tradition. > (This is true of “<ethnicity> food” in the US generally, its not specific to Chinese food.) Outside the US too. I remember ducking into a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in Poland and finding that everything was served with a very Eastern European cabbage and carrot salad.