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On Chinese Food

photo courtesy of ctshorizons.com, from http://www.ctshorizons.com/blogs/china-travel-guide-8-chinese-regional-cuisine

So in my last entry, I talked a little bit about how the term “authenticity” in regard to food is rather arbitrary and subjective to how you define “authentic”. I wanted to take a moment to expand upon what most people would regard to be authentic Chinese food since I feel like that I sort of missed that in my last entry.

As a simplifying assumption, ill define authentic as food that is regarded as a staple within the country or developed using local ingredients or techniques within a country. And with that out of the way, let's talk a little bit about authentic Chinese food.

In my last entry, I noted how trying to categorize Chinese food will inevitably be overbroad and will do an injustice to the vast diversity of food across the country. As this article From the wok’s of life notes, in reference to the nation's various cuisines, “These are eight popular cooking traditions, each with its own character, special local ingredients, cooking methods and tastes that suit the local people, their climate, and culture.”

The photo I provided above is from http://www.ctshorizons.com/. I wanted to highlight that not only are chinas 8 major cuisines diverse in and of themselves, each with its own unique cuisines and techniques, but it's important to note that geographically these areas make up less than half the country.

Note that the majority of these major cuisines come from the southeast, specifically along the coast. Notably, Cantonese and Sichuan food is quite popular here in the united states, with such famous cuisines as dim sum and fish-fragrant eggplant to boast, among others. I'd like to focus a little bit on the areas outside of these major cuisine areas. Interestingly, the area around Beijing is not a part of any of these provinces. In fact, the entire northeast and Manchuria region are completely unrepresented as a “major cuisine” of china. Furthermore, in the west, we see the Mongolian, Uyghur, and Tibetan areas of china, where cultural minorities dominate and where the food differs by culture. These are just a few examples among many of the areas and cultures which exist outside of the major cuisine regions, further highlighting the vast array of variation within the big tent of “Chinese food”

I hope that this entry was insightful into the rich diversity of food within china. While I never got the chance to write specifically about Chinatown within these blogs, I plan on going this Sunday and will write a feature article on the area, so stay tuned for that. 

[wonderingalbatross86]

On Authenticity

So last week I made a post about the food id expect to find in china town. Specifically, I talked about Cantonese food, and more broadly American Chinese food, and how I expected to get a more “ authentic “ experience in Chinatown. One of you responded to my post; user afedskdln wrote

"Hi. As a Chinese who have been to the SF Chinatown many many times. I have to say most of the food there is not authentic enough, but as a means to communicate culture, I am pretty sure most of them are worth trying. I would really recommend the one shown in your first picture -- "The Spicy Shrimp" -- where I believe makes the best Chueng Fueng (肠粉) in that area. Just go and ask for the egg and pork chueng fueng!"

So I wanted to take this post as an opportunity to comment on authenticity, and what qualifies a food as being, or not being, authentic.

So let's take a step back and look at Chinese food, or maybe food in general, as a whole. So china is, to put it mildly, a very large country. A quick glance online shows that china is the fourth largest country by area, and the single largest by population, boasting over a billion people strong. It's important to note that there is no one cuisine that can encapsulate this entire population, but much like how ‘European food’ will differ from country to country, ‘Chinese food’ will differ from region to region, calling into question what exactly is the defining Chinese food. 

But to extrapolate even further, we should note that, throughout history, borders and people have been rather porous. The borders of china have changed radically over the past two millennia, and chinas historical sphere of influence (including the culinary sphere of influence) extends into neighboring countries, such as japan and Vietnam. One should therefore ask- are many Japanese dishes, which are influenced by Chinese techniques, actually a variety of Chinese food? Moreover, are regions of china, say Manchuria, which have culturally and historically been distinct or even separate from what we would call china, Chinese food? The fact is, the question of authenticity is rather a socially constructed question and is subject to change over time and from place to place.

But let's take Chinese food to be food which is made in the country of china itself. In that case, yes Chinese food in San Francisco isn't authentic because its not made in china, and may not use exact ingredients from china. However, why exactly does that make it inauthentic? Let's go back to my point about borders being historically porous. What this implies is that people and nationalities have been historically divided by borders-take, for example, the Korean minority in northeast china, is their cuisine not Korean, simply because they do not live in Korea? I disagree with that claim. The cuisine is much more linked to the culture which undergirds it, rather than the place it was made, or the ingredients it uses. Different plants grow in the Americas than in Asia, and by and large, different cultures and nationalities live in both respective places. As such, the Chinese diaspora in America has adapted its cuisine to fit the common American palate and to use the local ingredients, all while taking inspiration from the culture from which it came. Does that make it inauthentic? Id argue that American Chinese food is authentic to American Chinese food. Just like how Indian food made by Britains Indian community is still considered to be Indian food, in the same way, what we may get at a dim sum joint in San Francisco, or even our local panda express, is a variety and flavor of Chinese food, almost a distant cousin of the cuisine actually produced in china.

I think that The Spruce Eats author Su-Jit Lin put this general point well, in an article she wrote, saying;

“ Yet who defines authenticity? Because to me, a Chinese American woman who grew up in an American Chinese restaurant, there is nothing more authentic to my lived cultural experience than the dishes of my childhood.”

Thanks for your response though, and I definitely will try that Chueng Fueng.

[wonderingalbatross86]

The top picture I provided is a picture I took of Chinatown during my brief visits in January. what id like to highlight about the picture, above all else, is that Chinatown isn't simply a neighborhood, it's a distinct enclave, with a rich and diverse culture in and of itself. One way in which culture is communicated and shared around the world is through food, which id like to talk about today.

I have a particular passion for Chinese food- from cooking it myself to snaking on it in teahouses, Chinese food is in and of itself an almost overwhelming smorgasbord of different tastes, flavors, and dishes. One particular Chinese staple is dim sum (點心) which translates roughly to “a little (a bit of) heart”. This Cantonese category is commonly sold in small teahouses or hole-in-the-wall restaurants for modest prices. The second picture above is a dim sum plate I order for myself a few months ago at my favorite dim sum joint in the Richmond district. You can see on my plate a char siu bao bun, a pot sticker, and in my hand a shrimp dumpling known as har gow.  These dumplings, along with various others, are all dim sum staples.

Now back to china town. One thing I'm keen to investigate in Chinatown is the food scene. Specifically, id loves to try out some of the neighborhood's dim sum, in hopes of capturing an authentic Cantonese dim sum experience. To my surprise, I learned that Chinatown has America's oldest dim sum restaurant: the 102-year-old Hang Ah Tea Room. SFgate author Margot Seeto wrote a great piece on the restaurant, as well as its history and cuisine. She starts by describing the atmosphere, “The restaurant belies its historic status with its casual, homey atmosphere. Inside the dining room, red vinyl-upholstered chairs and dark wooden tables sit atop cream tiles.” She later goes on to describe the vast array and sheer diversity of food she not only ate but that is served in the restaurant in general. Of all the places in Chinatown, if looked into, Hang Ah is perhaps one of the most interesting and I will definitely be stopping there on my next trip to the city.

[wonderingalbatross86]

An Explorers time in China Town

Ever since I got my driver's license, one of my favorite places to travel to on weekends was San Francisco. The city was one of those places that was close yet felt so far away; I grew up in Vacaville, about an hour away from the city, yet in terms of sheer size and cultural diversity, my small hometown could not be more different than the golden gate city.

Even though I've traveled extensively within the city, one area in which I haven't gotten around much is Chinatown. Of all the places in the city I've never been to, Chinatown is probably the most unlikely candidate. I am a deep admirer of Chinese culture and history, and personally, it is one of my top travel destinations. While I have been to Chinatown before, I have never really gotten the opportunity to deeply explore the sprawling and dynamic neighborhood.

I'm going to use this blog to track my research on Chinatown as well as my travels therein (I'm hoping to go next week). So ill start off by looking at some of the hot spots in Chinatown which may be of interest. Travelinus.us has a great page on the neighborhood, a full article written by Giorgio Nardini entitled “Immerse Yourself in San Francisco’s Chinatown”. The article points out a few areas which may be of interest to the common tourist.

One location which I will visit on my trip is the Tin How Temple, which Nardini points out is the oldest Daoist temple in Chinatown, dating back to the 1850s. In addition to this, ill want to walk up and around Stockton street, the main shopping thoroughfare in the neighborhood. At a glance, these to scenes offer an interesting insight into the neighborhood, whose atmosphere Nardini colorfully describes as follows, “Amidst art, temples, and tea, the oldest Chinatown in the United States will catapult you into a whole new dimension”

I'll continue to update my blog as my research progresses, and later on when I actually visit The city will update it further with what I find.