There is Chinese food and then there is Americanized Chinese food. Both can be delicious, but it's always good to know the difference between the two. To kick off Chinese Food Week, Girl Meets Food editor Mary Kong has graciously compiled a listicle to help you out.
Like many cuisines, authentic Chinese cooking has been bastardized over the decades. What Chinese people really eat at home—lots of vegetables, a sprinkle of meat, maybe some fruit—it's not glamorous, but it's simple comfort food. Everything is served family-style and everyone has a seat at the table. You won't see desserts on most Chinese menus. In fact, if you knew what we really ate at home, you'd probably turn green. Here's a list of popular Chinese dishes that are not really Chinese:
1) Crab Wontons: These deep-fried dumplings filled with crabmeat and cream cheese are popular...but nobody eats cheese in China. We're all lactose intolerant. But we do like to curdle other things, like fermented bean paste and duck blood.[photo]
2) General Tso's Chicken: Come on, this guy was too busy warding off rebellions to be cooking. This recipe is strictly American—chunks of chicken battered, fried and sweetened for Western tastes. No one in Hunan had even heard of this before 1970.[photo]
3) Chop Suey: Ah yes, the garbage disposal of the omelet world. Refrigerator scraps stir-fried and topped with an egg. It is said that some Chinese cook working during the Gold Rush served it as a personal "fuck you" to some drunk American miners.[photo]
4) Pu Pu Platter: Everything about this appetizer is an affront to poor people. It's nothing but fried, greasy egg rolls, spare ribs, chicken wings and beef teriyaki—which isn't even Chinese![photo]
5) Sweet 'n' Sour Pork: Chunks of pork, battered, deep-fried and slimed in a thick orange sauce. There are obvious Southern barbecue influences here.[photo]
6) Sweet 'n' Sour Chicken: Chicken gets the same treatment, but it's all white meat because somehow that makes it better. With pieces of pineapple to assuage your guilt.[photo]
7) Salad: We cook our food. When dysentery is a concern, you would too.[photo]
8) Egg Rolls: Does anyone eat these? These thick-skinned, blistered rolls that look like Linda Blair's face in The Exorcist are nothing like the real Chinese spring rolls, which are smaller, thin and crispy—and edible.[photo]
9) Beef and broccoli: There's really nothing wrong with this dish, except that we don't have Western broccoli in the East.[photo]
10) Fortune cookies: Another ploy to amuse Westerners, these flag-bearers of fortune don't even tell you good news anymore, only your closely guarded shortcomings. Chinese people eat something more fortuitous for dessert: oranges. They're good luck.via- http://dc.eater.com/archives/2011/10/31/10-chinese-dishes-that-real-chinese-people-dont-eat.php
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