As American as General Tso’s Chicken
Many ethnic foods have a root in other cultures but are greatly Americanized over time.By Jackie Simone
May 27, 2009
“This is not Chinese food,” says Yidi Wu, an Ithaca College sophomore from China, in disdain as she pushes aside her dumplings at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, Washington, D.C. Wu is certainly not alone in her bewilderment with Chinese food in the United States. When immigrants come to the United States, they bring with them an array of flavors and culinary traditions. Many of the most definitive ethnic dishes, however, become watered down, sweetened up, or just plain invented over time.
The ethnic food industry is one of the most prosperous sectors of the American food economy. One of every seven food dollars will be spent on ethnic foods in the next decade, according to a study by PROMAR International, a strategic marketing and consulting firm in Virginia that specializes in food and beverage research. Many Americans, regardless of their ethnicity, indulge in Chinese take-out almost weekly. Few realize the significant changes made to Chinese food to suit the American palate. Since food is a central aspect of any given culture, Americans should consider the broader implications of this culinary adaptation.
The evolution of ethnic foods in America is reflective of the various pressures immigrants face. While certain aspects of immigrants’ native cultures are changed when they enter any new country, the United States has a uniquely powerful impact on its new arrivals. Because the United States lacks a specific food culture, when compared to Italy, Mexico, or India, ethnic foods like Chinese change in the United States. It is important to look at what we are putting into our mouths as well as what we are putting into the minds of new Americans.
The cultural and historical importance of food is explained by author Jennifer 8 Lee in The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, a book about the evolution of Chinese food. “Food is an intimate language that everyone understands, everyone shares,” Lee wrote. “It is the primary ambassador of first contact between cultures, one that transcends spoken language. Food crosses cultural barriers. It bridges oceans. Becoming competent in a foreign language takes a lot of time, and learning a culture’s history and literature requires a great deal of effort. But everyone can immediately have an opinion on food.”
According to Lee’s book, there are approximately 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States. This is greater than the number of McDonald’s, Burger King, and KFC restaurants combined. Clearly Chinese food is a cornerstone of American eating habits. But American culture has influenced Chinese food as much as Chinese food has intimately become a part of the American diet.
The popular Chinese recipes in the United States reveal the effects of American dietary preferences. Dishes that Americans consider Chinese staples—chop suey and chow mein, but also later concoctions like General Tso’s chicken—are in fact not Chinese at all; they were created in the United States, sometimes not even by Chinese immigrants. Many of these recipes were developed in the 19th century, when Chinese-American cooking became common in the Western hemisphere.
“It’s really suited to American tastes,” Wu says of a popular sweet and sour chicken dish. “Americans like sweet stuff, and Americans like chicken.”
The Americanization of food often entails a greater emphasis on frying, salt, and sugar. Even soy sauce, which is often heralded as an authentic Chinese flavor, has been significantly Americanized. As Lee explains in her book, real Asian soy sauce is made of water, soybeans, wheat and salt. But Kari-Out and other popular American soy sauce manufacturers use water, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, caramel coloring, and corn syrup. The American version does not usually contain any soy.
It might shock many American consumers (although perhaps not our sophisticated Campus Progress readership) to learn that fortune cookies are considered American food in China, and that they were actually invented by Japanese immigrants in California. The cookies that have been culturally accepted as the symbolic conclusion of any Chinese meal are no more Chinese than a hamburger. “I never had a fortune cookie before I came to America,” Wu says.
Other Asian dishes have also been given an American twist. In the era of the Food Network, the mainstream success of cookbooks and cooking shows has exposed many Americans to diverse ethnic recipes. Thai cuisine, for instance, is becoming increasingly trendy among American consumers. The recent increase in Thai food popularity might be attributed to “Kitchen of the World,” a project started in 2001 by the government of Thailand to promote its cuisine and culinary culture worldwide.
Traditional Thai food incorporates fresh vegetables and is very healthy compared to American cuisine. Most genuine Thai dishes are planned around rice, a staple of Thai food culture. There is also a focus on seafood, which is inexpensive in coastal Thailand. Taiwanese people often bring raw fruit as a gift for friends, and they eat it regularly. Additionally, most authentic Thai dishes have a considerable amount of spice and heat.
But American Thai restaurants are more likely to cater to individual customers’ tastes, since Americans are often unaccustomed to the spiciness of Thai cuisine. This is one of many examples of immigrants changing a key ingredient of their ethnic cuisine to lessen the spiciness for American customers. In this way, Thai chefs have to decide between financial success and authentic dishes.
Despite these changes, Thai food in the United States is typically more authentic than American Chinese food. Other ethnic foods have not changed as significantly as Chinese food. Alice Pak, a senior journalism and politics major at Ithaca College, is the daughter of two Korean immigrants. She has noticed that Korean restaurants are typically more authentic than their Chinese counterparts. “I think the media has something to do with it,” Pak said. “You see people at home, the cute girls, having takeout Chinese in their boxes. You don’t do that with Korean food.”
The Korean government has taken cues from the Thai government and proposed new initiatives to increase the popularity of Korean food abroad. Portrayals of Korean cuisine might soon be changing. Chang Tae-pyong, the Korean Minister of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, announced in an article in The Korea Times in March that the Korean government has set a goal of making Korean food one of the world’s five most popular ethnic foods. The government’s plan includes standardizing Korean foods through recipes, training cooks for work overseas, emphasizing the cultural significance of culinary traditions, and increasing publicity and marketing methods.
The United States is a nation composed of immigrants and has often been referred to as an ethnic “melting pot.” This analogy is both accurate and disconcerting, since it implies that the various cultures are diluted as they form a homogenized American identity. Instead of retaining their authenticity, they lose certain aspects of their character. Americanization of food forces immigrants to not only surrender their traditions, but also their cultural identities. It is time to lift the lid of the American melting pot and examine whether or not the nation is indeed multicultural or a bland, homogenous broth.
Jackie Simone is a sophomore at Ithaca College majoring in journalism. This article originally ran in Buzzsaw, a member of the Campus Progress Publications network.
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Comments
If you want to learn to cook Thai food Try this Thai cooking website. www.thaifoodtonight.com
— Norris Hall - May 28, 02:08 PM - #It’s got about 30 recipes each one with a cooking video to go along.
“Taiwanese people often bring raw fruit as a gift for friends, and they eat it regularly”. Don’t you mean Thai?
This article seems about 20 years late. We all know this food isn’t actually Chinese/Thai/whatever.
— JF - May 28, 04:29 PM - #I agree with JF. This is old news. Food is made for the palate of the people eating it.
Tacos, American Chinese Food, and many other cultural dishes have been altered significantly in the United States and add to the American Food Tradition. They aren’t correct to their origins, but neither are they “wrong” in some sense.
— Michael Radtke Jr. - May 28, 06:08 PM - #Yeah, try eating pizza or hamburgers in Japan. NO WAY would anyone in the ‘States eat it. American food is just as prone to manipulation. But what’s interesting, is that in other countries, American food seems to be enhanced with NATURAL flavors which don’t necessarily make it any more unhealthy. We, however, have that method of bastardization down to a science.
— Joel - May 29, 05:02 AM - #