/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>12210714
Actual chinese food is incredibly varied. You have spicy stuff from sichuan, mild and sweeter stuff from shanghai, meaty and bready almost middle eastern stuff from xinjiang... Yeah you can do your own research on it. But the variety is absolutely incredible, in texture, taste, style and ingredients. A lot of it's very oily, there is a lot of stir fried stuff (involving ingredients and spices you've probably never heard of). But then there's soups, stews, dumplings, noodles, breads... so much. I studied in China and I miss its food.

I'm not American but I can imagine what Americanised chinese food is like, and I'm sure it's fine, but not very authentic. Like Australian chinese food, mostly meat/veges (western veges) in a somewhat viscous sauce. I also think Australian chinese food is delicious, but again, it's not authentic.

Chinese diaspora are in just about every place on earth, and their food is one of their major cultural influences, and changes depending on where you are in the world. Take this pic, I took in a chinese restaurant last year when I was traveling in Bolivia. It was run by Bolivian Chinese people. In Bolivia/South America chinese food is called Chifa (in mandarin, to eat is chīfàn, I assume that's how it got its bastardised name). The meal is pretty much just beef and green capsicum, so the food has evolved into a local bastardisation. Also notice that it has rice AND noodles, you can get one or the other or "mixto". I didn't realise that's what mixto was when I ordered it, but they fucking LOVE carbs in south america.

I would love to see a comparison of "chinese" food all around the world. It's a very interesting topic on how culture/people change and evolve depending on their environment.