American Chinese cuisine

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Chinese American Cuisine is a Chinese style of cuisine developed by Chinese Americans. Dishes served in many North China restaurants are tailored to the tastes of Americans and often differ significantly from those found in China.

Video American Chinese cuisine

History

Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States to work as miners and railroad workers. When large groups of Chinese immigrants arrive, laws are enacted to prevent them from owning land. They mostly live together in ghettos, individually referred to as "Chinatowns". Here immigrants start their own small business, including restaurants and laundry services. In the 19th century, the Chinese community in San Francisco operated luxurious and sometimes luxurious restaurants highlighted mainly by the Chinese. Restaurants in small towns (mostly owned by Chinese immigrants) serve food based on what their customers demand, ranging from pork sandwiches and apple pie, to peanuts and eggs. Many restaurant owners in this small town are self-taught family chefs who improvise on various cooking methods and ingredients. These small restaurants are responsible for developing American Chinese cuisine, where the food is modified to suit American tastes. First serving miners and railroad workers, they set up new eateries in cities where Chinese food is completely unknown, adapting local ingredients and serving the tastes of their customers. Although taste and new dishes mean they are not Chinese cuisine, this Chinese restaurant has become a cultural ambassador for Americans.

Chinese restaurants in the United States began during California's gold rush, carrying twenty to thirty thousand immigrants crossing from the Canton (Guangdong) region of China. In 1850, there were five restaurants in San Francisco. Soon after, large quantities of food were imported from China to the west coast of America. This trend spreads to the east with the growth of American railways, particularly to New York City. The Chinese Exclusion law allows traders to enter the country, and by 1915 restaurant owners became eligible for merchant visas. This triggered the opening of Chinese restaurants as immigration vehicles. By 2015, the United States has 46,700 Chinese restaurants.

Along the way, chefs customize southern Chinese dishes such as chop suey and develop a Chinese style of food not found in China. The restaurant (along with Chinese laundry) provides an ethnic niche for small businesses when Chinese people are excluded from most jobs in the wage economy by ethnic discrimination or lack of fluency. In the 1920s, this dish, especially the chopped flare, became popular among the American middle class. However, after World War II it began to be dismissed because it was not "authentic." The late 20th century taste is more accommodating. Taking food is becoming popular among Americans, Chinese food is a favorite "take out" option. By this time it became clear that Chinese restaurants no longer cater mainly to Chinese customers.

There is a consequential component of China's illegal emigration, especially the Fuzhou people from Fujian Province and Wenzhounese of Zhejiang Province in Mainland China, who are specifically destined to work in Chinese restaurants in New York City, beginning in the 1980s. Customizing Chinese cooking techniques with local products and tastes has encouraged the development of American Chinese cuisine. Many Chinese restaurants in the US are printed in Chinatown, Manhattan, which has a strong Chinese-American demographic.

With the continued success of American Chinese cuisine, including its portrayal of mainland audiences through the American television sitcom media, the American Chinese restaurant has opened in China itself. The products and materials needed to re-create this customized dish were imported into China. They include "Philadelphia cream cheese, Skippy peanut butter, cornflakes and English mustard powder".

In 2011, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History features several historical backgrounds and cultural artifacts of Chinese American cuisine in an exhibition entitled, Sweet & amp; Sour: A Look at the History of Chinese Food in the United States .

Maps American Chinese cuisine

Differences from other regional cuisines in China

American Chinese food is built on the style and food habits brought from the southern provinces of Guangdong, often from the Toisan Toisan district, from the earliest Chinese immigration prior to the closure of immigration from China in 1924. The Chinese family developed a new style and used easily the ingredients available, especially in California. The type of American Chinese cuisine served in the restaurant is different from the food eaten in Chinese American homes. Of the various regional cuisines in China, Cantonese cuisine has become the most influential in the development of American Chinese food, especially from Toisan, the origin of early immigrants.

Among the common differences is treating vegetables as a side dish or garnish, while traditional Chinese dishes emphasize vegetables. This can be seen in the use of carrots and tomatoes. Chinese cuisine often uses Asian leafy vegetables such as bok choy and kai-lan and places a greater emphasis on fresh meat and seafood.

Sautéing, frying and frying tend to be the most common Chinese cooking techniques used in American Chinese cuisine, all of which are easy to use with wok (a Chinese skillet with a bowl-like feature and which accommodates very high temperatures). These foods also have a reputation for high-level MSG to enhance flavor. Market forces and customer demand have prompted many restaurants to offer "MSG Free" or "No MSG" menus, or to remove these ingredients on request.

Chinese American cuisine uses non-original ingredients and is very rarely used in China. One example is the common use of Western broccoli (Chinese: ?? ; pinyin: x? LÃÆ' < B> ) than Chinese broccoli (Gai-lan, ?? ; jiÃÆ'¨lÃÆ'¡n ) in Chinese American cuisine. Sometimes, Western broccoli is also referred to as sai ¹ laan ⁴ fa ¹ in Cantonese ( ??? ) so as not to confuse the two Broccoli styles. Among Chinese speakers, however, it is usually understood that a person refers to leafy vegetables unless otherwise specified.

This is also the case with the words carrot ( luo buo or lo bac, or hong luo buo , hong Means "red") and red onions ( cong ). Lo bac , in Cantonese, refers to a large, sharp white radish. Carrot West orange is known in some areas of China as "foreign radish" (or rather depending lo bac in Cantonese, hung meaning "red"). When the word for onions, the cong , is used, it is understood that one refers to "spring onions" (otherwise known as English as "leek" or "spring onion"). The larger, multi-layered onion beans that are common in the United States are called cong . This is translated as "Western Onion". These names make it clear that broccoli, carrots, and onions are not Chinese native, and therefore less common in traditional Chinese cuisine.

The egg fried rice in American Chinese dishes is also prepared differently, with more soy sauce added for more flavor while the traditional egg fried rice uses less soy sauce. Some food styles, such as dim sum, are also modified to suit American tastes, such as extra dough for fried dishes and extra ketchup.

Salads containing raw or uncooked ingredients are rarely found in traditional Chinese dishes, such as Japanese-style sushi or sashimi. However, more and more American Chinese restaurants, including some high-end companies, have started offering these items in response to customer demand.

Ming Tsai, owner of the Blue Ginger restaurant in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and the culinary host of PBS Simply Ming, said that American Chinese restaurants usually try to have food that represents 3-5 Chinese territories at a time, the suey rings , or have "fried vegetables and some protein in thick sauce", "eight different sweet and sour dishes," or "a full page of 20 different chow mein or fried rice." Tsai says "Chinese-American cuisine is the 'stupid' Chinese food, adapted... to be blander, thicker and sweeter for the American public".

Most Chinese American companies serve non-Chinese customers with menus written in English or containing pictures. If separate Chinese menus are available, they usually feature items such as liver, chicken legs, or other meat dishes that can hinder American customers. In Chinatown, Manhattan, the restaurant is famous for having a "ghost" menu with food favored by ethnic Chinese, but is believed to be disliked by non-Chinese Americans.

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Plates

American Chinese restaurant menu item

Dishes that often appear on the menu of Chinese American restaurants include:

• Almond chicken - a breaded chicken with a dough containing almonds, fried and served with almonds and onions.
• Chicken General Tso - chicken slices dipped in batter, fried, and seasoned with ginger, garlic, sesame oil, spring onions, and spicy chili. Believed to be named after the Qing Dynasty statesman and military leader Zuo Zongtang, often referred to as General Tso.
• Sesame chicken - reinforced, battered chicken and then fried with red or orange sauce, sweet and slightly spicy, made from soy sauce, cornmeal, vinegar, chicken broth, and sugar.
• Chinese Chicken Salad - usually containing sliced ​​chicken or suwir, uncooked green vegetables, crunchy noodles (or fried dumplings) and sesame sauce. Some restaurants serve a salad with mandarin oranges.
• Chop suey - connotes "various pieces" in Chinese. Usually a mixture of vegetables and meat in chocolate sauce but can also be served with white sauce.
• Crab rangoon - fried dumpling skin stuffed with (usually) artificial crabmeat (surimi) and cream cheese.

• Cookies of luck - found in California as a westernized version of the Japanese senbei omikuji, the fortune cookie has become sweet and finds their way to many American Chinese restaurants.
• The royal beef - fried beef slices, doused with wine sauce and often served with steamed broccoli.
• Pepper steak - consisting of steak slices, green peppers, tomatoes, and garlic or green stir fry with salt, sugar, and soy sauce. Tauge is a less common addition
• Mongolian beef - fried beef with spring onion or garlic with a spicy brown sauce and often sweetness
• Fried wontons - somewhat similar to crab rangoon, contents, (most often pork), wrapped in dumpling and fried skin.
• Meat & amp; Broccoli - hip steak cut into small pieces, sauteed with broccoli, and covered with a dark sauce made with soy sauce and oyster sauce and thick with cornstarch.
• Sweet rolls - yeast rolls, usually fried, coated with granulated sugar or powdered sugar. Some variants are filled with cream cheese or icing.
• Sushi - although part of traditional Japanese cuisine, some American Chinese restaurants serve different types of sushi, usually on buffets.
• Wonton strips - usually served free along with duck sauce and hot mustard, or with soup when ordering take-out

Other American Chinese dishes

An authentic restaurant with a Chinese menu may offer a "yellow-haired chicken" (Chinese: ??? ; pinyin: huÃÆ'¡ngmÃÆ'¡oj? ; Canton Yale: wÃÆ'²hng mouh g? ai ; literally:" yellow chickens "), basically a domestic chicken, compared to a typical American chicken. Chickens with yellow hair are appreciated for their flavor, but must be cooked properly to soft because of their low fat content and higher muscle tone. This dish does not usually appear on the English menu.

Dau Miu ( ?? dÃÆ'²umiÃÆ'¡o ) is a Chinese vegetable that has has become popular since the early 1990s, and now appears not only in English-speaking menus, usually as "pea shoots", but often served by upscale non-Asian restaurants as well. Initially only available for several months of the year, but now grown in greenhouses and available throughout the year.

North American version found in China

• Chicken cashew - Sauté fried chicken with cashew nuts.
• Chow mein - literally means "fried noodles". Chow mein consists of crispy fried noodles with cuts of meat and vegetables. It could come with chicken, pork, shrimp or beef.
• Young foo eggs - Chinese-style omelet with vegetables and meat, usually served with chocolate sauce. While some restaurants in North America fry the omelet, the version found in Asia is more likely to fry in a frying pan.
• The egg rolls - while the spring rolls have thin, thin crusty, creamy skin, splinters, and filled with mushrooms, bamboo and other vegetables inside, American-style eggs have thicker skins , chewy, dark brown. filled with cabbage and usually chunks of meat or seafood (like pork or shrimp), but no eggs.
• Fried rice - fried rice dish is a popular dish in American Chinese food because of the speed and ease of preparation and their appeal to American tastes. Fried rice is generally prepared with rice cooled overnight, allowing the restaurant to put leftover rice for good use (freshly cooked rice is actually less suitable for fried rice). The American Chinese version of this dish usually uses more soy sauce than the version found in China. Fried rice is offered with various combinations of meat and vegetables.
• Ginger beef - ( ???? ; sh? ngji? ng niÃÆ'ºrÃÆ'²u ) Soft beef cut into chunks, mixed with ginger and mixed Chinese vegetables.
• Ginger fried beef - ( ????? ; g? nch? o niÃÆ'ºrÃÆ'²u - s? ) Soft, deep-fried, deep-fried beef, then fried back in a frying pan mixed with sweet sauce, a popular variation of North Chinese dishes.
• Hulatang - a traditional Chinese soup with spicy flavor, often called "spicy soup" on the menu
• Chicken Kung Pao - Sichuan dishes are spicy, but the version presented in North America tends to be less so if any, and sometimes leaves the Sichuan pepper which is a fundamental part of the original dish.
• Lo mein ("stirred noodles"). These noodles are often made with eggs and flour, making them more satiated than just using water. The thick noodles of spaghetti are fried with vegetables (especially bok choy and Chinese cabbage (nappa)) and meat. Sometimes this dish is referred to as "chow mein" (which literally means "fried noodles" in Cantonese).
• May Fun (see rice noodle dish)
• Moo shu pork - The original version uses more Chinese ingredients (including wooden ear fungus and daylily shoots) and thin flour pancakes while the American version uses vegetables that are better known to Americans, and the pancakes are thicker. This dish is quite popular in Chinese restaurants in the United States, but not so popular in China.
• Orange chickens - minced chicken, battered, fried with sweetened orange-flavored chilli sauce that thickens and shines. The traditional version consists of sauteed chicken with little light, sweet soy sauce flavored with dried orange peel.
• Wonton Soup - In most American Chinese restaurants, only dumplings are pangel in the broth served, while versions found in China may come with noodles. In Canton, Wonton Soup can be a full meal, consisting of thin egg noodles and some pork and shrimp wontons in a broth of pork or chicken or noodle soup. Especially in takeout restaurants, dumplings are often made with thicker dough skins.
• Beijing Beef - In China, this dish uses gai-lan (Chinese broccoli) instead of American broccoli.

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Area variation

New York City

Considering the metropolitan area of ​​New York City has become home to the largest overseas Chinese population outside Asia, all popular styles of regional Chinese cuisine have been commensurate to become available in New York City, including Hakka, Taiwan, Shanghai, Hunan, Szechuan, Canton, Fujianese, Xinjiang, Zhejiang, and Korean Korean cuisine. Even the relatively familiar style of Dongbei cuisine in Northeast China is now available in Flushing, Queens, as well as Mongolian cuisine. The availability of regional variations of Chinese cuisine originating from all different provinces in China is most visible in Chinatown in Queens, particularly in Chinatown Flushing (?????), but also famous in Chinatown cities in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Halal Chinese food preparation

Chinese food preparation is also widely available in New York City, given the Jewish population and especially Orthodox Jews in the metropolitan area. The perception that American Jews eat at Chinese restaurants on Christmas Day is documented in the media as a common stereotype with a basis in fact. The tradition may emerge from the lack of other open restaurants on Christmas Day, as well as the proximity of Jewish and Chinese immigrants to each other in New York City. Kosher Chinese food is usually prepared in New York City, as well as in other large cities with Orthodox Jewish environment, under Rabbinical rigorous control as a prerequisite for halal certification.

San Francisco Bay Area

Since the early 1990s, many American Chinese restaurants influenced by California cuisine have opened in the San Francisco Bay Area. Chinese American trademark dishes remain on the menu, but there is more emphasis on fresh vegetables, and the selection is vegetarian. This new dish has exotic ingredients like mango and portobello mushrooms. Brown rice is often offered as an alternative to white rice. Some restaurants replace tortilla flour for rice pancakes on your shu dish. This is the case even in some restaurants that will not be identified as Chinese Californians, both a more westernized place and a more authentic place. There is a Mexican bakery selling some thin tortilla restaurants made for use with mu shu. Mu shu purists do not always react positively to this trend.

In addition, many restaurants serve more authentic Chinese cuisine, due to the high number and proportion of Chinese ethnicity in the San Francisco Bay Area. Restaurants specializing in Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunanese, North China, Shanghai, Taiwanese and Hong Kong traditions are widely available, as are more specialized restaurants such as seafood restaurants, Hong Kong-style restaurants and cafes, also known as Cha chaan teng ( ??? ; chÃÆ'¡c? Nt? Ng ), dim sum tea shop, and hot pot restaurant. Many areas of Chinatown also have Chinese bakeries, boba milk tea shops, grilled meats, vegetarian dishes, and specialty desserts. Chop suey is not widely available in San Francisco, and chow mein in the area is different from the Midwestern chow mein.

Greater Los Angeles

American Chinese cuisine in the Greater Los Angeles area is generally characterized by a suburban setting. Chinese restaurants in San Gabriel Valley tend to concentrate on preparation of Taiwanese cuisine.

Boston

Chinese cuisine in Boston reflects a range of influential factors. Shanghai's burgeoning Chinatown accommodates Chinese-owned bus lines carrying more passengers to and from many Chinatowns in New York City, and this has led to some similarities in Chinese local cuisine derived from Chinese food in New York. The immense population of Fujian immigrants has made a home in Boston, leading to Fuzhou cuisine available in Boston. Vietnam's rising population has also had an influence on Chinese cuisine in Greater Boston. Finally, innovative dishes that combine chow mein and chop suey as well as local agricultural products and locally obtained seafood ingredients are found in Chinese and non-Chinese food in and around Boston.

Philadelphia

The growing American Chinese scene in Philadelphia shows similarities with Chinese food scenes in New York City and Boston. There is a growing Fujian community in Philadelphia as well, and Fuzhou cuisine is readily available in Chinatown Philadelphia. Like Boston, the flourishing Vietnamese cuisine scene in Philadelphia contributes to the Chinese cuisine environment.

Hawaii

Source of the article : Wikipedia