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Thread: Chinese food

  1. #31
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    She Wong Lam closes

    Snake restaurant in Hong Kong to close after 110 years, marking end of an era
    Family-run She Wong Lam in Sheung Wan was hugely popular, with actor Stephen Chow a regular customer. But its snake handler is nearly 90, and no one in the family wants to continue the business

    PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 11 July, 2018, 6:48pm
    UPDATED : Wednesday, 11 July, 2018, 7:20pm
    Bernice Chan
    bernice.chan@scmp.com
    http://twitter.com/beijingcalling



    One of Hong Kong’s oldest snake restaurants is closing for good, ending more than 110 years of history in Sheung Wan.

    Family-run She Wong Lam was hugely popular in the 1960s and 1970s, but with no one from the family’s younger generation keen to continue the business of looking after snakes and preparing them for soup, the restaurant will close its doors on July 15.

    According to Lo Tin-yam, the fourth-generation owner, She Wong Lam’s manager, Mak Dai-kong, is in his late 80s and has decided to retire, so the Lo family feels it is the right time to close the Hillier Street shop.

    “Master Mak is almost 90 and he is the boss of the shop. He has worked for four generations of our family,” Lo says by phone from Vancouver, Canada. “Since my grandfather passed away, my father [Lo Yip-wing] didn’t know much about the snake business and I know even less,” he says.

    His family trusts Mak but are unfamiliar with the shop’s other employees, making it hard for them to continue the business, he explains.


    Mak joined She Wong Lam in 1948, when he was 18 years old. Photo: Oliver Tsang

    Lo says the date for closing She Wong Lam was chosen by his uncle and father, the latter now in an old people’s home in Hong Kong. Lo, an accountant, and his younger sister have lived in Vancouver since he was about eight years old and he does not intend to return.

    “It’s very difficult to find people to work in this particular industry. It’s not for everyone,” Lo says.

    Mak joined She Wong Lam in 1948, when he was 18 years old, and the founder, Lo Tai-lam, encouraged him to help out around the shop and eat snake soup to help build his strength.


    She Wong Lam in Sheung Wan in 1972. Photo: SCMP

    Mak gradually learned how to handle snakes, remove their fangs, extract the gallbladder, and make the shop’s signature snake soup.

    The ingredients of snake soup include the meat of various snake species, chicken, pork, sugar cane, mandarin peel, and white pepper. It is garnished with chrysanthemum petals and finely sliced lemon leaves.

    “In the past, when I saw my colleagues handling snakes, they told me I didn’t have to be afraid of them,” Mak said in an interview with the Post late last year.


    Bottles of snake wine for sale at She Wong Lam. Photo: James Wendlinger

    “Once their fangs have been pulled out, they are not venomous … I remember my first attempts at handling snakes. I got bitten by them but it wasn’t painful at all. Since then, I have never been afraid of snakes.”

    Sidney Cheung Chin-hung, professor and director of the Centre for Cultural Heritage Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has a copy of a flier from She Wong Lam promoting its snake gallbladder seasoned with ginger or pepper that dates back to 1910, and believes the shop was established in the early 1900s.

    While fourth-generation owner Lo didn’t learn much about the snake business, he has a few fond memories to share about the business. The shop moved a few times during its more than 110-year history, but has always been in Sheung Wan. He also revealed how the shop got its name.

    “My great-grandfather used to be busy in the back of the shop dealing with the snakes, and because people couldn’t see him, they assumed he was being lazy, which is why he got the nickname ‘Se Wong’, or ‘Snake King’,” says Lo. “She wong” is a Chinese euphemism for a lazy person.

    Lo isn’t sure how or when his great-grandfather came to Hong Kong from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, but Cheung is convinced the business was founded back in the dying days of the Qing dynasty.

    One of his former anthropology graduate students, Esther Chok Wing-sum, says that in 1885 there were about 115 snake shops in Guangzhou. At the turn of the century, many snake handlers, including Lo’s great-grandfather, brought their knowledge and skills to the British colony of Hong Kong.

    The younger Lo attributes the family’s financial success to the hard work of his great-grandfather and grandfather. At one point She Wong Lam sold snake gallbladder and soup not only in Sheung Wan, but at two other locations in the city.


    Mak gradually learned how to handle snakes, and defang them. Photo: James Wendlinger

    Hong Kong historian Cheng Po-hung says one of the shops was on the corner of Hennessy and Fleming roads in Wan Chai. The other was in Kowloon, he says, though no one we spoke to remembers the exact location.

    Before the 1950s, Chok says, snake was a delicacy on par with shark’s fin and bird’s nest, which only the well-off could afford.

    “A snake gallbladder was a few days’ salary at the time,” she explains. “It cost HK$20, but at that time the average person’s monthly salary was only HK$250.”

    However, from the 1950s onwards, eating snake became increasingly affordable for the working class and grew more popular. “A bowl of snake soup would cost HK$8, but then it went down to HK$2 to HK$3,” Chok says.
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    Gene Ching
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  2. #32
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    Continued from previous post


    Snake soup served at She Wong Lam. Photo: Edmond So

    Lo says there was a Chinese opera theatre in Sheung Wan in the 1960s, close to She Wong Lam, and opera singers would patronise the shop regularly, downing snake gallbladder with alcohol to boost their stamina.

    Celebrities such as actor Stephen Chow Sing-chi and former senior police officer Tsang Kai-wing (actor Eric Tsang Chi-wai’s father) were regular visitors. Lo says Chow would tell the staff to contact him when they had a particularly large cobra in stock, such was his appetite for the snake.

    Historian Cheng says he has tried the reptile’s gallbladder, which his friends used to buy regularly from other snake shops. “They put it in a spoon, or a shot glass, and added alcohol to it,” he says.

    “One time a group of us drank the gallbladder of three different snakes mixed with alcohol … it was translucent green in colour and tasted bitter. People think it helps you become physically stronger, but the gallbladder has bacteria in it,” he says.

    Despite She Wong Lam’s success, Lo’s elders were acutely aware of how important it was that a member of the next generation learn the snake trade if the business was to continue.

    “My great uncle asked me when I was in my 20s if I would go into the business, otherwise no one else would do it. But I have my life in Canada. I’m 50 years old now and I don’t even live there [in Hong Kong],” he says.


    Mak extracts the gallbladder, and then makes the shop’s signature snake soup. Photo: James Wendlinger

    Lo points out that other traditional trades in Hong Kong, such as making lanterns, bamboo noodles, hand-carved mahjong tiles, and neon signs, are also disappearing.

    The younger generation move away and can’t come back. [Old] Hong Kong will disappearLO TIN-YAM
    “The younger generation move away and can’t come back,” he says. “[Old] Hong Kong will disappear and instead have shops like Zara, McDonald’s and Fairwood, especially with rent being so expensive.”

    A search on restaurant guide OpenRice shows 36 restaurants with the Chinese character for “snake” in their name still open in Hong Kong, at least four of them with more than one location. They may not necessarily be specialists like She Wong Lam, however, nor have live snakes on the premises.


    Snake boxes with the word ‘poisonous’ on them at She Wong Lam in Sheung Wan. Photo: James Wendlinger

    Historian Cheng thinks there is still a decent number of places to get a bowl of snake soup, and doesn’t expect them all to close any time soon. He says the owners of Shia Wong Hip in Sham Shui Po, for example, have taught their siblings the snake trade, and adds there are still many snake shops in that neighbourhood and in Yau Ma Tei.

    After the closure of She Wong Lam, the Lo family, which owns the shop space, will rent it out. In the meantime, Lo says, they have contacted the Hong Kong Museum of History about collecting the snake cabinets, cages and tables. The wooden cabinets are more than 100 years old.


    Diners enjoy bowls of snake soup at She Wong Lam. Photo: AFP

    Lo says Mak designed his own pocket knife to make a sharp slit to extract the snake’s gallbladder, and to skin it quickly and efficiently. According to Cheng, designing their own knives is common practice among those in the snake business.

    For Lo, the closure of She Wong Lam is also the end of a long chapter in the family’s history, and tinged with sadness. Five years ago, Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK made a documentary featuring Lo and his son Lo Yun-hei, then three years old, visiting the shop. At the time he hoped the business would continue to the fifth generation.

    The reality is that the family respects Mak’s wishes to retire, and Lo hopes to keep the shop’s name alive. “I do have the intention to move back to Hong Kong when I retire, and I still have the rights to the name, so maybe I’ll open a restaurant with the same name,” Lo says.
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  3. #33
    I'm starving!!! I want to go out now and eat at the nearest Chinese restaurant. We have a small one here about 5 minutes away.

  4. #34
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    Q

    In Italy, ‘Al Dente’ Is Prized. In Taiwan, It’s All About Food That’s ‘Q.’


    Taiwanese tapioca for sale at the Lehua Night Market in Taipei. It has the prized “Q” texture of Taiwanese food.CreditCreditBilly H.C. Kwok for The New York Times
    By Amy Qin
    Oct. 4, 2018

    NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan — As dusk falls at Lehua Night Market, the fluorescent lights flicker on and the hungry customers start trickling in, anxious for a taste of the local delicacies that give this island its reputation as one of Asia’s finest culinary capitals.

    Neatly arranged pyramids of plump fish balls. Bowls brimming with tapioca balls bathed in lightly sweetened syrup. Sizzling oyster omelets, hot off the griddle. Deep-fried sweet potato puffs, still dripping with oil.

    Take a bite of any of these dishes and you’ll discover a unique texture. But how exactly do you describe that perfectly calibrated “mouth feel” so sought after by local cooks and eaters alike?

    Slippery? Chewy? Globby? Not exactly the most flattering adjectives in the culinary world.

    Luckily, the Taiwanese have a word for this texture. Well, actually, it’s not a word, it’s a letter — one that even non-Chinese speakers can pronounce.

    It’s “Q.”

    “It’s difficult to explain what Q means exactly,” said Liu Yen-ling, a manager at Chun Shui Tang, a popular teahouse chain that claims to have invented tapioca milk tea in Taiwan. “Basically it means springy, soft, elastic.”

    Q texture is to Taiwanese what umami is to Japanese and al dente is to Italians — that is, cherished and essential. Around Taiwan, the letter Q can often be glimpsed amid a jumble of Chinese characters on shop signs and food packages and in convenience stores and advertisements.


    Q bars, Taiwanese tapioca and sesame doughnuts.Credit Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times

    The texture is found in both savory and sweet foods, and is most often used to describe foods that contain some kind of starch like noodles, tapioca pearls and fish balls. If something is really chewy or extra Q, then it could be called QQ. Often, Q and QQ are used interchangeably.

    “You can tell if bubble milk tea is good based on how Q the tapioca pearls are,” Mr. Liu said. “If the texture is perfect, it can be very satisfying.”

    André Chiang, a Michelin-star chef and owner of RAW in Taipei, said he had recently been experimenting with the texture at his restaurant, which uses only locally sourced Taiwanese ingredients.


    At the night market in Taipei. Q texture is to Taiwanese what umami is to Japanese and al dente is to Italians — that is, cherished and essential.Credit Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times

    One dish he was trying out for the restaurant’s new menu featured langoustine, burned onion juice and white tapioca pearls that are cooked to bubbly Q perfection.

    “It’s like al dente but not quite,” Mr. Chiang said. “It’s to the tooth but there’s also that added element of bounciness.”

    Q is so well established in Taiwan that many in Hong Kong and over the strait in mainland China use the term as well.

    Elsewhere in Asia, it is a familiar texture, though the term itself may not be used. Tteok-bokki, a Korean stir-fried rice cake, and mochi, a Japanese rice cake, for example, could also be considered Q. In Western cuisine, the texture is less commonly found, though one could describe foods like gummy bears and certain kinds of pasta as Q.

    The origins of the term Q are unclear. Some say it comes from the Taiwanese Hokkien word k’iu. Say Q to an elderly Taiwanese, and chances are he or she will know the term. But no one can quite explain how and when the 17th letter of the English alphabet became shorthand for describing the texture of tapioca balls and gummy candies.


    Milk curd, happy QQ balls (sweet potato balls) and konjac.Credit Billy H.C. Kwok for NYT; Ashley Pon for NYT; Billy H.C. Kwok for NYT

    With the rapid proliferation of bubble milk tea shops and other Asian snack shops across the United States over the years, there has emerged a broader appreciation for this once “exotic” texture, even if the vocabulary to describe that texture has not exactly caught up.

    “Most of my American friends like bubble milk tea,” said Tina Fong, a co-founder of Taipei Eats, which offers food tours around the city. “But when there’s Q texture in a savory dish, it can still be a bit strange to them. It really depends on the person.”

    When it comes to the Chinese language, the letter Q is surprisingly versatile, and not used only to describe food. For example, many in China and Taiwan are familiar with 阿Q, or Ah Q, the protagonist of one of China’s most famous novellas by the writer Lu Xun.

    After the publication of “The True Story of Ah Q” in the early 1920s, Ah Q became a symbol of the backwardness of Chinese culture. While the story’s narrator confesses to not knowing the origin of Ah Q’s name, some scholars say Lu Xun may have chosen Q as an implicit reference to its ****nym queue, or the braided ponytail that Chinese men were forced to wear to show their subjugation to the ruling Qing dynasty.


    Tapioca pearls and bubble milk tea at Chun Shui Tang teahouse in Taipei, left and middle. A bowl of beef noodle at Taipei’s Lin Dong Fang beef noodle shop.Credit Ashley Pon for The New York Times

    Some have also interpreted Lu Xun’s Q as a pictogram of a head with a pigtail.

    There are many other uses for the term Q in Chinese as well. It could be used, for example, as shorthand for the English word cute, or to refer to the once-popular QQ messaging service from Tencent or the QQ minicar model from the Chinese carmaker Chery.

    “Whether Q may be considered a Chinese character or not, it certainly has become a part of the Chinese writing system,” Victor Mair, a professor of Chinese language at the University of Pennsylvania, once wrote in a blog post.

    Among Taiwanese, the appreciation for Q texture starts at a young age. On a recent sticky evening at Lehua Night Market, crowds ambled through the carnival-like pedestrian street, which was lined on both sides with vendors hawking things like hats, cellphone cases and, of course, delicious snacks.

    A gaggle of mini revelers zeroed in on a stand with a neon sign that read “QQ popsicles.” Asked why Q texture was so appealing to Taiwanese, Lu Wei-chen, the owner of the stand, smiled as she handed a bright red jelly bar to a delighted toddler.

    “It’s simple,” she said. “When you eat it, you will be in a good mood.”


    Vermicelli and pig blood cake for sale at the night market.Credit Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times

    Follow Amy Qin on Twitter: @amyyqin
    Karoline Kan contributed research from Beijing.

    This explains a great mystery to me. I've seen Q before in ads and such and never put this together.

    THREADS
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  5. #35
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    Waiter, there's a...

    ...snake loose in the restaurant.

    Live snake escapes from Guangzhou restaurant’s kitchen, gets caught by customer
    At least you know your snakehead soup is fresh!
    by Alex Linder October 5, 2018



    Recently, a live snake escaped from the restaurant of a kitchen only to be caught and returned by one customer. This happened where else but in Guangdong province.

    Video shows that the snake’s escape caused quite a stir in the Guangzhou restaurant, causing some diners to flee and others to step forward to help catch the creature. In the end, it was a brave uncle who snared the serpent and presented it back to restaurant staff.

    In China, the people of Guangdong have a well-earned reputation as adventurous eaters — a popular saying goes that they will “eat anything that has four legs except for a table, anything that flies except for an airplane, and anything that swims except for a submarine — while restaurants there do not have such an impressive reputation for food safety, at least you know that the snakehead soup is made fresh.
    I hope that 'brave uncle' got his meal comped, at least.

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  6. #36
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    Wagyu, white truffles, Wuliangye

    HK$800 Ozaki beef sandwich. HK$800= $102.16 USD

    Hong Kong label chasers lap up luxury food trends: Wagyu, white truffles, Wuliangye
    Always keen to try the next new and trendy thing, Hongkongers don’t mind having their egos exploited if it also means proving their crazy rich credentials

    PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 03 October, 2018, 12:31pm
    UPDATED : Thursday, 04 October, 2018, 7:10pm
    Andrew Sun



    Hong Kong people want the best of everything and they know the brand names to prove it. From fashion to jewellery to restaurants by celebrity chefs, there is no better way for them to prove their crazy rich credentials than to engage in label chasing.

    Bars and restaurant owners are as aware of this tendency as any other type of business. They’re not afraid to exploit our egos by pushing on us their most ostentatious ingredients. After all, Hongkongers don’t just enjoy wearing bling, they like to eat it too.

    When red wine got a little too mass market for the oenophile nerds – I mean, connoisseurs – a snifter of whisky became the routine drink in expensive bars. Trend snobs would boast about single malts, dusty bottles from obscure distilleries, and the impressive number of years their drink was aged in oak barrels. Then, when the oracles of alcohol declared the best stuff was made in Japan, the lemmings started looking eastward.

    As that fad plays itself out, booze brands are now pushing other bandwagon products. Have you noticed Chinese baijiu is suddenly being used in more cocktails? I suppose it’s to wean us before suggesting we should do the alcohol in straight-up shots. Once you’re hooked, naturally you’ll want to move some of the whisky bottles to make room in the cabinet for some Mao-tai and Wuliangye.


    When wine got too widespread, oenophile nerds starting reaching for the single malts. Is luxury Chinese baijiu next? Photo: Alamy

    The same marketing trick happens with food, too. I remember only being able to order buffalo mozzarella in restaurants. Now it’s available in supermarkets, so the fancy trattorias want to sell me burrata instead. Stuffing cream into mozzarella is, of course, more premium and, naturally, pricier. And just like that, mozzarella is relegated to second-class status.


    Burrata – a cut above your mass market mozzarella. Photo: Alamy

    I also remember when Kobe was the best beef you could eat. We were lured with mythic stories about the cows being massaged and fed beer. Then wagyu came along. Even though Kobe is technically a type of wagyu (which means “Japanese breeds of beef”), the label stuck and people who don’t know any better think wagyu is more elevated than Kobe.


    Is wagyu better than Kobe? Who cares – as long as it’s trendier.

    As wagyu started selling by the cattle load, producers began raising them in other places. In Australia, it was crossed with cattle breeds like Angus, so wagyu suddenly started appearing in steakhouses and French restaurants. Burger joints used it to make really marbled patties for their luxury sliders. At Repulse Bay’s Fratelli pasta bar, they even have an Italian wagyu beef on the menu. Will a McWagyu be next?

    This summer, a hot new beef name arrived in Hong Kong. Elephant Grounds’ pop-up cafe with Japanese brand Wagyumafia introduced us to an HK$800 Ozaki beef sandwich. What is Ozaki? It’s wagyu raised in Miyazaki in southwest Japan, but specifically on a farm owned by rancher Muneharu Ozaki. You want exclusive? Post pop-up, the beef is only available in one Causeway Bay restaurant, Marble.


    A piece of the HK$800 Ozaki beef sandwich from the Elephant Grounds pop-up in Causeway Bay. Photo: Bernice Chan

    But the most successfully marketed luxury ingredient in Hong Kong has to be truffles. Around this time every year, restaurants with Michelin stars (or Michelin-star ambitions) will start shaving white truffles all over their dishes for status-seeking diners who essentially tell them, “Here’s my money, please show everyone what a big deal I am.”


    If you want a Michelin star, stick white truffle on the menu. Photo: Alamy

    We can thank 8½ Otto e Mezzo chef Umberto Bombana for introducing us to this heavenly aromatic fungus; he was using white truffles way back in his days at Toscana, when the Ritz-Carlton was in Central. But his annual Alba truffle auctions are now little more than an excuse for tycoons to compare the size of their … wallets.

    As the truffle obsession has grown, the rest of the year we want black truffles from France, Australia and even China. To give the grovelling masses a taste, there are synthetically simulated bottles of truffle oil to use with pizzas and pastas. Personally, too much truffle makes me slightly nauseated, so no thanks to all those eight-course truffle meals so popular in Hong Kong.

    Of course, I say that because I’m broke. If I wasn’t, maybe I would be ordering an Ozaki steak marinated in 30-year-old whisky, topped with burrata, white truffles and plenty of gold leaf.

    This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Pursuit of the best of everything leaves us vulnerable to fads
    Gene Ching
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  7. #37
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    Vinegar ice cream

    Shanxi shop leaves a sweet taste with its vinegar ice cream
    'Delicious' and 'sweet and sour'
    by Jethro Kang October 15, 2018 in Food



    In China, vinegar is a no-brainer addition to everything from noodles to breaded pork cutlets, but a store in northern China is using it to flavor something rather unconventional: ice cream.

    A dessert shop in Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi, has recently created the sweet treat with the sour condiment as the highlight.

    The ice cream is made from milk, sorghum, peas, barley, and Lao Chen Cu (老陈醋), a type of aged vinegar the province is famous for.

    “We use mature vinegar that has been fermented for three years to five years,” store employee Chen Yichao told Xinhua News Agency.



    According to Chen, it took many experiments to make the vinegar ice cream palatable.

    “Some people don’t like the flavor,” he said, “but we are catering to those who dare to try new things.”

    There seems to be a lot of adventurous eaters: over 200 cones are sold everyday, according to China Global Television Network, and Chen said it accounted for at least 60 percent of their total daily sales. Each vinegar ice cream cone costs ¥10.

    In a Weibo video by China News, a lady described the flavor as “delicious” and “sweet and sour.”

    Lao Chen vinegar is considered to be one of the four famous vinegars in China. It has a history of over 3,000 years and it’s thought to be the first style of vinegar in the world.

    [Photos via CGTN]
    I don't eat ice cream any more for dietary reasons, but I would give this a taste. I love vinegar. I guess it's the Chinese in me.


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  8. #38
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    Say NO to centipede sashimi

    This article is a few months old but rat lungworm is back in the news with another recent death of an Australian who ate a slug on a dare.


    Two people got rat lungworm from eating raw centipedes. Could you be next?

    The answer is yes—even if you don't like eating bugs.
    By Sara Chodosh July 31, 2018


    A beautiful lungworm.
    Punlop Anusonpornperm

    Rat lungworm is, thankfully, one of the few parasites that sounds more disgusting than it is. Unfortunately, it’s even more terrifying than its gross name would suggest.

    Two poor humans who recently got infected—as reported Monday in the journal American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene—contracted the parasite by eating raw centipedes, which might give you a false sense of security. ‘I don’t eat centipedes,’ you think, foolishly. Nor do you likely live in a small rural town in Guangzhou, China, where the mother and son pair reported to the hospital with persistent headaches. (Of course, you may live in a small rural town in Guangzhou and/or enjoy the occasional centipede snack, but our reader analytics tell us this is statistically unlikely).

    But rat lungworm isn’t confined to Asia and the Caribbean anymore: It’s in the U.S., too. And you don’t have to indulge in conscious entomophagy for the disease to strike you.

    First, though, let’s talk about what the heck rat lungworm is. As the name implies, the parasitic roundworm that causes angiostrongyliasis (the scientific name for the disease) lives inside rat lungs, specifically inside the pulmonary blood vessels. Infected rats excrete the worms in their feces, where it can go on to infect other critters like snails, slugs, frogs and, yes, centipedes. Cooking any of these animals kills the parasite, so escargot fans needn’t worry, but eating any of them raw may very well pass the roundworms on to you. You, a human, are what epidemiologists call an incidental host. Angiostrongylus cantonensis isn’t trying to infect you, but if it finds itself in your bloodstream it’ll make itself at home.

    Once inside you, the worms can get into your central nervous system, where they can cause eosinophilic meningitis. Meningitis is, generally, inflammation of the meninges, which is the membrane surrounding your brain and spinal cord. The eosinophilic type is rare and is so-called because it involves a proliferation of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell that fights parasites. That is, in fact, how many cases of rat lungworm are diagnosed in humans. There’s no blood test, so diagnosis relies on doctors picking up on certain clues enough to think to test the cerebrospinal fluid for high levels of eosinophils.

    That was the case for this mother and son, who reported to the hospital a few weeks apart complaining of persistent headaches. The mother, 78, also had cognitive impairment and sleepiness. The son, 46, had some neck rigidity. It was only after questioning that the doctors discovered both had eaten raw centipedes in the previous days, and thought to look at their cerebrospinal fluid.

    Those symptoms aren’t exactly typical of rat lungworm, though. The neck stiffness and headaches are classic signs of meningitis in general—the inflammation in the meninges causes both. But most people with meningitis also have much more serious symptoms. Many report nausea, vomiting, fever, abnormal sensations in the arms and legs, and changes to vision. As the disease progresses, some people can develop other neurological problems and can even die. That being said, rat lungworm isn’t always horrifying. It doesn’t even always cause meningitis. Some people don’t have any symptoms, others get minor headaches or a stiff neck, but their bodies mostly fight off the parasite without them ever noticing.

    The other parasite that causes rat lungworm, Angiostrongylus costaricensis, can also cause abdominal pain since it often travels to the intestines. The Centers for Disease Control notes that the pain can be severe enough to mimic appendicitis, and it’s often only once surgeons remove the appendix that they realize what’s actually causing the pain. If the worms stick around, though, people can develop internal hemorrhaging from their intestines as the worms get stuck in capillaries and cause inflammatory reactions as they die. (Okay, maybe this is grosser than it sounds after all…).

    This used to be problem mostly in Asia and the Caribbean. That’s where the parasite circulated between the rat and snail/slug populations. A 2013 study found that the disease is spreading, though, largely as a result of global shipping patterns in cargo ships and planes, which can carry rats and snails or slugs without anyone realizing. That same study found infected apple snails in New Orleans and infected flatworms in Hawai’i, as well as other infected mollusks and many, many rats. A 2015 study found the parasite in the Giant African Land Snails that hang out in Florida, too. Some researchers have expressed concern that climate change could expand the reach of these critters, thus also broadening the area that the parasite can come in contact with humans.

    Now, you may be thinking at this point that you still don’t eat uncooked snails and slugs. To that we will say that you don’t eat uncooked snails and slugs intentionally. Some people certainly do eat these creatures raw, whether for supposed medicinal purposes (which was why the two people in the case report consumed the centipedes raw) or on a dare, or simply because they enjoy it (no judgement). But many of us have probably eaten some raw slug unintentionally on a bit of poorly-washed lettuce. And you don’t have to eat the slug or snail itself—larvae can hide inside the slime. You can get infected without even realizing it. Besides, it’s not just slugs and snails. Shrimp, frogs, and crabs can give you the disease, too, and so can water that’s harbored any of those animals.

    People living in Hawai’i have already gotten infected (and so did one teen who was just on vacation there). Several people have ended up in comas, and a study of the 84 cases of rat lungworm in Hawai’i from January 2001 to February 2005, researchers found that at least 24 of the cases were attributable to A. cantonensis.

    These cases don’t seem to have been treated for the parasite specifically, but rather were given medicine to improve their symptoms. Similarly, the CDC doesn’t list a specific treatment for rat lungworm. Both of the Chinese patients in this recent case study were treated with albendazole (an anti-parasitic) for 21 days and dexamethasone (an anti-inflammatory steroid) for 15 days, which seems to have resolved the disease.

    If you live around the Gulf of Mexico or in Hawai’i, rat lungworm could be a growing problem for you. So yes, avoid eating raw or undercooked slugs or snails (not that most of us would know the proper cooking technique for a garden slug), but also don’t drink from the garden hose or handle any of these critters that you find near your house without washing your hands afterwards. Thoroughly wash all your produce, too. And maybe just stay away from raw centipedes generally.
    Gene Ching
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  9. #39
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    The MICHELIN Guide Fine Cantonese Food

    It's about time...

    The Launch Of The MICHELIN Guide Fine Cantonese Food
    This special edition compiles the best addresses for Cantonese cuisine across 15 countries in Asia, Europe and the United States.
    13 November 2018



    Michelin has just unveiled the latest edition of its MICHELIN Guides with a new title dedicated to one of the world’s most celebrated cuisines: The MICHELIN Guide Fine Cantonese Food.



    This is the first time that the teams of the MICHELIN Guide have created a selection that does not cover a particular geographical area but which compiles the best addresses offering a regional specialty.

    Gwendal Poullennec, International Director of the MICHELIN Guides comments: "The MICHELIN Guide is now acclaiming, internationally, Cantonese gastronomy, which enjoys a worldwide reputation and is appreciated both in Asia, Europe, North America and in the Pacific”.

    The selection lists some 291 establishments from different editions of the Guide, of which 78 are starred restaurants, 62 are Bib Gourmand restaurants and 151 are restaurants awarded a MICHELIN Plate.

    These include the four Cantonese establishments around the world with the highest three-Michelin-star status: The Eight in the Grand Lisboa Hotel in Macau, Lung King Heen and T’ang Court in Hong Kong, and Le Palais in Taipei.

    These different addresses are located in 15 countries from China to the United States through Italy. Asia has the largest number of starred Cantonese restaurants with 69 establishments, while Europe has eight and the United States one.

    This special edition of the MICHELIN Guide pays tribute to one of the most famous Chinese cuisines that has seduced gourmets from around the world, demonstrating the expertise of the Michelin inspectors and their ability to appreciate the most varied cuisines with a universal criteria.

    Banner image courtesy of Lung King Heen.


    Written by Rachel Tan

    Rachel Tan is Digital Associate Editor at the Michelin Guide Singapore. A former food magazine writer, she has a degree in communications for journalism but is a graduate of the school of hard knocks in the kitchen. When not at the keyboard, she might be found devouring food fiction or slaving over the stove with a kid on her hip. In the words of Anais Nin, she writes to taste life twice.
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  10. #40
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    Andrew Zimmern apologizes for being an ass

    Andrew Zimmern apologizes after criticized for 'offensive' comments about Chinese restaurants
    The celebrity chef's remarks about the quality of Chinese-American restaurants, such as P.F. Chang's, were criticized for being culturally insensitive.


    Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods" host Andrew Zimmern, a four-time James Beard award-winning chef, samples Taiwanese noodle soup and pork roll at Happy Stony Noodle in Elmhurst, Queens in New York on July 20, 2017.Kathy Willens / AP file

    Nov. 27, 2018 / 3:14 PM PST
    By Agnes Constante

    Celebrity chef and “Bizarre Foods” host Andrew Zimmern has apologized for controversial remarks he made about Chinese-American restaurants

    “The upset that is felt in the Chinese American community is reasonable, legitimate and understandable, and I regret that I have been the one to cause it,” Zimmern wrote in a statement posted to Facebook on Monday. “That is the very last thing I would ever want to do.”

    The apology follows Zimmern's interview with Fast Company, published last week, where he discussed the opening of his latest restaurant Lucky Cricket, a Chinese restaurant that includes a Tiki bar, at a mall in a Minnesota suburb. The goal, he said, was to introduce Midwesterners to "hot chili oil, introduce them to a hand-cut noodle, and introduce them to a real roast duck," and to open 200 of those restaurants across middle America.

    “I think I'm saving the souls of all the people from having to dine at these horses--- restaurants masquerading as Chinese food that are in the Midwest,” he said.

    Angry Asian Man

    @angryasianman
    To quote @hooleil: "If a dish hasn't been eaten or reimagined by a white person, does it really exist?" https://www.eater.com/2018/11/20/181...hain-minnesota

    292
    3:30 PM - Nov 20, 2018
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    Why Does Andrew Zimmern Get to Create the Next P.F. Chang’s?
    The chef and TV host wades into questions of appropriation with his new Chinese restaurant chain, Lucky Cricket

    eater.com
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    Zimmern's remarks were widely criticized for being culturally insensitive.

    "The Midwest’s 'horses--- restaurants' are what paved the way for Zimmern’s venture and more broadly, Chinese cuisine in America," Washington Post contributor Ruth Tam wrote in response. "Chinese American food may have originated in the nation’s coastal cities, where immigrants first opened shop, but I’d argue that this cuisine’s ability to thrive in the Midwest with fewer Asian patrons cemented its lasting role in this country. These 'horses---' restaurants may not clear Zimmern’s bar for authenticity, but despite adversity, they created a time-tested model for immigrant food and helped make Chinese food not only ubiquitous, but part of American identity."

    Serena Dai

    @ssdai
    So Andrew Zimmern basically called into question a Chinese guy's Chinese-ness and authority to sell Chinese food — while promoting his own authority to sell Chinese food as a woke white guy

    Eater

    @Eater
    Andrew Zimmern wades into questions of appropriation with the launch of his new Chinese restaurant chain Lucky Cricket https://www.eater.com/2018/11/20/181...source=twitter

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    Eater restaurant editor Hillary Dixler Canavan also criticized Zimmern for inaccurately portraying the Chinese-American restaurant experience. During Zimmern's interview with Fast Company, he said, “Someone else is going to be the next P.F. Chang's, and I don't want them to blow it. And is it up to me to do it? …. I certainly think I'm in the conversation. And just because I'm not Chinese, I leave that to the rest of the world to judge.”

    He also suggested that P.F. Chang's was a “ripoff” because it was owned by the son — “a rich, American kid on the inside” — of culinary figure Cecilia Chang, who is credited with introducing America to traditional Chinese cuisine.

    "With one glib comment, Zimmern basically erases [Philip] Chiang’s experience of race in America because he was from a rich family," Dixler Canavan wrote. "Calling Chiang’s cultural purity into question in order to give his own work on Lucky Cricket a pass is deeply misguided, if not outrageously offensive."

    She added, “Zimmern not only makes a value judgment about authenticity … but he also makes it without questioning why he gets to pass judgment in the first place. That act of 'translating' on behalf of the presumably white audience — the idea that American diners need to have something unfamiliar 'made more palatable' to get them to the table — has shades of a strange, increasingly outdated form of cultural elitism.”

    In his apology, Zimmern said he did not intend to portray himself as the expert of quality Chinese or Chinese-American food or culture, and that some of what he said was taken out of context.

    He noted that many people in Minnesota only know the Chinese food found at airports and malls.

    “For those folks, I hope to open their eyes to the greatness of Chinese and Chinese-American cuisines and the people who put it on the plate,” he said. “And hopefully, since Americans in general inhale other cultures first through their mouths, if they can love the food they can become more accepting and understanding of the people.”

    Follow NBC Asian America on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

    CORRECTION (Nov. 28, 2018, 10:26 a.m. ET): An earlier version of a photo caption in this article misspelled the name of a TV show hosted by Andrew Zimmern. The show is "Bizarre Foods," not "Bizzare Foods."
    I do think poorly of P.F Chang's too, but just because it's overpriced. I'll never eat at Lucky Cricket. I'm not convinced that Zimmern can even make a decent dish of crickets. That's not because he's white, mind you, it's because his thinking is too narrow.
    Gene Ching
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  11. #41
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    Now that he's getting a mouthful of bad press he's offering up a dish of sweet 'n sour crow with cashew noodles.
    Last edited by PalmStriker; 11-30-2018 at 04:11 PM.

  12. #42
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    Crazy Rich Street Food

    I was only in Singapore for a few days and missed the street food. My bad.

    Singapore Hawker Stands with Michelin Stars


    ROSLAN RAHMAN/Getty Images

    If Crazy Rich Asians has you craving Singapore's famous street food, you're not alone.

    MARIA YAGODA August 20, 2018
    If you're one of the millions of people who saw Crazy Rich Asians this weekend, chances are you're craving Singapore street food, even if you've never had it before. The film, which takes place largely in Singapore, shows vivid scenes of hawker centers—massive dining complexes with food stands serving just about every kind of dish you could imagine at super-affordable prices.

    Singapore has one of the most renowned street food scenes in the world; two of its hawker stands have earned Michelin stars (which the very, very dreamy Nick Young, played by Henry Golding, points out in one scene), and many more have been recognized by the guide for their quality and value.

    If you're considering planning your own pilgrimage to Singapore—perhaps not for a crazy rich wedding, but rather for some excellent snacking—check out the two hawker stands below that have earned Michelin stars, plus a handful that boast Michelin's "Bib Gourmand" designation.

    Liao Fan Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle Stall


    Chan Hon Meng ROSLAN RAHMAN/Getty Images

    When Chan Hon Meng won his first Michelin star in 2016 for his Singapore stall, it made him (and Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle, which also won that year) the first street-food establishments to be recognized by the prestigious guide—ever. This earned Chan Hon Meng's stall the additional honor of being cheapest Michelin starred meal in the world. (A portion of soya chicken rice costs roughly $1.42.)

    Chinatown Complex Market and Food Centre

    Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle


    Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle ROSLAN RAHMAN/Getty Images
    Owned and run by Tang Chay Seng, this fantastic noodle spot is the other first hawker stand to earn a Michelin star. (Don't miss the noodles with minced pork.)

    466 Crawford Lane, #01-12, Tai Hwa Eating House

    In 2018, several hawker stands were awarded Michelin's "Bib Gourmand" designation, which "recognizes restaurants and street food establishments offering quality cuisines" at a maximum price of roughly $32 U.S. dollars.

    Below, find a few notable Bib Gourmand hawker stands worth checking out:

    Chai Chuan Tou Yang Rou Tang (mutton soup)

    Eminent Frog Porridge (frog porridge)

    Rolina Singapore Traditional Hainanese Curry Puffs (curry puffs)

    Outram Park Fried Kway Teow (fried kway teow, a stir-fried rice noodle dish)

    Lao Fu Zi Fried Kway Teow (fried kway teow, a stir-fried rice noodle dish)

    Tai Wah Pork Noodle (spicy egg noodles with pork, meatballs, and dumplings)

    You can see the full list of Singapore's Michelin-starred restaurants for 2018 here.
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  13. #43
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    No need to get all butthurt. Just boycott Lucky Cricket

    More on Zimmern above.

    In the Twin Cities, Asian chefs feel the sting of Andrew Zimmern’s insults. They say his apology isn’t enough.


    From left, Chef Chris Her of Union Kitchen, Eve Wu, and her husband, Eddie Wu, owner of Cook St. Paul. (Courtney Perry/For The Washington Post)

    By Tim Carman December 26, 2018

    BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Sitting at a large round table at Grand Szechuan, its lazy Susan loaded with plates of mapo tofu, dan dan noodles and other Sichuan specialties, Eve Wu says she’s done with Minnesota nice. She’s angry, and her pique is directed at one of the Twin Cities’s most powerful personalities, Andrew Zimmern, the bespectacled chef and TV host who recently insulted Chinese American food during a widely circulated video interview.

    Eve and her husband, Eddie Wu — she’s a baker, he’s a chef with a Korean-influenced diner — are so incensed they’ve partnered with Hmong American chef Chris Her to host a series of pop-ups to foster conversations around the issues raised in Zimmern’s interview: white privilege, cultural appropriation and casual racism. About 100 people showed up for the first pop-up, on Dec. 7, at Eddie Wu’s Cook St. Paul, where they dined on kimchi fried rice, mandu dumplings, Hmong sausage and other dishes served in a box stamped with the word “horse----,” a derogatory term that Zimmern used to describe the mall-level cooking often foisted off as Chinese food in America.

    If you’re wondering what Hmong and Korean fare have to do with Chinese cuisine, you need to understand how Zimmern’s insults landed with Her and the Wus. When Zimmern dissed Chinese American food — P.F. Chang’s in particular, which Zimmern labeled a “rip-off” — they say he dissed the culinary efforts of all Asian immigrants and Asian Americans who have tried to find their way in the U.S. mainstream.

    “I’ll back P.F. Chang’s and their family any day of the week. Asians forever!” says Eve Wu. “If we have to be the generation that is going to be calling out problematic behavior, because in the past it hasn’t been, then I’m going to do it. . . . I will do a 100-year war with him.”

    Eve Wu’s indignation is just the most vocal example of the responses generated by Zimmern’s interview with Fast Company, which was published to coincide with the debut of Lucky Cricket, the “Bizarre Foods” host’s 200-seat Chinese restaurant and tiki bar in a Minneapolis suburb. The interview has shaken the faith that some had placed in Zimmern, a former drug addict who cleaned up his act in the Twin Cities and become one of the region’s brightest lights. He is, after all, a guy who has spent much of his career exalting the food of foreign countries, not denigrating immigrants’ attempts to assimilate into America.

    In the interview with Mark Wilson, Zimmern said he wanted to introduce Midwesterners to Sichuan chile oil, hand-cut noodles and Peking duck. Lucky Cricket, Zimmern suggested, could even morph into a 200-outlet chain, kind of like P.F. Chang’s, but for “authentic” Chinese cooking. Zimmern, a 57-year-old white man from New York, set himself up as the savior of Chinese food in the Midwest.

    “I think I’m saving the souls of all the people from having to dine at these horse---- restaurants masquerading as Chinese food that are in the Midwest,” Zimmern said.


    Andrew Zimmern at Lucky Cricket. (Courtney Perry/For The Washington Post)

    Looking back on that interview, conducted this summer at the Minnesota State Fair, Zimmern is at a loss to explain how those words could have tumbled from his mouth.

    “I let myself get carried away and have too much fun as opposed to realizing that I was working,” he says at Szechuan Spice in the Uptown neighborhood. “You stop being mindful, and you say something flippant. You’re not being precise with your words.”

    Zimmern would spend the better part of a stone-cold Tuesday with me in the Twin Cities, where the temperature never cracked freezing. Wearing a knit cap and a thick yellow parka, Zimmern led me on a tour of some of his favorite Chinese restaurants, ending with a stop at Lucky Cricket.

    Zimmern’s affection for Chinese food, he says, began in childhood. He remembers being 3 years old and occupying a window seat with his father at Bobo’s in New York’s Chinatown, coming to grips with a lettuce wrap of minced squid and shrimp. Over the next 54 years, when not grappling with his addictions, Zimmern says, he became a serious student of Chinese cookery, learning its history, its techniques, its leading practitioners.

    “I believe Chinese cooking and Mexican cooking are the two great cuisines in terms of depth and breadth. They outpace French and Italian,” he says, navigating his white Mercedes E400 rental into the parking lot at Mandarin Kitchen in Bloomington.

    During its weekend dim sum, Mandarin Kitchen is as packed as a subway station at rush hour. But on this afternoon, Zimmern quickly secures a table without needing to pull his hat down low to hide from selfie hunters. He’s on the prowl for whole king crab, but there is none today. Zimmern settles for a whole lobster, with ginger and scallions, and half a roast duck.

    As if on cue, the Rev. Stephen Tsui, an 85-year-old retired Lutheran minister, approaches Zimmern, clutching a copy of the China Tribune. The paper had just published a story about Zimmern’s interview and the fallout. Tsui, a longtime Zimmern fan, is indignant. “They don’t know that he’s promoting [Chinese] culture,” Tsui says. “I defend on him. I understand him more than many other people.”

    Zimmern is grateful for the unsolicited support. He also swears it’s not a setup for a visiting journalist. “I didn’t tell the restaurants I was coming,” he says.
    continued next post
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  14. #44
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    Continued from previous post


    Restaurant owner Eddie Wu hangs a sheet of posters he had printed for a pop-up event. (Courtney Perry/For The Washington Post)

    At other Chinese restaurants in the Twin Cities I visited without him, the reactions to Zimmern's comments are more reserved, a mixture of forgiveness, frustration and the kind of resignation that comes, perhaps, from hearing one too many authenticity hounds bad-mouth your menu. At David Fong's, a Chinese American landmark in Bloomington, third-generation restaurateur Edward Fong says Zimmern was simply trying to distance Lucky Cricket from previous generations' efforts to integrate Chinese cooking into their communities. Fong views Zimmern's remarks as little more than self-interested, poorly conceived marketing.

    “I think he understands that he didn’t just insult Chinese independent restaurants like ourselves,” Fong says, “but he really insulted people who like to come to our restaurants, which is a lot of people.” Then he allows himself a good laugh, perhaps a last one.

    Over at Rainbow Chinese on Nicollet Avenue — a stretch widely viewed as a culinary destination — chef and owner Tammy Wong stands in her spotless, stainless-steel kitchen outfitted with high-powered woks. She’s laying out her magnificent life story: She’s the oldest daughter born to ethnic Chinese parents living in Cho Lon, Vietnam, which has long been a magnet for Chinese immigrants and refugees.

    Wong’s family fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, landing in New York City and eventually settling in Minneapolis in 1983. Four years later, her father decided to open a restaurant, even though no one in the 11-member clan knew the first thing about running such a business. Wong had to improvise, cobbling together a menu from dishes she spotted at other Chinese American restaurants. The food leaned on her family’s Cantonese traditions, but was modified to appeal to the Scandinavian palate of the region.

    Ingredients weren’t always available (84-year-old David Fong recalls growing bean sprouts in his basement and ordering canned tofu from San Francisco), and minds weren’t always open to new flavors. Early Chinese menus, by necessity, included General Tso’s chicken, chop suey and even hamburgers.

    Over time, both Fong’s and Rainbow Chinese developed loyal followings based on their personalized takes on Cantonese cooking. If reluctant at first, Wong came to embrace her role as chef. She constantly tinkers with her menus, whether incorporating produce from farmers markets or re-engineering sauces to feature fresher, more healthful ingredients. These days, she also tries to cater to Minnesotans who grew up eating Thai, Vietnamese or Laotian dishes.

    “I would not call [my food] Chinese American,” Wong says. “If it’s anything, I would call it Chinese Minnesotan.”

    Both Wong and Edward Fong view their food as a legitimate expression of Cantonese cooking, informed by local tastes and available ingredients, like any other regional cuisine. They don’t take kindly to having their efforts — and their family’s efforts — diminished by Minneapolis’s favorite son.

    “I was not right away totally offended” by Zimmern’s comments, Wong says. “But I just felt that, ‘Oh, my God, this maybe offended a lot of other people.’”


    Zimmern steps into the kitchen at Lucky Cricket. (Courtney Perry/For The Washington Post)

    As he offers quick reviews of the dishes before him at Szechuan Spice — generally positive, by the way — Zimmern stops cold when I relate what Wong and the Fongs had told me. Zimmern had already read a fair number of comments online. He knew his words had offended. But hearing from people whom he knows, and respects, hits him hard.

    “Welcome to how awful I feel,” he says, tears welling in his eyes.

    “Who wants to hurt someone that you care about? And to do so just out of flippance and stupidity?” he continues. “That’s the kind of stuff I used to do before I learned that mindfulness and words matter.”

    Zimmern says he wants to do more than apologize to the people close to him. He wants to make amends, and one way to do so, he says, is just to shut up and listen. He wants to hear their truth and their opinions on such topics as cultural appropriation. (For the record, no one I spoke to cares much if Zimmern cooks or profits off Chinese food.)

    Eve Wu would like Zimmern to listen, too. The celebrity chef was invited to the first Horse---- pop-up, but he never showed. (Zimmern says he never saw the invite.) Wu wants Zimmern to reconcile two seemingly incompatible positions: A man who has made a career out of elevating foreign foods, and a man who would call some Chinese American food “horse----.” She wants him to square his affection for immigrant culture with his view of immigrant Philip Chiang, co-founder of P.F. Chang’s, whom Zimmern described as Chinese on the outside but a “rich American kid on the inside.” (Chiang’s email response: “I am not going to get involved in his muck. I am totally comfortable with who I am and with who I am not.”)

    Although she’s angry, Wu is also sympathetic. She knows it’s hard to confront your contradictions. She’s living proof of it: She’s Korean by birth, adopted by a conservative white family. She’s experienced the sting of racism while, at the same time, dealing with the “inner monologue” of a white woman who calls the police on any perceived threat.

    “It’s like, dude, I get it,” Wu says. “I get it, Andrew Z. It’s tough [stuff], but I just did it. You can do it.”


    Sichuan wontons with chile oil and scallions at Lucky Cricket. (Courtney Perry/For The Washington Post)

    Maybe Zimmern can start the unpacking at Lucky Cricket, which has already drawn criticism for its awkward amalgam of Chinese fare and tiki culture. As Zimmern trots out some dishes to sample — Sichuan wontons, crispy glazed 18-hour ribs, soy sauce noodles — we begin to dissect the establishment, from the food on the table to the Easter Island-like heads in the bar.

    With each element that we analyze — Zimmern points out the chicken-and-waffles riff on the menu, I note the thin layer of chile oil beneath the wontons, which traditionally swim in the hot stuff — it becomes clear Lucky Cricket is not the temple to authenticity that he intended. It’s fusion. It’s a sexier, 21st-century version of the Chinese American establishments that he had dismissed in the first place. They both meet customers where they are.

    “I happen to think of it as fusion, too,” Zimmern says. “That’s why I regret so much the flippant way I described the restaurant. . . . Words matters, and the imprecision of that matters. My imprecision matters.”

    Imprecision may explain another twist in the Lucky Cricket saga: Its next location may not be in the Midwest, the land Zimmern wants to save from inferior Chinese fare. Among the cities where Zimmern and his business partner, McDermott Restaurant Group, are scouting locations is Las Vegas, that neon beacon in the desert where image, not authenticity, is the coin of the realm.
    sexier? srsly?
    Gene Ching
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  15. #45
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    An Encyclopedia of Chinese Food and Cooking (1970)

    What Chinese cuisine was like in 1970: the cookbook that introduced Americans to the real deal
    An Encyclopedia of Chinese Food and Cooking did not dumb down Chinese cuisine for its audience
    However, odd way of listing ingredients makes it difficult to follow the recipes
    BY SUSAN JUNG
    20 JAN 2019



    I love old cookbooks because they give us a glimpse of what the cuisine was like in a particular time and place.

    “An Encyclopedia of Chinese Food and Cooking” was first published in 1970 and is subtitled “1000 Recipes Adapted to the American Kitchen”, so you’d be correct in assuming that the recipes call for canned water chestnuts and bamboo shoots – fresh versions would have been hard to find back then in the United States, as would Chinese rice wine, for which sherry is substituted.



    Unlike some Chinese cook*books written around that time, the cuisine isn’t dumbed down for its American audi*ence; instead, the authors try to educate them on the cuisine’s vast array of dishes, describing regional differences, ingredients and their preparation, and cooking methods and utensils.

    They also give sample menus, including some for banquets (which you probably wouldn’t want to cook at home unless you have a lot of help).

    Unfortunately, they have an odd way of presenting the recipes: each ingredient is given a letter. In the instructions for diced chicken with chillies, the recipe reads: “Preparation: I. Bone B and dice, mix with C, D, E. II. Wash and discard stem and seeds of G, H; dice. III. Mix M, N, O. Cooking: 1. Heat A, add B-E mixture, stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes, remove to dish. 2. Pour excess A back into frying pan and heat. Add F, G, H, I, stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes, add J, K, L, stir until done (1 to 2 minutes). 3. Return B-E mixture to pan, add M-O, mix well and serve”.

    It’s not the easiest recipe to follow.

    The dishes include shrimp toast, lion’s head meatballs; ginger pigs’ feet; braised sea cucumber; salt-roasted chicken; steamed porkspare ribs with salted black beans; steamed eggplant with minced meat; stuffed bean curd; sweet and sour pork; roast pork; steamed fish; and caul fat shrimp rolls.
    Shrimp toast? Was that like avocado toast? I could go for some shrimp & avocado toast.
    Gene Ching
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