Why So Inauthentic?

Nina and Tim Zagat suggest that immigration restrictions are preventing Americans from enjoying more authentic Chinese cooking, rather than sweet Chinese American dishes. Dan Drezner questions the immigration hypothesis on the grounds that the Zagats specifically contrast the Chinese food situation with that affecting other Asian cuisines. Tyler Cowen, likewise, is dubious:

Dan Drezner poses the query, and considers immigration restrictions as a factor, though without endorsing that hypothesis. Immigration can't be the key reason, since I can learn to cook the stuff (really), there is plenty of excellent Chinese food in Tanzania (really), and most French food in America is cooked by Mexicans (that you already knew), albeit with instructions.

I'm going to have to agree with Tyler. The key point, for both of us, is that if you go somewhere in the United States where the restaurants are primarily catering to a Chinese ancestry clientel -- Flushing, Queens (pictured above; the homeland of my mother's side of the family and the spiritual homeland of Mets fans everywhere, now a vast see of immigration) is the salient example in my life -- all of a sudden things get very different. Hence Tyler's contention that "consumer demand" is the strongest factor.

Photo by Flickr user Barry Wallis used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

now a vast see of immigration

So, you're saying that they're all Catholic immigrants?

Posted by mds | June 21, 2007 10:39 AM

Agreed, completely. My friend whose parents immigrated from China to Fresh Meadows once took me out for dim sum in Flushing. My friends and I were probably the only white people in the huge restaurant. And it was easily the best Chinese food I've ever had (outside her dad's cooking).

Posted by Ryno | June 21, 2007 10:41 AM

I'm glad someone is finally addressing this pressing issue. I think sweet Chinese food is ... well, not quite an abomination or I wouldn't eat it, but . . . disheartening.
I think the problem is that Americans secretly want to put sugar on their meat, but don't feel it's right unless they can rationalize it as "well, this is a different cuisine, so it's appropriate" -- and restaurants that cater to that secret desire find that they get lots of business. I find the same thing is happening to Thai food. And don't get me started on Bar-B-Q.
The first restaurateur to work out a Coca Cola -flavored sauce for Afghan food will make a fortune.

Posted by Barry | June 21, 2007 10:52 AM

Why, right here in little ol' Pittsburgh, which outside of Carnegie Mellon is hardly a magnet for East-Asian immigration, there are two superb Chinese restaurant. The Rose Tea Café is a great Taiwanese-style joint where you can enjoy something simple like Lo Mein (they make the noodles themselves) or wild like Fish Head in Earthenware Pot. The Orient Kitchen, meanwhile, has an "American Menu" and a Cantonese Menu, and the waitresses have a policy of demanding that we white folk promise not to send our dishes back when the spirit moves us to order jellyfish steamed with sesame and shredded chicken.

There's also Zaw's, a more quotidian, Americanized take-out spot, but if you know Zaw you can get some specially-made, super-hot Sichuan.

Posted by IOZ1 | June 21, 2007 11:21 AM

The other thing about it is that many Chinese restaurants have two menus, one containing a bunch of stuff written in Chinese that non-Chinese speakers basically will not be able to order.

I think there is more authentic stuff available than we tend to realize, because (1) the stuff that makes the most money is the Americanized form and (2) the authentic stuff may not be on the menu they hand you.

The trick is to ask a Chinese person who's been in the area for a while what they do for real Chinese food.

Posted by mk | June 21, 2007 11:45 AM

Yup. Any statement of the form "You can't find authentic _____ food in the U.S." has to make an exception for Queens.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | June 21, 2007 11:48 AM

Yep. Most Americans expect "Chinese" (sweet, greasy Chinese) rather than actual regional Chinese cuisine. If one goes to the San Gabriel Valley in L.A. (one of the nation's only Asian-majority cities), you can find truly world-class Chinese food. West L.A., not so much. There's no reason Chinese-Americans couldn't make the same dishes 20 miles west. They just don't sell.

Posted by Jake | June 21, 2007 11:57 AM

Practically all food sold in the US is over-sweetened. Believe it or not, neither Sesame Chicken nor coffee is supposed to take like candy.

Posted by McG | June 21, 2007 12:23 PM

One thing that has always perplexed me about chinese food in the US, though, is that there has been so few attempts by entrepreneurs to alter consumer expectations. It seems like in major cities with large amounts of available ethnic food available (ie NYC, San Francisco, LA, DC, etc.) there are a correspondingly large number of folks who enjoy eating food authentically prepared. Surely someone opening a unapologetically authentic restaurant could find the same success that has been found by, for example, Thai restauranteurs.

It isn't weird to me that there are so many Chinese-American places - Chinese food has been in this country long enough to evolve into its own thing (like red-sauce Italian places.) It IS surprising to me that there aren't more non-Chinese-American places (there are, for example, plenty of authentically Italian restaurants - even most high end Chinese places, like Mr. K's here in DC, tend to be upscale Chinese-American.) Thai food, Indian food, Vietnamese food, and others are all reasonably similar to what one would find in those respective countries...it doesn't make sense that Chinese is such an outlier.

Posted by Micah | June 21, 2007 12:27 PM

Why do there seem to be so few Mexican-run Mexican restaurants outside of Mexican ethnic enclaves? Instead, you have national chains: Taco Bell, Chipotle, Qdoba, and Baja Fresh. Why aren't Mexican-owned restaurants at least as ubiquitous as Chinese restaurants, especially since there are so many more Mexican-Americans? No, I don't expect illegal aliens to open restaurants, but discounting the illegals, America still has plenty of Mexican-American citizens. Why have they largely ceded their culinary turf to the corporate suits?

Posted by Fred | June 21, 2007 1:10 PM

Any statement of the form "You can't find authentic _____ food in the U.S." has to make an exception for Queens.

It's definitely true for Thai and various forms of Indian cuisine. You can get pretty good Korean in Manhattan, but I hear the best barbecue is in Queens (since I'm a vegetarian, I don't know firsthand). You can get good Moroccan, West African, Russian, and Italian in Brooklyn.

Posted by Antid Oto | June 21, 2007 3:12 PM

Thai food, Indian food, Vietnamese food, and others are all reasonably similar to what one would find in those respective countries

I've never been to those countries. But there's definitely a difference among restaurants. At least for Thai and Indian food, a whole bunch of what you find most places does seem Americanized, at least compared to what I can get at, say, Sripaphai, or what used to be available at Anand Bhavan (until they closed and broke my heart).

Posted by Antid Oto | June 21, 2007 3:18 PM

There is a bit of Americanization of Indian food in the US, but a bigger issue is that so many popular dishes in India are simply not availible anywhere in the US, including New York. Returning to Chinese food, I just want to find one good place that has good mala doufu or jungbao chezi in the US.

Posted by Reality Man | June 21, 2007 3:28 PM

Chinese food in America is pretty bad because a fair number of Chinese immigrants got here early, before quality fresh ingredients and good cooking techniques were widely available, so what Americans expect as Chinese food is the kind of sludge that was feasible back then.

The biggest improvement in a foreign cuisine in my lifetime has been in Italian, which used to be dominated by Luigi's Spaghetti Shack-type restaurants. And this was done by very little immigration from Italy, just a few superstar chefs and a lot of American chefs visiting Italy. Other cuisines get stuck, however. For example, Thai restaurants haven't much improved since 1984.

One reason for this is that very few Thai immigrants are coming to America out of a strong desire to spread Thai cuisine. They're coming to America because it's a better country than Thailand, so running a Thai restaurant is just a job they fall into. In comparison, a much larger fraction of the much smaller number of Italian immigrants are chefs.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 21, 2007 4:03 PM

Chinese food in America is pretty bad because a fair number of Chinese immigrants got here early, before quality fresh ingredients and good cooking techniques were widely available, so what Americans expect as Chinese food is the kind of sludge that was feasible back then.

The first major influx of Chinese people to this country were the railway workers in the 1850s -- folks who a) weren't expert cooks to start with, and b) couldn't find the ingredients they were accustomed to using. So they improvised.

Also, they tended to come from the same region of the old country. Thus, Cantonese cuisine became "default Chinese" in America, just as Neapolitan became "default Italian".

Posted by Thlayli | June 21, 2007 4:55 PM

So, you're saying that they're all Catholic immigrants?

I think Yglesias' point is that Chinese immigrants are predisposed to adopting the organization of the Roman Catholic Church, which, of course, explains why there are so many Chinese folks walking around in slippers and a Pope-hat. (It also explains why Popemobile stores are on every corner of Chinatown.)

Incidentally, because this view is based on an unafraid and rigorous review of a study from 1962 that involves the organization of a tribe of baboons, it is completely nonracist and how dare you for suggesting otherwise.

Posted by von | June 21, 2007 4:57 PM

Consumer demand is usually the strongest factor.

I suspect it's also the reason why poor neighborhoods have crappy grocery stores that stock mostly fatty processed food, along with a bunch of liquor stores and check cashing places. Until the immigrants come in, then suddenly the market works to provide much better food.

Posted by ed | June 21, 2007 6:12 PM

The problem with illegal immigration is that, at the core, poverty exists all over the world, and it is especially prominent in South America. Building a wall or arresting people for attempting to cross the border will not dispel the fact that the prospect of escaping poverty supersedes the consequences.The visitor program idea is just as ill-thought out as many other Bush decisions. All of these immigration and illegal immigration talks are but band-aids to the problem.

If our government really wanted to halt illegal immigration, it would spend money on helping lesser-developed nations grow economically. Supporting the UN Millennium Development Goals to end poverty would a great step to take, rather than funneling money into inefficient border patrol. According to the Borgen Project, just $19 billion annually would end starvation. That is very miniscule when compared to our $522 billion military budget.

Posted by ellec | June 21, 2007 7:49 PM