EATING THE WORLD

At many local Chinese restaurants there are a number of dishes that white people will not like.
This is a pity, actually, because it rather limits with whom I can eat a Chinese restaurant.
But not such a very great pity.

Just chalk it up to limited Caucasian food preferences.

Often restaurants will only have the too un-white things on the Chinese menu, or on pink sheets pasted on the wall that list the daily specials. There is no point in telling white folks about these dishes, as, after asking all kinds of questions - which the waiter or waitress would answer to the very best of his or her ability - the Caucasian will say something exhasperating like "gor blimey, guvnah, that's sodding disgusting, I'll just 'ave the sweet and sour pork over rice, thankee".
Or something more explosively grunt-like than that.

Once, at a very highly regarded restaurant, three customerse all ordered exactly the same dish - sweet and sour pork.
No, not one serving of sweet and sour pork, plus two other dishes, to share.
THREE individual servings.
Just that.
The cooks all peered around the door of the kitchen to look at these people who were so fond of sweet and sour pork that they had ordered THREE whole servings of it.
What on earth possessed them, especially when there were so many good things they could also have asked for?
Sweet and sour pork!

Sweet and sour pork, by the way, is the most clichéed dish in a Chinese restaurant. Especially the version known here in the States.

Among things which many people won't eat (because the food is unfamiliar or frightening): 粥, 腐竹, 蠔豉, 皮蛋, 蝦米, 乾瑤柱, 臘肉, 鹹蝦醬 .......
Many vegetables are also too "foreign". Particularly bitter melon (苦瓜).

Most restaurants outside of a Chinese neighborhood will just not bother with many beloved dishes. You can't even find places that do such simple things as 蒸水蛋 or 咸魚肉餅 in the suburbs.
Even 白切雞 is difficult to find outside of the city. It's "too raw" for many people's taste.


When I came back to the United States from Holland years ago I didn't know what many ingredients were in English, I only knew them in Dutch.
At that time most Asian ingredients in Holland were called specifically by their Indonesian names, which were the only terms by which the Dutch knew them.

Sambal (chili paste), ketoembar (coriander seed), djintan (cumin), koenjit (turmeric), trassie (hard stinky fish paste), djeroek peroet (kaffir lime leaf), sereh (lemon grass), lengkoeas (galangal), goela djawa (palm sugar), temu koentji (finger root, Chinese keys), atjar koening (turmeric-hued pickled vegetables), ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce), kroepoek (shrimp chips), ebi (dried shrimp), boeah keras and kloewak (candlenuts and pangium nuts), etcetera.

[Shan't even mention stampot, zure zult, bloed pens, stroop, ontbijtkoek, blote billekes int gras, groene haring, gerookte paling, boerenkool met worst, hagelslag, muisjes, Limburgsche vlaaien, snert, frikandel, kroket... ]


I was frantic. There was nothing good to eat, and I couldn't find things I desperately wanted in the supermarkets. Then I discovered Chinatown. Where there were Dutch and Indonesian ingredients all over the place!
Rice-stick noodles from Den Haag. Chili sauce with shrimp paste from a factory somewhere in Zuid-Holland province. Lovely Dutch-style cookies from a company in Shanghai. Dark Dutch chocolates from Singapore. Dried fish called by a Dutch name, packaged by a Chinese company in Penang. Pickled vegetables from Chekiang made specifically for Dutch-speakers.
Plus thousands of bottles of condiments and dried spices with labels in Dutch, Indonesian, French, and Chinese.
There was even a food store where the owners spoke Dutch - they were Hakka from Suriname, a former Dutch colony.

Americans have learned a bit more about food in the last thirty years. But many people still shy away from stuff they haven't ever eaten before.
Rather like it's heresy, witchcraft, and communism rolled into one.
Good Jayzus-fearing wasps don't truck with such muck.

Their loss. More for the rest of us.

Always be ready to try new things.

Seriously.


背脊向天，都可以食.


I've eaten American food many times in the last several years. Some of it is actually quite good.
Only very little has actually been inedible, much is ... delicious.
Gustatory experimentation can be quite rewarding.
Consider this a firm recommendation.
Leastways, encouragement.
Now go and eat.



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