In overseas Chinatowns, why are there so many Cantonese restaurants and so few other restaurants?

Previously, we talked about the history of Chinese cuisine in the United States and the status it has gained today.

However, many people have responded that Chinese food in the United States, including the Chinese food prepared in Chinatown cafeterias, is completely unauthentic. Chinese tourists traveling to the United States also choose fake "Chinese food" with strange tastes.

Orthodox reason: Material and seasoning restrictions We have an old saying, "Orange flowers are oranges, and those born in Huaibei are gauze." There are certain differences from vegetables that are restricted by other climates, temperatures, and soils, so they are more Not to mention the American ingredients that span the continent. This also means that with different feeds for poultry, the taste of the meat will naturally be different.

In addition, the processing of ingredients in the two countries is also different. For example, the pork that we eat most every day, China can pay attention to slaughtering and bleeding to remove the fishy smell of pork to a certain extent. In order to improve efficiency, the United States usually uses factory current to kill pigs, and the pork has a relatively strong fishy smell.

So peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, and pork are also cooked in traditional Chinese cuisine, which cannot produce a familiar taste and may not taste good. Based on this reality, chefs should comply with the limitations of ingredients, improve recipes, and use other seasonings to enhance the taste. Therefore, Chinese food in the United States is not a change in American eating habits, but most of the restrictions on ingredients. Who is the chef holding the spoon in the Chinese restaurant? In order to ensure authenticity, many Chinese restaurants in Huaren will try their best to ask domestic chefs to serve the spoon. However, it is difficult to recruit chefs of a certain level even with high salaries. Because most are "wild chefs", the quality of cooking is limited.

In addition to Chinese chefs, Chinese restaurants will also hire foreign chefs to cook Chinese dishes.

However, due to the limitations of Western cooking habits, according to Chinese recipes, seasonings are also customarily added during the cooking process. So don’t be surprised to see white chefs cooking Chinese food in the back kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. Of course, this phenomenon is still relatively rare. In most Chinese restaurants, the person holding the spoon is a Chinese who knows the inside story. Is American Chinese food “fake Chinese food”? Why is the Chinese food in Chinatown seen by tourists not authentic? American Chinese food is mainly Cantonese cuisine. Today's Chinatown has Sichuan and Hunan cuisine, but Cantonese cuisine is the most popular in the cafeteria. This is because more Cantonese people immigrated overseas in the early days. Because Liangdao is also the first representative Chinese cuisine to enter the American catering industry, it is the most accepted cuisine by Americans.

However, Chinese tourists from central, western and northern China may not be used to the bland taste of Cantonese, and therefore they may have the illusion that "American Chinese food" is completely unauthentic. But in fact, the early Chinese who went abroad were not influenced by the other seven major cuisines, so the cold dishes they made were very traditional and authentic.

So when Cantonese people travel to the United States, they sometimes encounter some old restaurants, but they feel more authentic. It’s authentic and orthodox only if it tastes good, it doesn’t really matter at all. What matters is whether customers think it tastes good. Chinese cuisine can become the oldest and richest culture in the history of the world. It is a secret that people of every era have poured over their tongues. Therefore, American Chinese food cannot be said to be fake Chinese food, and a more special branch of the Chinese food industry needs to be recognized. Just like you eat Peking duck in Guangdong, Chongqing hot pot in Fujian, and Hunan food in Northeast China, there is no guarantee that the local food between these regions is authentic.