What the hell is "Asian food"?

[grimfan]

This is a thing that really annoys me from time to time whenever I hear it. Go to your supermarket, and you'll probably find some sauce in a bottle called "Asian Spices" or something like that. WTF is that?! Is it like sushi and kimchi and Peking duck and Vietnamese fish sause all blended together? You'd never find a bottle of "European salad dressing", because every country there gets its own recognition, and sometimes, it's broken down regionally. But Asia? Hell, they're all the same and they eat all the same thing! Even if they don't, who really cares? It's not like they really matter anyway. Just a horde of people waiting to get killed in a tsunami or cause the latest outbreak of some horrible virus.

[Banana]

It's as if there was on singular flavor that encompasses the whole Asian continent.

Another good observation is when non-Asians advertise food as "Oriental flavor." If certain products are beef and chicken flavored, I guess that means this type of product is made up of ground up Oriental people.

[cloudzero]

i think this is relevant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLYHfxWqorc

dont watch the whole thing, she drags a 30 sec joke to 3 minutes

[tripostrophe]

It's as if there was on singular flavor that encompasses the whole Asian continent.

Another good observation is when non-Asians advertise food as "Oriental flavor." If certain products are beef and chicken flavored, I guess that means this type of product is made up of ground up Oriental people.

eww Dat Phan rehashed!

[Banana]

He stole that joke from someone else.

[eos]

how about pan-asian cuisine?

wtf is that supposed to be?

[Banana]

Those Asian fusion type places.

[eos]

^i KNOW that, you doof.

it was one of those "what's the deal with that?" questions.

[tripostrophe]

^i KNOW that, you doof.

it was one of those "what's the deal with that?" questions.

haha you called him doof while talking about food!

[huangalex]

I took my mom to Charlie Chan's... er, P.F. Chang's "China Bistro" once. The stuff tasted like shit. We ordered water but took tea from the fountain and, because we were both broke, left a tip of a few pennies.

P.F. Chang's, this is the shit that's going down when you go "Asian."

[Paradox]

When I was in college and living on a poverty budget I tried to eat one of those "asian stir fry" packaged meals you see in the freezer section. It was probably the most awful thing i've ever tasted. It was supposed to be teriyaki or something but the saucy had a sickly orange gel like consistency. The rice was real dry on top and sort of mushy on the bottom. They also had some nasty egg rolls included which were chewy and had some unidentifiable meat inside.

I can understand why some non-asian people think asian food is unhealthy. If this is the type of crap that is being packaged under the "asian" label then it's obvious. A lot of the chain asian fast food i've seen is pretty disgusting too. It's fatty, greasy, and loaded with salt and sugar which completely caters towards the American taste.

[Banana]

Like Terry said, if your orange chicken tastes like orange skittles, it might not be authentic.

[kimpossible]

When it comes to generic Asian spices or sauces in the grocery store it's probably going to be one of two things. Either Five Spice powder (just say it in Chinese literally and you'll know what it is if you've never heard it in English) or a generic 'stir-fry' sauce that's more Japanese flavor based as in soy sauce, sherry, ginger, sesame oil.

Many of the other items in the Asian food section of your typical national grocery chain store are labeled more specifically like oyster sauce, chili oil, plum sauce, teriyaki marinade or glaze.

Dollars to doughnuts any bottle labeled "Asian spice" is Five Spice or at least contains most of the traditional Five Spice ingredients. Star anise is a very distinct flavor and you don't often find it in other widely available spice mixes in these stores. I think Five Spice has peaked in ethnic chic popularity among foodies in the US.

[SunWuKong]

alright back to the discussion about "Asian food".

anyway, i don't mind "Asian food" restaurants. i like some of the Americanised Chinese dishes. but white people's grocery stores are severely lacking in ingredients for Chinese and Korean cooking. they usually just have some "ethnic cuisine" or "international cuisine" aisle. it would probably bother me if there were no Asian grocery stores around where i can shop. but hey, that's just not what most white people eat, so whatever.

[yoMAMA]

"asian food":

main ingredient: rice! (although textures from northeast asian rice and southeast asian rice are quite different).

for east asian food, soy sauce is shared across chinese, japanese and korean cuisines.

for south (& southeast) asian food, there's a common love of spices (especially curry).

and SE asian cuisine such as thai, malaysian and cambodian seems like a hybrid between the two.