Americans eat ethnic foods in the same way local Chinese restaurants serve authentic Chinese cuisine, or pizza is an authentic ethnic Italian dish.
American Thai food as generally consumed is rapidly becoming it’s own thing that’s somewhat related to actual Thai food. Like California rolls or hotdogs what’s left over after the free market has it’s say is a very different thing.
Chinese-American food, they had to Americanize it in order to sell to American people. That means more meat, less spices, and sugar added to make it taste better. Thai food is the same way, you can't have real Thai food unless you grew up in Bangkok eating it. American hot and Thai hot are not the same.
I mean, that's what happens as a cuisine gets passed down from generation to generation: it evolves. Cuisine and language are similar in that respect. The sort of English spoken in the US is no less "real" than the sort of English spoken in England; why would the Chinese food made and sold by the descendants of Chinese immigrants in the US be any less "real" than the Chinese food made and sold in China? They both evolved from the same point, and simply diverged and evolved.
And that's what we're seeing now with Thai food. As the generations get further and further removed from the original immigrants, the cuisine continues to evolve in its own direction. And why shouldn't it?
It's also worth remembering that restaurants are not always (and in fact, rarely are) representative of the actual local cuisines. There's still heavy emphasis on the good ol' home cooked meal (as hard as frozen food chains might try to supplant home cooking), and that's where you see both the preservation of tradition and the proliferation of experimentation, marketability and profit be damned. Indeed, looking at these home cooked meals, it becomes readily evident that the oft-denigrated Chinese holes-in-the-wall and small town pizzerias are far closer to authenticity than the fancy gastropubs and fusion restaurants of snobbish preference; authentic cuisine puts form over function, and heartiness over presentation. Authenticity comes from humility and self-awareness; it doesn't need to try to impress anyone's palate.
Not mentioned is that probably half of Thai restaurants in the US are run by Chinese people. A good chunk of Japanese, Vietnamese and even some non-Asian restaurants are run by Chinese also. One of the top Thai restaurants in my area is run by a white guy. And there's a sushi place run by Thai folks. Good cooking doesn't care where you're from.
Just talk to first generation Chinese immigrants. I have to say American Chinese food and authentic Chinese food are belong to different categories and serve different sets of people.
Indian food in Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore is Southern Indian, mostly Tamil, not Bengali but spicier like British Indian food. Japanese Indian food is Bengali by way of Britain with no hint of spiciness. Tex-Mex for food snobs is called Southwest cuisine. American pizza is very different from Italian and good enough to have a small niche in Italy itself.
I'm not really familiar with US-Chinese but you're wrong about Tex-Mex and at least one kind of Italian-American food. I'd be surprised if you were wrong about US-Chinese food because UK, DE and IE Chinese food are all awful.
In English an ethnie's way of cooking is a cuisine not a kitchen.
I thought it was interesting that the author specifically calls out Thai food. LA has a thai population of only about 27k (Chinese is about half a million, for comparison). The abundance of Thai restaurants in LA and other large cities is largely due to a Thai government culinary diplomacy initiative[0] to promote gastro-tourism.
I tend to find that Chinese food, for example, is more organically represented. In San Francisco, despite there being a Chinatown proper, and several other minor pockets (around Sunset for example), the quality of offerings is fairly mediocre, mirroring the americanization of its chinese population, compared to, say, Toronto, where you can find great a many restaurants with untranslated menus, catering to a large native chinese population.
> My armchair theory is, that both cities "suffer" from the fact of having a great culture of own cuisine. Not sure, if their customers do not appreciate the otherness, or the cooks are preemptively trying to "fit in"
I think this is a variation of the concept of "food grammar"[1]. I've noticed, for example, that in San Francisco, a lot of asian eats feature jalapeno peppers, and there's a number of mexican inspired fusion things (senor sisig, for example).
California rolls have quite a life of their own: they themselves are spin-offs of traditional sushi meant to cater to those who may be squeamish about raw fish, but I've seen restaurants in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood (an area w/ a lot of sushi restaurants) make some very flamboyant rolls that are completely detached from that rationale (mango sauce, anyone?)
The thing with a city developing its own food grammar is that it can be hit or miss. Personally, I'm not big on SF's jalapenos-everywhere thing. Sometimes, I just want a good traditional bahn-mi, not a San Francisco take on it.
Chinese-American restaurants are declining as Americans get more adventurous with their eating. There are more choices beyond a burger, pizza, and Egg Foo Young these days.
From just personal experience over the last two decades, the number of "authentic" Chinese restaurants has increased a lot in most of the places I've lived. So has the number of Thai/Korean/Japanese restaurants run by Chinese owners, as more savvy Chinese restauranteurs seek out higher margins.
The sad part is that many Thai and Chinese restaurants serve a highly Americanized version of their cuisines. Sometimes so Americanized that it has little to do with the original other than the name. For example a Chinese restaurant I went to recently put sugar in all dishes. I asked them about it that and they suggested Kung Pao Chicken if I don’t want sugar. They put sugar in everything else.
You say that, yet I will take that as evidence supporting my argument. Chinese food served in US restaurants has little in common with actual Chinese food, it’s common for them to have completely different menus for people who actually speak Chinese with a different set of dishes. Indian food went through a similar transition, where there is a distinctly American take generally served.
PS: Hot isn’t a complex flavor it’s exactly what’s left over after you extract the complexity from many ethnic dishes.
It comes down to a few things: availability of ingredients, experienced cooks and expectations of clientele.
In China you can find pretty authentic[1] Italian, Japanese and Thai food, even bread, but also very localized versions [Americans would say they are not authentic]
What you describe is something I've seen with semi-indentured hands, people who paid lots of money to get here and have to work off their journey. They don't have a lot of spare money left and they go to these joints --it's cheap, it's fulfilling meal.
Is authentic Chinese the buffet served Richard Nixon, or is it the stall food? Is it what rich Chinese eat, or what your average low-skilled worker eats?
[1]by authentic I mean you can easily find these varieties in their home country although people in the home country can debate what the authentic version is (ex. ala Bolognese and spaghetti or tagliatelle)
I think this may be true with western cuisines, but food in Asia is especially different from what you get in normal Asian restaurants (Indian, Chinese, Thai, etc)
Asian cuisines are usually bastardized and then type casted into a very narrow view of the food is actually like.
Almost none of the food I had growing up, is available in Indian restaurants in the US. Similarly, I have to really go looking to find authentic food from certain regions in China and legit Thai food. My perspective of these foods completely changed after trying these authentic places.
There are Chinese restaurants everywhere in the US. So obviously the US is becoming Chinese then? Using your arguments? Or perhaps the US is becoming English since everybody is using mobile phones with an arm designed CPU? Or perhaps Mexican because of all the Mexican restaurants in the US? Or Italian? The US sure loves eating pizza? Using your arguments I could make all of those claims.
No cuisine survives importation to another country, really, but authenticity can be overrated.
I remember growing in Taiwan and having "pizza" there - it doesn't really resemble the pizza you might find in Italy, nor the Americanized version. For one thing, pizza was high-class, eaten at a sit-down place with cloth napkins, forks, and knives... and toppings featured things like lobster and crab.
The reverse is true too - there is no such thing as "chicken balls", that crazy east-coast invention that claims to be Chinese, nor General Tso's chicken either. In fact, mostly everything you find in an American Chinese restaurant would never be found at the dinner table in China. But if you think that's crazy, wait till you try Chinese-Indian food. Hoo boy.
But that's the great thing about the new global society - we can remix, borrow, replace to our heart's content. I had Peking duck tacos a couple of weeks ago, it was delicious. And there's this food truck near here that has an amazing (Korean-style) roast pork Chinese bao that's garnished with Japanese pickled radishes with some Mexican flavor thrown in to boot. Sublime.
Food is, in the future, extremely unlikely to stick to its geographic and ethnic roots, and what an amazing change that is.
Not sure where you are. But in Bay area, American Chinese cuisine and authentic Chinese cuisine are different genres. As a Chinese I never go to the former unless I have to.
Better to ask your Chinese colleagues for suggestion.
My parents' Chinese restaurant sold sushi. The Thai restaurant in our town sold both Chinese food and sushi and was run by Laotians. In a small town like mine, Asians are pretty interchangeable and sometimes it can be to ones' advantage.
I suppose it's "sad" that you can't find the original or traditional dishes if you want. Immigrant Chinese cuisine has a long history of incorporating local ingredients and adjusting flavors preferred by locals. The new creations make me happy to eat. Bangkok has 1-3 American Chinese take-out restaurants with the New York menu for the large expat communities.
There is food of the ethnic Chinese in America, and food from China.
Those are overlapping, but different, categories, and “Chinese food”, without additional qualifications, in the US usually refers to the former (and/or food of Chinese-themed restaurants in the US catering to general American tastes, with some inspiration from from it), without regard for whether or not it is also the latter.
(This is true of “<ethnicity> food” in the US generally, its not specific to Chinese food.)
It doesn't take such arcane rituals to find more "authentic" Chinese food in major US cities. Many Chinese restaurants serve both the Americanized dishes and traditional Chinese dishes. You just have to know what to order.
American Thai food as generally consumed is rapidly becoming it’s own thing that’s somewhat related to actual Thai food. Like California rolls or hotdogs what’s left over after the free market has it’s say is a very different thing.
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