Fast Food Multiculturalism: Part #2

In Part #1 we looked at Mexican,Italian and Greek foods. Today,in part #2, I thought I’d discuss the Chinese fast food market. I looked at various different restaurants and fast food joints and couldn’t separate one from the other as far as unique foods and cultures were concerned. So I tried my best and here’s what you can get at a usual fast food Chinese place.While doing some research on the subject, I realized that Chinese food is the most flexible and the most unique when it came to cooking food. Asians typically eat food in portions so each meal is diced,sliced or cut up into smaller sized portions as opposed to it being large and greasy like American food. Their flexibility comes in their variety of foods as most of the other cultures in the last article focused on one particular food or dish, where as Chinese food can come from many different sources. These sources each have their own different names and identities as well with such names as Szechuan or Cantonese being the favorites in North America.These names come from different regional areas of China and each offer something unique to Asian cuisine. Here’s a full listing of the regional cooking styles of China.

* Anhui
* Cantonese
* Fujian
* Hunan
* Jiangsu
* Shandong
* Sichuan
* Zhejiang

Asians seem to favor many different meat products like pork, chicken or beef mixed in with a variety of different spicy or sweet sauces as well as different varieties of rice, steamed vegetables or noodle dishes. Szechuan typically features spicier food where as Cantonese is more traditional and incorporates more seafood into their menu with different kinds of fish being offered to eat. Also, due to its many varieties; Chinese food incorporates itself very well with buffets which Americans love to eat at.

There are simply way too many dishes to discuss in one article so I will begin by focusing mainly on a few dishes that are more popular with Asian-American fast food restaurants:

1. Kung Pao Chicken: A spicy Szechuan dish made with diced chicken, peanuts and chili peppers. It is named after a Kung Pao or court official.

2. Wonton Soup: is a full meal in itself consisting of thin egg noodles and a few wontons in a pork soup broth.

3. Chop Suey — Steamed bean sprouts and vegetables in a thick sauce

4. Cantonese Style Chow Mein — Fried egg noodles, green peppers, pea pods, bok choy, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, shrimp, Chinese pork, chicken, & beef served in a thick sauce;

5. Chicken Soo Guy — Sliced breaded chicken breast with almonds.

6. Dry Ribs — Deep-fried seasoned pork ribs.

7. General Tso’s chicken: It commonly consists of dark-meat tidbits of chicken, deep-fried then seasoned with ginger, garlic, sesame oil, scallions, and hot chilli peppers, and often served with steamed broccoli.

8. An egg roll is made by wrapping a combination of chopped vegetables, meat, noodles, or egg in a sheet of dough, then deep frying it.

9. Fried or steamed rice: ingredients used in fried rice are very varied. They include vegetables such as carrots, bean sprouts, celery, peas, and others, as well as meats such as chicken, pork, shrimp or spam, or possibly alternatives like tofu.

10. Fortune Cookie: The fortune cookie is a cookie with a piece of paper inside with words of supposed wisdom and/or prophecy, commonly found at Chinese restaurants throughout North America. Fortune cookies became very popular, served as a dessert after every meal at many if not most of the restaurants and fast food joints.

There’s a nice summary of Chinese food that you can order at a joint near you. While writing this article, I wanted to focus on different asian foods but after looking at the variety and size of the different menu items, I’ve decided to leave some of the less popular Asian foods for the final article. This article will take a look at Arabian foods and of course North American fast food. Hopefully that article will come soon but until then, ta-ta.