Whether they are Chinese or foreigners, changing their own inherent ideas, going out of their comfort zone to try new things, is not an easy thing.
Recently, only the new tea market, not long ago received personalized green tea bamboo leaves, so I brought the first users of colleagues to the office. Some old outskirts of the whole process of my tea, looking at the cups of tea buds erected, make an exclaimed sound. I told them that seeing tea is like red wine with the same fragrance, it is a very important part of Chinese tea culture.
But when I put the tea on the tea side to ask them to taste, they were hesitant to take control, sniff and sniff, that is, dare not drink with their mouths. Because to your knowledge, the tea must be powdered tea, tea bags.
And in front of this cup of water, full of mysterious magic of the oriental atmosphere, the United States is the United States, but it really wants to swallow the stomach, but a little hard reluctantly.
I have repeatedly stressed that they are drinking green tea is the pursuit of fresh, the Chinese like to use spring every year the freshest tea friends, the so-called “new tea friends.”
Out of courtesy, they take a few shots, put them aside. Leaving work, everyone’s desk is still full of a cup of tea.
For me, in the “promotion” of Chinese culture suffered such a defeat, it is not the first time.
Once and chatting with colleagues, some people boast that they like to eat Chinese food, I told them that they eat Chinese food is not really Chinese food, but after improving American Chinese food, no one in China to eat, the next time I take you out for real lunch.
Seeing them seem fascinated, I suddenly came to the urge. The next day at noon, I took the gang to a very authentic Sichuan restaurant, the pair of lungs, white meat with garlic, boiled fish, boiled pork, and ants on the tree.
Like dishes on a plate on the table, the expression on my colleagues’ faces is slowly getting shocked. They carefully picked up their chopsticks, carefully holding the plates in their mouths. Although the courtesy kept saying that it was delicious, but his stomach can’t lie, he eats for half an hour, most of the dishes are still full of dishes.
He couldn’t stand the Zuo Zongtang chicken heart and sesame meat. Seeing them relieved and rejoicing at American Chinese food, the most common dish was swept away, I couldn’t laugh in my heart.
In cities like New York, everyone announces their willingness to accept new things. They exaggerate to love Chinese food, love Korean food, love Nepalese cuisine, love food from any country, and even chopsticks are master basic skills. But many people do this, in fact, just to satisfy their own social vanity, for them, accepting Chinese food is also limited to better to satisfy their taste for American Chinese food only.
Those who have been to the United States probably know what American Chinese food is all about. There are more than 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States, more than McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King, and the streets of the big city are almost everywhere. If you drive down the road, even in the most desolate remote corner, you can see the Chinese restaurant. Like a beacon standing tenaciously on the roadside, these Chinese restaurants are mostly Chinese immigrants to open a small family restaurant. I found the Chinese restaurant on the map, the results dense.
The most famous dish in the Chinese restaurant is the Zuo Zongtang Chicken that I mentioned earlier. The name is actually misleading, its real name is General Tso’s Chicken, which means “he left the general’s chicken”, the general on the left is the Qing dynasty general Zuo Zongtang. This dish is a large piece of peeled chicken wrapped in flour, fried after pouring a thick sweet and sour sauce, it tastes sweet and sour, it tastes a bit like cuckoo meat. Also, there is sesame chicken and dried tangerine peel chicken, which taste almost the same.
American cuisine is broccoli as the most common side dish, the meat is usually chicken and beef, from which two other American Chinese foods were born: fried beef with broccoli and fried chicken with broccoli. Here with the “fried” a bit inappropriate, because the so-called fried, in fact, is nothing more than the meat cooked for soup, such as broccoli, followed by the American habit, almost born.
Plus, there’s chicken, beef, and shrimp and various other vegetable combinations, but nothing more than green peppers, peas, and mushrooms. The taste of all these dishes is similar.
Americans don’t eat pork, so the restaurant has almost no pork, but some of the Chinese restaurants will provide pork, of course, the taste and pork from China is completely different.
There is also a plate of jamaica eggs, they are eggs mixed with fried vegetables, according to the different tastes of the clients, beef, chicken or shrimp are added, in addition to an I don’t know how to get out of the thick wet sauce. to eat. The taste of each restaurant is very different, the main difference is that the sauce, modulation sauce of some restaurants tastes quite good, although the taste is peculiar, but very delicious.
There is a lot of starch that thickens sticky egg drop soup, sweet and sour soup is also very common.
Americans eat Chinese food, there is a very important tradition, the cashier will give each person a signature cake, made with eggs and flour, that tastes a bit like an egg roll. Opened after the inside of a small note, one side wrote an inspirational “soul chicken soup” and lucky numbers, the other side will have a Chinese word, accompanied by an English explanation. Nobody knows how the signature cake in China does not exist in the United States, but the truth is that whoever came up with the idea a few decades ago was a genius because the little trick was in the middle of a primitive Chinese American. food can’t do it
These small Chinese restaurants have nothing to do with each other, but each one looks very similar, like a chain of restaurants, almost all of them have the same store, the same style of light box signs and high repetition rate of the name.
The menu also appears.
And even the storage box is almost exactly the same, often seen in the American drama.
In a sense, the tens of thousands of Chinese restaurants in the United States are the American version of Shaxian snacks: low-end positioning, low prices, shop a lot, drive in style, and sing a loyal anthem.
Highly accepted Shaxian American snacks are fast food, not orthodox Chinese food. Tea in Chinese culinary culture occupies an important place in the United States, it is not highly accepted. However, seeing that my colleagues left, the blue bamboo leaves hardly moved, I will not be disappointed. Difficulty is a common phenomenon, not to mention the impact of two kinds of food culture. Really unique are all personality, and whenever luxury is the need for time, like once a year only new tea.
So I would prefer this cup of early spring green tea, still rooted in the root of the tea buds and the mysterious fresh oriental green, so that foreigners who are curious and hesitant, and even temporarily “despise”, do not want it to become quickly into the habit. from foreigners and become tea powder, tea bags, soft lying on a lump, not the original essence of God, and then also with other tea bags to compete.