What on earth is General Tso's chicken?

[sqbr]

I keep meaning to post about cultural appropriation since I think it's a really important and interesting issue, but since I'm still figuring it out my ideas never quite coalesce. But in the meantime White American culture is General Tso’s Chicken and Chop Suey.

The video (by Jennifer 8. Lee) is definitely worth watching, about the way that "chinese american" food is as american as beer and pizza and the history of it's invention and misrepresentation.
It's interesting as someone from a different non-chinese country, with it's own different "chinese" food. It took me years to figure out what "egg rolls" and "pot stickers" were :)

The article (by Restructure) is more interested in why this is bad.

Something Restructure brings up in the comments which really pinged for me is that people go on about "authenticity" and it gets this social cache (ie "authentically exotic" food/clothes/music etc as a sign of being cosmopolitan) when what we should worry about is if something is representative.

My thoughts, disclaimer 3b applies. The many Authentic Chinese People on my flist are welcome to thwap me for spouting crap :)

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with people outside China eating "Chinese" food which has little similarity to anything eaten in China. As long as people are aware that it's not "Chinese food", it's a new cuisine which owes as much to the country it's made in as the country it's "from" (like tex-mex compared to actual mexican food, a distinction which in my experience gets lost outside america)

I'm still figuring out what we as (white) individuals can do about this though, beyond just becoming aware of and admitting our own ignorance. Also our own subjectivity: chinese food as eaten in China may seem odd and unappetising to western palettes, but that doesn't make it bad, it just makes us products of a different culture with its own tastes. EDIT: and as both the video and stephiepenguin point out, being aware of the specific racist history behind a lot of this stuff. It's not just benign cultural exchange.

Some people might argue that we should try to only eat representative/"authentic" food, but I'm not sure that's helpful or even possible. Cultures don't divide up neatly like that(*), and if white people eat chinese food we're always going to tend to support business which cater to more western tastes, and if we don't then we're costing chinese restauranteurs business.
EDIT (thanks to commenters): Also there is no one "authentic" way of cooking anything: cultures are complicated and blurry and have lots of subtle subdivisions, and within that you have all the individual cooks who have their own tastes and restrictions. I think the idea of "authenticity" ties into the tendency for people to homogenise the "Other". This is particularly bad when done to "chinese", an adjective which applies to a huge range of subcultures and peoples both inside China and out.

I don't know. I always feel a bit overwhelmed when I consider these situations where the individual actions of rich/white/western people, all made from rational matters of taste/self interest(**), add up to negative social patterns. Because usually it's the case that simplistically moving in the opposite direction causes a different problem, like gentrification vs segregation or white flight. I think I need to gain some levels in anti-racist thinking before I can get my head around it :)

I have such a craving for "chinese" food now...

(*)Note the way that much "chinese" food in Australia is not only chinese-australian food, but chinese-malaysian-australian etc. And why should asian chefs be forced to stick with "authentic" dishes if they want to create something different?
(**)Plus a hefty dose of racism in many cases. But even if not, the racist/classist etc culture they're made in twists the effects

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I agree, there is nothing wrong with eating 'inauthentic' food, it is just the ignorance of believing its authentic that is a problem (and that isn't necessarily a problem if you just eat it, only if you spout of about it). Food adapts to the local ingredients, local tastes, local conditions (and notably local religious observance etc). And the people of the great Chinese Diaspora are particularly good at adapting to local conditions and tastes with enthusiasm.

And 'authenticity' means a lot less than we think unless you are going for it as a foody experience. To people used to Western diets, authentic Mexican food seems like you've taken Tex-Mex and taken out the salad and replaced it with extra pork fat -- why not eat healthier food that matches your tastes better? Authenticity is, IMO, mostly a myth -- you can't really have an authentic national or ethnic cuisine beyond a dish or two, you can have an authentic cuisine of specific people in a specific time and place (which will have some regional and temporal variation, and usually borrow freely from neighbouring cuisine). The reason to seek out more 'authentic' Chinese food is simply that you are likely to get better, and more interesting, food if you avoid the lowest common denominator, but there is no reason why eating Australian Chinese (or Australian Generic Asian eg Hans) is any better or worse than grabbing a burger or a steak and chips. But interesting and wildly inauthentic food is great too (hooray for fusion and innovation in cooking). But it almost always makes sense that, unless you are specifically aiming for an experience out of your normal eating habits, that you try to eat food that is based around ingredients available cheaply locally, which will mean adapting recipes away from their places of origin.

In the case of China, which is of course a huge place, there isn't really a single Chinese food anyway -- there are the various regional cuisines that I know discover are called the Eight Great Traditions (plus some more).

I like Australian Chinese food. It isn't authentic, but who cares? I also think I like various kinds of Chinese Chinese food, but I've only eaten them in restaurants Australia, so who knows? I've certainly eaten lots of really not Australian things (ducks feet and jellyfish and various fungi and so on), but as to how it resembles what I might eat in China, I have no idea. And Australian Chinese food has quite a history of its own -- apparently, its been evolving since the gold rush era in the 1800s.

And oh, the Americans in particular do this to everyone, not just non-white people -- I have a whole story about Australian Toaster Biscuits, that not only would an Australian not recognise as Australian, they would never refer to as a Biscuit. I feel vaguely relieved to confirm that English Muffins are actually known as muffins in England, though.

The whole idea of authentic food breaks down so quickly, especially if you look at the history. The commonest dish in England is Chicken Tikka Marsala, a dish that was invented in Glasgow. Almost any use of pineapple in Australian cooking, now considered quite traditional, is essentially due to a single successful marketing campaign, I think in the 1940s. Vietnamese food can include a lot of recipes that are attempts to replicate French cooking using Vietnamese ingredients. The Tomato wasn't part of Italian cooking before the early 18th century or so. Vindaloo was originally an Indian attempt to replicate a Portugese dish. Chilli was introduced in Szechuan cooking only after it was introduced outside South America by Columbus. And so on.

[alias_sqbr]

The reason to seek out more 'authentic' Chinese food is simply that you are likely to get better, and more interesting, food if you avoid the lowest common denominator...But interesting and wildly inauthentic food is great too

Absolutely.

And yes, there isn't One Homogenous Chinese Cuisine. (This reply is so short because I was just nodding to everything you said..)

Heh. I guess you could consider spaghetti Very Inauthentic Chinese Food :)