Inauthentic Chinese Food

Inauthentic Chinese Food in the United States

During the 19th century, a large group of Chinese immigrants moved into the United States. At the same time, a lot of Chinese immigrants decided to start their own business, such as restaurants and laundry stores. Chinese immigrants wanted to serve original Chinese food due to various reasons including social, cultural and economic effects. Chinese foods became inauthentic. It means Chinese foods of the American style lack authenticity. Social, cultural and economic of the market are constraints why the Chinese restaurants present food that is inauthentic in menu items, cooking processes and serving speed.

Initially, Chinese restaurants present food that is not considered authentic by social, cultural

and economic constraints of the markets. On one hand, Chinese cuisine belong to exotic cuisine. These cuisine comes from a different culture with a completely different social environment. American has become their own diet style and food preference. The way American eat quickly is social and cultural affection. But, people usually eat together for a longer time. These is a social practice that is normal in Chinese culture. But it is not normal as American culture. The social practice is different at the American culture. American does not spend long in interacting with each other. If an exotic cuisine wants to survive in the United States, it has to adapt social and cultural situation. Since the target customer is American, the Chinese restaurants should adapt in the local atmosphere. In the article “The Presentation of Ethnic Authenticity: Chinese Food as a Social Accomplishment,” authors mention that American would have been disappointed if the Chinese restaurant served all authentic food. American could not accept Chinese food all of a sudden (Lu and Fine 540). Since American may reject the new culture due to different diet habit. They are used to eating a certain kind of food. It dissimilating to try new kind of food. They are not used to stir-fry and taste. People do not like things that they are not used to. For example, American does not like to eat fish with the head and bones. But, the famous dish “steamed fish” which Chinese eats fish’s head and tail as the best parts (Lu and Fine 540). This shows that Chinese restaurants in the U.S. feels that they cannot serve an authentic meal because American are not used to it. In addition, economic market has an influence in the Chinese food in the United States. There is high competition of market in the United States. As an exotic ethic group, Chinese immigrants want to survive in the foreign country. Most of them decide to open the restaurant service, due to their competitors, Chinese immigrants should consider minimizing cost including fixed cost and variable cost. They have to count down the cost in order to earn profit. Moreover, the owner of restaurant wants to use raw food materials from China because of they want to cook original Chinese food. Shun Lu and Gary Alan Fine point that most restaurants avoid authentic Chinese vegetable because they are more expensive than local American vegetables and are less acceptable to American diners even some are available in Atlanta (Lu and Fine 541). This shows that Chinese restaurants will use inauthentic ingredients in their food due to economic constraints. Not only these actions should reduce the cost, but also local American will more easy to accept those tastes of food.
Chinese restaurants present food that is inauthentic in menu items, cooking processes and serving speed.

On one side, menu items of Chinese restaurants change a lot when the Chinese immigrants came to the United States. For instance, authentic Chinese restaurants does not have General Tso’s Chicken and fortune cookies. The dish of General Tso’s Chicken is originally from America. Since the General Tso’s chicken has a same name with a famous Chinese statesman in the last century. Most people think it is authentic Chinese food. But actually, it is inauthentic Chinese food. There is a joke of this disk. That is even Zongtang Zuo does not eat General Tso’s chicken because of the dish of name is from Zongtang Zuo (“The Strange Tale”). The other is fortune cookies. People do not eat fortune cookies after they finish all dishes in China because there are cultural differences. In China, the Chinese restaurants has not a traditional culture which eats fortune cookies after finish eating all dishes. Also, the cold water does not exist at the dinner table in China. Hot water is almost always served (Xiaoyu Yan). But, the cold water absolutely appeared in the Chinese restaurants in the United States. Even the authentic menu items do not include either fortune cookies or General Tso’s Chicken. On the other side, Chow Mein is a traditional Chinese food. But, the chef changes the cooking process of Chow Mein in the United States. The reason is the owner of restaurant wants to adapt

American style of taste. The authentic Chinese restaurant uses long noodles. Customers could use chopsticks. Most of Americans do not use chopsticks at all. The chefs use only inch long noodle instead of long style noodles in order to adapt American eating habit. They use forks instead of chopsticks. Besides, Chinese restaurant increased meal speed of service. Americans are more “food-oriented” than “talk-oriented” (Lu and Fine 542). Chinese usually take one hour to eat because of taking during the meal. However, Americans have more enjoyed the food. Chinese restaurants have to increase speed.
With the trend of globalization, American fast food became popular around the world, but like Chinese food in America it lost its authenticity in the process.

People can eat American fast food in China, India, and Thailand and so on. The most popular of American fast food is McDonald’s. In China, McDonald’s dishes integrate Chinese and Western cuisine, especially in diet structures. To be more specific, the beverage size of McDonald’s is different between the United States and China. A medium sized drink in the U.S is equal the large size in China (Margot Peppers). Then, the McDonald’s of China serves rice and soup as lunch. McDonald’s does not have this diet structure in the United States. The reason why Chinese McDonald’s has this style of food because American fast food has to adapt foreign atmosphere. It has to change the diet structure in order to the requirement of the local ethic group. That is a similar situation when Chinese immigrants open restaurants in the United

States.
It is possible that the Chinese food can lose its ethnicity in its process of adaptation. Since Chinese restaurants have been change in food processing and food taste. This two sides are different than original Chinese food. Food processing is faster and also change the food materials. Chinese restaurants use local food materials instead of shipping food from China. It is cheaper and also can integrate the local food taste. Then, food taste is more sweeter than original Chinese food because American taste prefer to more sugar.
The food of Chinese restaurants is Americanized Chinese in the United States due to constraints of social, economic of the market and culture. Menu items, cooking processes and serving speed are also inauthentic. Now, with the change of living standards and lifestyles, the pace of life is faster. People requires higher efficiency in the social life. The culture of foreign food brings a certain degree of convenience. In recent years, the rapid development of foreign food culture brings a huge impact to Chinese traditional food culture. It forms a kind of traditional Chinese culinary culture of a huge impact.