Chinese takeaway
Those of us who avoid the vapidity of TikTok will have been blissfully unaware of a ding-dong among its mouth-breathers over British Chinese food. Of all things. Fortunately, Anna Sulan Masing is here to fix that oversight and enlighten us.
It appears that American Chinese have recoiled at the unfamiliarity of British Chinese food, with one going so far as to ask: Are the British eating out of a dumpster?
It may well be true—although they're more likely eating out of a skip or wheelie bin, since dumpster
is a merkanism—but it's impolite to draw attention all the same.
Presumably without the awareness to realise that a lot of American Chinese food is itself hardly authentic—localised versions of foreign cuisine have to adapt to availability as well as tastes—one of the issues they have is meals consisting almost entirely of fried food
.
That might go some way towards explaining my long-held ambivalence towards what I've always understood to be Chinese food
. Although, more than that, I've always associated it with an unpleasant mouthfeel, which I've put down to the reliance on MSG. I'd rather eat pretty much any other Asian cuisine; even Indian, which, despite its reliance on ghee, may be heavy on the palate but is never greasy.
If American Chinese find British Chinese food too reliant on frying, they'd positively soil themselves in the face of the Glaswegian delicacy that is the deep-fried Mars bar. Moreover, I've heard that pretty much anything can be deep-fried by the culinary artisans north of the border, even pizza. And probably chow mein by some enterprising chippy owner or other.
Now, that's true British cooking for ya! (no)