Ask Steph: Does anyone still eat ancient Chinese food?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 11 чер 2024
- Ok, our 500k subscriber Q&A! Thank you all so much for watching and cooking these recipes... it's been an awesome four years. This is the first of two Q&A videos we have planned - second being with Steph's Dad, Dawei. In this video we answer some question like:
0:00 - Introduction
1:02 - Non-native Chinese Ingredients
6:40 - Ancient Chinese Food today?
9:03 - What's your favorite cuisine?
12:41 - Miao & Guizhou minority cuisines
16:54 - Influence of Non-Han Food on Chinese Food
21:40 - Cantonese History and Identity
29:03 - Vietnamese Food in China?
33:19 - Dianxi Xiaoge
33:33 - Gutter Oil
34:48 - Durian
35:14 - MSG
36:04 - Best VPN for China?
37:34 - "Original Flavor" in Cantonese Food
41:04 - Hotpot Restaurants
42:20 - French Food
42:54 - Japanese Food
43:30 - Sichuanese Food
44:32 - Tomato & Egg
44:57 - Doing UA-cam with your Husband
45:45 - Favorite not-Chinese dishes?
46:45 - Dying Food Cultures in Hong Kong and Elsewhere
48:22 - Do you actually like organ?
50:41 - Who is Chris?
As promised, an edited audio-only version. It's a lot smoother:
/ qa-with-steph
I now realize that 70% of what makes people on podcasts sound so smart happens in the cut ;) 10 whole minutes of 'umm' and such! Crazy. Definitely download that one if you're planning on listening to this instead of watching it.
Forgot to add the Patreon credits in this video, sorry guys. Huge thank you to everyone supporting on on Patreon - link here if you'd like:
/ chinesecookingdemystified - Навчання та стиль
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. *So a very important note about the Cantonese language part* : when editing/re-watching we kind of worried that people might mis-interpret that bit on the Cantonese language to mean that Cantonese might somehow not be a "Chinese" language. Cantonese is squarely a Chinese language within the Sino-Tibetan language family. That's a bit of background knowledge that I suppose we just *assumed* the viewer would know, which was our bad.
I guess that's the downside of Q&A chats, things got mixed up in your head and you play fast and loose with your words. When we were talking about the Cantonese language, we somehow heavily assumed that people would know about its history and origin and jumped over the more detailed discussion since the development and history of Cantonese as a language is a often repeated topic when discussing Cantonese culture, and we just chit chat about some random elements that popped to our heads and then quickly moved onto something else.
We were thinking about the possible confusions and misunderstanding when editing and re-listening to it - when you're talking to the camera it's very hard to be very smooth and covers everything you may wanna say (it needs a ton of practice and talent! - this is our first Q&A and we're not very good at talking to the camera in general) - and it's only until later that we realized that we only touched on very little info about that topic, but too late to re-film.
Anyway, we were not doing a lecture so it's hard to cover all the related detail on one single subject, and I know it seemed like we were bullshitting somehow because of the fast and loose format of Q&A. There're already commenters pointing out this issue and we will heart the comments regarding this topic, so that people can read more about it.
2. *Another very important note of the same nature* : in "16:54 - Influence of Non-Han Food on Chinese Food", we talked about how "Yao" people are the people that refused to be incorporated into the taxation system. That was NOT a complete discussion at all. "Yao/Mien/người Dao/瑶" is an actual ethnicity with a very long history. What we mentioned in the chat was a phenomenon in Guangdong area during the Qing Dynasty, which showcasing how people's ethnic classification can change and there is not a strict line between "the Cantonese", "the Yao", and "the Hmong". Even today, you can still apply to change your ethnicity classification by going through certain process.
3. For Chinese reader or Cantonese speaker out there, the book referred in the video discussing the Tai-Kadai Language and Zhuang Language elements in Cantonese is an interesting read if you're curious: "粤语壮傣语问题".
4. For anyone that's interested in the ethnicity study in south/southwest China and southeast Asia, James C. Scott's "The art of not being governed" is a great read about that subject and that's how I (Steph) started to get sucked in that fascinating world of history, culture, food, ethnology, and of course, anarchism.
On the same note, for Chinese readers, I recently found another interesting read about the history of 百越: "同根生的民族：壮泰各族渊源与文化". Not the most serious academic study but with rich references of cultural evidences.
5. Just in case you got lost somewhere in the description box - if you're planning on *listening* to this, do listen to the audio-only version. With solely audio I was able to take a hatchet to this & smooth our a lot of stuff. Link here: soundcloud.com/user-965056242/qa-with-steph
We'll be back with a proper recipe video in a few days! Cantonese Black Pepper Beef - this time we were able to get our local Dai Pai Dong to teach us the broad strokes of it, much like the Fry Roast Chicken video.
big hype for CBPB
Noticed the anarchist penguin, comrade?
Hey there. Interesting that you mentionned Scott's work; if you want a drastically different approach to that subject, I heavily recommand Georges Condominas' "Nous avons mangé la forêt"; which is, in terms of ethnology, a world better in my opinion. Great video nontheless !
cant say i expected a James C Scott reference on my favorite food related youtube channel! Anarchist antropologists like Scott and Graeber (rest in peace) have done really fascinating work, Seeing like a state is one of my favorite non fiction books.
So where does that leave us of Si Yip origin? as once we were all ruled under the Annam Empire
"Why doesn't Chinese food use outside ingredients" what about literally all chili peppers??
Yeah that should've been the first thing that came to mind for us lol. Ah well
Was literally about to say this haha.
Di San Xian - Eggplant, potato, pepper - India, Peru, Mexico lol
The most ancient Chinese substitute for modern chili was probably 茱萸 zhuyu, or maybe in English Tetradium ruticarpum. Other than that there were also gingers and sichuan peppers.
AND I want to say that Chinese food is overall NOT spicy.
As a chinese diaspora person who was unfamiliar with sichuan food 10+years ago, i was surprised when i saw tudousi 土豆絲 (with huajiao yumm) - and potato is such a very western cuisine food lol (which originated from peru/south america)
Sesame seeds originated in East Africa.
Corn originated in the Americas and was domesticated by the Mexicans.
Chilies come from Mexico as well.
Potatoes came from the Andes - Peru.
Peanuts originated in Peru and Brazil.
Yes, I posted the same point, then saw yours. Right on.
But Many parts of the world had same plants domesticated at various points of time, i.e; maize, chillies, potatoes and so on. Origin-diffusion theories are highly disputed and outdated.
@@coconutsmv compared with largely foraged cuisines in regions of Thailand and Laos, for example, Chinese cuisine is hardly indigenous.
@@coconutsmv I agree. But, I am not talking about domesticated variants. I am talking about origins of seeds and plants that are documented in specific areas for many, many years before domesticated variants. At this point, corn has so many variants growing all around the world but the oldest discovery of corn was in Mexico.
@@gideonTeli That possibility is an agreeable one. Thanks for clarifying
To the first question...
Wheat is not native to China. So all the noodles and dumplings are made with non-native ingredient.
Domesticated cattle didn’t originate in China.
Peppercorn (black and white pepper), cloves, cinnamon, and ginger originated from South and Southeast Asia.
Cilantro/coriander and cumin came from the Middle East,
Fennel seeds originated from the Mediterranean.
As others have pointed out, corn, tomato, potato, peanuts, beans, squash, and Chile pepper all originated in the Americas. So did sunflower seeds.
Sesame seeds and tamarind originated in Africa.
I’m sure there are many other ingredients that aren’t native to China that are commonly used in Chinese cuisine.
Also, as a Guizhou native, I think Southwest Guizhou cuisine actually has some similarities to Vietnamese cuisine (my knowledge about Vietnamese cuisine mainly comes from the Vietnamese restaurants in Southern California where I currently live), like rice paper wrapped rolls, and a wide variety of rice noodle dishes. The first time I had Vietnamese Bun Bo Hue it reminded me of Xingyi 羊肉粉 (rice noodle soup with goat meat). Fish wort 折耳根 leaves are commonly consumed in Vietnam according to my Vietnamese friends.
Something ancient about Chinese cuisine that is still relevant I would say is the seasonality of cooking and eating/24 solar terms. And the balance of “cold” and “hot” ingredients (curative properties of ingredients according to traditional medical theory).
I also really appreciate all the Guizhou content from your channel (other content too of course, but Guizhou cuisine is so underrepresented so thank you).
Chris: *Uses corn starch in every single recipe*
The first question: "wHy doESNt cHIna use nONnaTIve inGREdieNTS"
Chilies also aren’t native to China. And relatively new in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah, chilis are indigenous to the Mexico/SW US region
Just think that rice was first cultivated in Vietnam..
Yes thank you... I love the agonizing over tomato... but says chili about 7 times. :). (Does a fish think about water?)
Potatoes?
Yea that first question posted seems to suffer from what it accuses Chinese cuisine to be: eg ethnocentric and stubborn. The person who asked the question has a preconcieved conclusion before looking for any supporting observations. The fact that they only identify tomato + egg or the use of ketchup (presumably referring to sweet and sour pork) as the only example of non-native ingredient adopton may be a sign they don't know much else beyond these dishes. The channel hosts do answer the question pretty diplomatically with historical examples from middle eastern, Indian, and the Eurasian continent. However, I am betting the poster was probably thinking of specific modern ingredients like shredded cheese, mayonnaise, etc. But, even given that position, without digging too deeply you only have to look at the Hong Kong western fusion dishes like borscht, gratin-like dishes, toast, hotdogs, ham and macaroni, and half the menu at a Chinese bakery bun place to see that this is not true. Ingredient adoption is often a result of interactions which include both trade, and unfortunately, war.
I’d just say “spam” and leave it at that.
I'm also gonna point out that the focus of this channel is often relatively traditional Chinese cuisines that aren't represented as well elsewhere, as opposed to relatively modern dishes that may incorporate such specifically modern ingredients viewers would be already familiar with especially if they're coming from an American context. There is already likely sufficient content on such dishes, that it would be quite redundant for this channel to feature them with any regularity.
Besides it's not as if Chinese people across the world are prohibited from eating foods from other cuisines if they so desire such flavours, and vice versa for non Chinese people desiring flavours found in Chinese cuisines.
Good point re modern Chinese/Asian bakeries, I’d forgotten about that naughty delicious stuff!
How about the most obvious western ingredient found in Chinese cooking (native to the Americas), chili peppers. Related, ironically, to that other member of the nightshade family, the tomato.
I notice that many Chinese don't like eating non-Chinese food. It's not an ingredients thing, but style of preparation, seasoning, flavor profile, etc. Over a decade ago, I was on a tour booked from China through Europe, and we ate at mostly Chinese restaurants. When it wasn't Chinese, we ate like kebabs and Italian (neither was the local traditional food).
And don't get me started on well-done steak...
You guys were so patient and thorough responding to such an ignorant and borderline insulting first question 😂
And they didn't even mention chili peppers which are central in sichuan
Imagine that. They were patient instead of responding in an indignant, insulting way. Instead discussed it in a rational manner. Like adults do.
@@jessost1788 The chilis are native to the Sichuan provence.
Wikipedia quotes the origin of chilis incorrectly. Chili seeds and references to chilis have been found in archaeological projects going back to ice age Africa. They seemed to have been so common in the East that no one listed them as a cultivated crop, but like a lot of ingredients, they just come from nature.
@@PostPatriot Capsicums are native to south america, and weren't available in the old world before the columbian exchange. I'd like a source if you're saying that they're not
@@PancakeInvaders they don't have a source because they are talking out of their ass.
The whole "why doesn't Chinese cuisine use non-native ingredients" is obviously an ignorant comment, but how could the asker forget the oreo spam sandwich?!?!
Oreo spam and MAYO sandwich, excuse me!
Seriously right?
might be american lool
chinese are racist
exactly. a chinese person could ask the exact same question to a non native person. like, fermented mustard greens are some of my favorite toppings, but if a white person saw them, they would probably be like ewwwwwwwwwwww
Short answer: We call it Iran in the national language, it's the simplest and most inclusive name for the place.
Long answer: There's the nation of Iran, then there's Iranian peoples - two different concepts. Iran the country contains many ethnic groups (Persians, Azeris/Turks, Kurds, Lurs, Arabs, Armenians, etc.) Persians, in the center and south of Iran - the region called Persia - are just one ethnicity, although the largest at ~50-60%. Iranian peoples, on the other hand, are an ethnolinguistic family which includes Persians, Kurds, Lurs, Pashtuns, Baloch, etc. - ranging from Turkey thru Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and all the way to Xinjiang.
So Iran the country includes Persians (who are an Iranian people) as well as many other ethnic groups, some of whom are ethnically Iranian (e.g. Kurds), some of whom are not (Turks, Arabs). The majority of Iranian peoples live in Iran, but many live in neighboring countries or further afield.
And in case any other Iranians are reading - happy New Year! - نوروز مبارک! - نهورۆز پهێرۆز!
Oh yeah! Happy New Year :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Thanks!
Very interesting. Thanks.
usually we called old Iran a Persian .... Im Indonesian ....greetings and Happy Nowruz my friend
So all Persians are (also) Iranian, but not all Iranians are Persians ? Thank you for the explanation. I know almost nothing about that part of the world.
"There is no larger culture that is more ethnocentric and stubborn." Um, have you ever met an Italian?
I'd like to nominate the Greeks as well.
The Jewish. My people.
in a sarcasm way, I always have a feeling that Italians and Chinese are alike in some ways
Yet they wholeheartedly embraced the tomato from the Americas.
I guess if we're using "larger" to mean demographically, there are very few larger groups on the planet...but plenty that are just as ethnocentric, if not quite as numerous.
You guys are single handedly promoting Guizhou food to the international audience! I meam even for most local chinese culinary channels like those on bilibili, guizhou food and yunnan food are considered niche with sichuan, beijing and guangdong food taking the main spot. CCD is truly an amazing channel.
Sour and spicy
Potatoes aren't from China either, and there a LOT of delicious Chinese recipes for potatoes.
The dish that comes to mind when cantonese people talk about original flavour is white cut chicken 白切雞. I always hear people say "oh yea this chicken sure does taste of chicken". That is just the quality of the chicken you buy, people don't realise the importance or the technique in poaching the chicken, pouring the stock out a few times, refreshing in ice water not over cooking and developing the jelly layer underneath the skin and the chewiness of the skin which are far more crucial to this dish than the flavour of the chicken.
When I was little I didn't appreciate this kind of chicken. My palette wasn't refined enough I think, as a kid I loved bold strong flavors. But when I got older I started to really like this dish. When it's done really well, the chicken breast is juicy, and you dip it in the sauce, so good! The key is to keep the temperature really low during the cooking process. The water has to be below boiling, just hot steam rising. If it boils you get dry chicken.
I have started thinking about White Cut Chicken and also Mouthwatering Chicken recently and this keeps coming up. You can't get the breeds that Daddy Lau talks about or the 老母鸡 laomuji that Fuchsia Dunlop goes on about in the supermarket... The result still tastes especially moist and tender to me. But as for flavour, I'm left wondering.
@@brokenglassshimmerlikestar3407 The Instant Pot gurus, Amy + Jacky have a way to poach a full chicken in the pressure cooker without drying out the breast meat.
exactly. Cantonese food is very focus on 鮮. We even divided them genders, ages and tyes
Lol that first comment is ridiculous. Chinese cuisine (or maybe more appropriately cuisines, plural) are so diverse and have adopted so many foreign ingredients over the centuries.. many spices, many alums, all the nightshades etc etc. Feel like it’s a comment from someone who’s pissed they couldn’t find a very particular cuisine or condiment from their home country in China.
Peppers/capsicum came from the Americas.
@@herberttlbd yep indeed. I believe they’re part of the nightshade family along with tomatoes, potatoes and eggplants.
@@antonc81 that's correct. They're all from the nightshade family and indigenous to the Americas. Steph mentions garlic, which comes from the middle East. Most spices come from India and neighboring countries. Bay comes from the Mediterranean. Modern chicken is a hybrid from various junglefowls that are native to modern day Thailand. We could go for hours.
yo straight up, why even answer that guy they're clearly trolling. I guess they took a charitable interpretation of the question, but still
A last one: wheat. It comes from the Middle East / Mediterranean (I need to investigate that one a little more). Who doesn't think of noodles when talking Chinese cuisine?
"I think I need my Oriental lady fan to answer this question." That cracked me up. Kind of came out of left field! :-)
could listen to steph talk about chinese culture and food all day
Typical cat being a dick. Lmao.
No but for real, this video was very interesting for me and my fiance. Love you guys. Thank you for uploading!
Food for thought: How long does an ingredient have to be used in a culture before it's considered "authentic"?
Hmm... on a larger note I don't think there's 'inauthentic' ingredients, just inauthentic preparations of certain dishes? Let's take the case of Okra in China. Started appearing at markets in the 90s, now pretty widely used without people batting an eye. So it's *normalized* now... but if you tossed Okra in a Mapo Tofu, that'd be an inauthentic Mapo Tofu :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Love it. Totally agree.
On the other hand, how long would it take for a new method to be considered "authentic". If enough people added okra to mapo tofu, how long until it too is considered authentic?
For instance, tomato ketchup in stir fry sauces. It maybe it has more to do with ingredient replacement than ingredient additions. Maybe if one ingredient becomes much harder to source, the elasticity of that recipe increases.
These are the things I ponder. I am an odd bird.
@@erinhowett3630 I mean stir frying as we know it didn't appear until the Ming period and spread out after that to all parts of asia and is considered an authentic part of many cuisines in southeast asia so I guess perhaps 2 or 3 generations or more
The question seems to be: "What does the English word 'authentic' actually mean?" It is my opinion that it is all dependant on its own opposite... You can't have "authentic" without something opposing it.... For instance, my grandma makes 'spaghetti and meatballs' sometimes; it is not an "authentic" Italian dish, but I'll be damned if that makes her a "non-authentic Italian"... Does the person qualify the food, or does the food qualify the person? It's a fucked up question, and as my grandma would say, "everybody just shut up and eat!"
@@giuseppelogiurato5718 Lol'd at the end. That's definitely something a Italian grandmother would say
First question: Why haven't we seen your beautiful tabby cat before?!
I think we did in the lamian video?
He's a rescue, and kind of a dick. Not the least social cat in the world (loves to be in the same room as people), but not take-part-in-a-cooking-video level social like Jun's Kitchen ;)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified I was about to guess "because he's a dick" as you stated in the video and you've confirmed... It's still a pretty cat though 😊
@@lordjaashin .
@@lordjaashin Not gonna lie, that seems kinda racist.
As a person of middle eastern descent it’s nice to hear the acknowledgement of our culture to other areas! But more importantly I think once people realize that our modern conception or race is just that: modern! Well be able to navigate these ideas better. Like Arabs also didn’t invent everything we all learned from one another through trade and exchange of ideas, a lot more than we give the ancient world credit for!
Cantonese is a Chinese language regardless of orthography. Phonological similarities between Cantonese and Vietnamese don't really mean much when Vietnamese has heavy Chinese influences, both of them have Kra-Dai influences, and Kra-Dai itself ALSO has Chinese influences...Thai has lost all its original ptoro-Tai numerals except for the number 1.
Plus Mandarin has undergone the most extensive changes out of any Chinese variety. That doesn't mean Cantonese is "older" (and I hate it when Cantonese people say that) but Yue Chinese is overall more conservative and thus closer to Middle Chinese in sound (consonant codas, velar consonants) than Guan Chinese is. Though of course neither sound anything like Old Chinese -- not even Min Chinese does.
Yeah, when editing/re-watching I kind of worried that people might mis-interpret that bit as that Cantonese might somehow not be a "Chinese" language. Cantonese is squarely a Chinese language within the Sino-Tibetan language family. That's a bit of background knowledge that I suppose we just *assumed* the viewer would know, which was our bad. Editing the notes now.
Yeah, sometimes it is annoying to me too, even as a Cantonese speaker. Each language is as old as the other, technically for as long as the first original Chinese language came about, its just that Cantonese preserved more and is maybe closer
I think this channel has the smartest people on the internet.
I am learning so much here.
reminds me of when americans say their accent is "older" or "more accurate" than any english accent as if they aren't all equally old and divergent!
Iranian fan here. Most Iranians call the country Iran. Persian is derived from the Greek word for Iran based on a region in Iran: Pars. It's like calling the US New York land or something. There are some Iranians prefer using Persian though but it tends to be because they think Persian carries less of a negative connotation.
I think the reason they called it Persia is also because the historical Chinese name for that region is 波斯 bōsī, which is etymologically related to "Persia", so mentions of it in old documents and writing would call it by that name. However the modern Chinese name for the country is 伊朗 yīlang, or "Iran".
I had to pause the video from laughing so hard when you asked the question "Why doesn't China use non-native ingredients?" like we weren't just a couple months ago all losing our minds over a Spam and Oreo sandwich from McDonalds in China.
I suspected it was inspired by Hong Kong’s Cha Chaan Teng food, the Pineapple Bun with Luncheon Meat and Egg.
My Chinese hakka family left China 100 years to the island of Mauritius . As such the first time I came to China I was shocked to discover Chinese eating tomatoes and potatoes .
I’m the person who asked the Vietnamese food question! So excited it was chosen. I agree with Chris here, all people seem to know about Vietnamese food abroad is spring roll and pho (and kudos to Steph for saying it correctly!). I also love tom yum and if I see it on a menu I’d probably order it, but no it’s not a soup I grew up eating 🤣 One day, one day “bun cha” (rice vermicelli with grilled pork) and “bun rieu cua” (rice vermicelli with a sour crab broth), and “cha ca La vong” (grilled fish with turmeric and dill and spring onions) will feature on every Vietnamese restaurant menu, that’s the kind of fare we eat everyday here in Hanoi. I guess the similarity I saw was more in the homecooking style, like your scramble eggs and the egg and tomato is exactly how my mum makes it (and she loves the dish), or your fried rice video is the first time someone described the motion my mum taught me to fry rice (press and then fluff). And the red braised pork, that’s a common dish in my family. The tang yuen, which is called in Vietnam “bánh trôi tàu” (chinese floating cake), but Vietnamese also have our own version with a plainer paler soup, without ginger, with flower sometimes used for a floral taste. Pork brain omelette, which was really common in my cousin’s house, though I still can’t do that rich texture.
Vietnamese food seems like Mexican and Indian food to me, basically there’s only a couple of dishes that people associate it to.
I'm so sad to hear about the lack of Vietnamese food abroad! My family is Vietnamese/Cantonese/Teochow and there's a lot of great foods specific to us!
If you ever get a chance, go to New Orleans for Vietnamese food. There was a significant diaspora there after the war and there are many many restaurants where you can get a pho Tai or bun or stew.
Snarky Steph is amazing.
Also... all chiles are originally from Mexico. They didn't come to the other side of the world until the Portuguese brought them.
Speaking of Portugal, pasteis de nata and egg tarts are suspiciously similar and sometimes sold side-by-side in Chinese bakeries
Actually, not all chillies came from Mexico, although some of the most popular ones nowadays are from there.
There are native chillies from most American countries from South America to Central to North.
@@sdschen Buys them at TnT, can confirm.
Not correct, chiles are native to the Amazon and made their way up to Mesoamerica/Northern America. Also, Mexico as a state did not exist in this time, use the term Mesoamerican.
@@sdschen egg tarts I think came via England’s custard tarts. Pasteis de nata show up in Chinese bakeries next to egg tarts the way that Macau is geographically next to HK. Macanese egg tarts are far superior to HK egg tarts.... says the person whose dad was born in Macau but grew up in HK.
The oldest recipe I know is hot pot. Think about the ancient ceremonies in Zhou dynasty. People would cook meat in a bronze container called ding. And BBQ is definitely the oldest Chinese dishes, to be more precise bbq is the oldest dishes for all cultures.
That's definitely up there for sure. The difficulty with hotpot is that from our understanding at least, it's not clear if the Zhou dynasty pots could be considered comparable to modern hotpot, per se. Like, it's not clear how exactly they used them - AFAIK it's actually theorized that they'd put big chunks of meat in them? In any event, super murky history, like most food history is :)
周天子八珍里不是烧烤的部分，似乎是类似于炸酱高粱饭的东西。
@@sasionx4785 yeah man same
Something that has always fascinated me and found pretty wonderful is how chilies, a food I have strong attachment with as a Mexican, has been developed in other cultures. There are flavors and characteristics of chilies around Asia that I'd never be able to find in Latin America. Amazing stuff!
The dog. The ears. The hands. Mesmerizing.
I literally just commented this!! So relaxing.
@@StevenRayMorris So relaxing? Not for the dog. She was over it pretty quickly! But, as all good dogs do, they allow their people to molest them. Such a good doggy.
The dog clearly hated this but is a good sport. I was like stop touching it like that.
@@Raithed 100%
My god, I felt so sorry for that dog!
Watching Steph play with her puppy’s ears is soo soothing for some reason.
Steph talking about Yunnan food, definitely would be massively hyped for more Yunnan recipes
As an American born Chinese person from Hong Kong who lived in Sichuan for 3 years, I would argue the Cantonese idea of "original flavor" is not overrated even if it has become a way to elevate itself at the expense of other cuisines. In Sichuan, when I lived, there is literally nothing the locals ate without dousing in red chili oil, msg, and huajiao peppercorn. While much of it is delicious, I longed for some shrimp and scrambled eggs, or anything that tasted of the original ingredient. "Original flavor" is just a quality of food, like umami, and is neither superior or inferior.
totally agree!! that is exactly how cantonese food focus on. also their cooking technique.
So I think maybe the term "original flavor" is just not good enough and kinda lazy when describing the flavors and essence in Cantonese food.
I mean for sure Cantonese food uses less chilies and such, but that still it's not really the "original flavor" of the ingredient in the final dish.
For example, the "original flavor" of eggs are pretty fishy, and that's not what flavor in the final dish of shrimp and scrambled eggs. I think maybe we should find a better way to describe it. It feels more like "an act of balancing". But of course, these are thoughts that I'm still working on, we're still looking for a better way to describe that "essence" of Cantonese food.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified surely the fishy flavour of eggs is due to the chickens being fed fishmeal to boost protein production rather than what they should be eating grass, seeds and bugs.... it was a common issue in HK when growing up
@@wlack2 yeah. I've had unseasoned egg before and it did absolutely not taste fishy.
This was wonderful! was nice to “spend some time” with you both.
"chinese food is ethnocentric"
bruh there's more ethnic groups in that country than I can even count, what are you even talking about?
*Angry Manchu noises*
“Chinese” food in the West is really only Cantonese food because the West doesn’t like acknowledging that China and India are basically just unions that are more effective than the EU.
@@KRYMauL wasn't it India and china who threatened to bomb each other at the border like last year? Otherwise I agree with you, like sushi is the only Japanese food in the west
@@alexisasheep6554 I meant each country is it’s own union like Russia and the EU.
@@KRYMauL I don't understand what you mean, sorry, English isn't my first language
Tomatoes covered in sugar. My grandmother used to do that but she was from Yorkshire and born in in 1898.
That was great, it's nice to see you both figuring this out and being yourselves. Hope it keeps going well! It's definitely rewarding to watch and listen.
The reference to the French Cooking Academy channel gave me much joy. These two channels should combine forces and become unstoppable!
the hypocrisy of the first comment is funny, i mean, you could very easily say the same about america not excepting old world/chinese ingredients. Of course, they might have not been american but you could still make that argument about other countries
I like this, just a big brain pick of someone who has a lot of knowledge. Thanks Steph! And what a doll of a dog!
I learned a lot from this q and a.
I thought I was going to see a cat
wow feeling blessed with such a long video. loved both of your thoughts on all the questions !
I really appreciate these responses. The “mouth feel” question is very important I think. “Mouth feel” as a part of a cuisine is very important in Chinese cuisine. Getting to the point where as a eater I could understand that, understand and appreciate mouth feel would be so cool and important for understanding Chinese cuisine.
Steph is such a master!!! She could definitely teach a class on this stuff.
Best channel ever. Thank you so much for it.
I just want to thank you you guys for your channel/videos. I love watching home made version of different Chinese food. You guys make it easy and accessible. I lived in China for 20 years. I love Chinese cuisine. It is one of my favourites.
Wonderful and interesting discussion...quite enjoyable. Thanks. Looking forward to the one with your father. Cheers
to add another Vietnamese- Cantonese language similariy example is the word for special (特别)
which is
Mandarin Tè bié (te bie)
Cantonese dak6 bit6 (dak bit)
Vietnames đặc biệt (dac biet)
that I also learned about on menus. Pho Dac Biet... is the pho special, containing the assorted meats ;)
And there are many formal Vietnamese words from Chinese origins. When I tried reading the words on Vietnamese banknotes, I can pick out the words.
Omg so that’s what it means. It sounds so similar
The thing about similar pronunciations in Cantonese and Vietnamese are not only limited with this 2 languages. There is also same case with Min language, Korean and Japanese languages. They are all related to Middle Chinese language in some way which was the language used during the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties. These pronunciations are called Sino-Xenic pronunciations.
Holy shit, 500k subscribers, congrats y'all!
Loved that first response btw :P
I’m sure there are many sources I could get more of this kind of information, but your channel has been one of the only direct links I’ve had to Chinese cooking, and lately, culture. It’s very interesting. I really appreciate your videos
The way Steph described eating non-tender parts of meat totally is the reason why I dig menudo, but never been able to explain why
I'd say Japanese is simultaneously both underrated and overrated mostly because of how limited most peoples exposure to the breadth of it is. So many Japanese restaurants outside of Japan give you a mediocre sort of amalgamated sushi/hibachi/teriyaki/etc. concept when in Japan, each of those would be an entire separate restaurant.
Not quite, they're mostly inspired by izakaya menus which in Japan can be incredibly lengthy with a ton of different dishes.
Man thank you guys so much for the awesome video once again! I could watch videos for forever if they just explained different cultures and their food alongside the history, influences (either way), and regional variants and similarities.
This will be th video that sparks the one million surge!!go guys!
37:37 The concept of "Original Flavor" is so interesting. I hear that crap all the time about Japanese food from my Japanese family and even in the media. Like wth do you think Soy sauce and miso are used for?
"""本来の味"""
Enhancing original flavor?
They are used to enhance the original flavour. Meat is a little bit umami, and soy sauce adds to that umami. Meat is not at all spicy, and hot sauce gives it a flavour it otherwise doesn't have. That's all original flavour means.
original flavor or alternatively "bland"
It's *a* valid approach to cuisine, but I think it'd be needlessly limiting (and wrong) to say that it's automatically better than more liberal approaches.
You see the same kinda thing in mixology. On the one hand, you've got minimalistic, spirit-forward stuff like old-fashioneds and martinis, and on the other hand, you've got wild concoctions like you see in tiki bars. You might say one is "classier" than the other, but neither one is actually "better."
Being that my country (the Philippines) was and is a direct economic partner of both ancient and modern China, I feel that I'm still eating traditional Chinese cuisine. Steamed buns, siomai... basic staples that I believe are only a few steps removed from the real deal.
But I'd really like to try cooking some of Chris's works here.
Fun point! Yep in Thailand, Malaysia n Philippines I guess you can find very ancient Chinese dim sum which we can’t get in GBA( the greater Bay Area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau). I felt amazed while encountering them on my SEA trips ! In Macau’s Filipino eatery too.
I'm very late in saying this but Chris! Your humility and wealth of knowledge makes you thoroughly interesting. I imagine you not to be the type to love reading piled on compliments so I'll stop, but one very important thing: you have an extremely good narration voice. Just naturally it works extremely well for narrating your videos, the correct level of baritone for a comforting listening experience. Anyway love the videos Steph and you make!!
One of the first things that came to mind when thinking about foodstuffs from outside of China was cornstarch. I almost cannot think of a dish that I've cooked from your channel that doesn't use cornstarch. The first comment/question you answered kinda annoyed me to think of China as a country that doesn't want to incorporate other flavours/ingredients. In Austrian cuisine we don't incorporate basically any spices whatsoever because most people didn't have access to them. That's why when you cook anything Austrian paprika, pepper and cinnamon are pretty much all the spices we use. People in general have a certain set of dishes they're used to and are familiar with. I think everyone who travels or is abroad for a long time appreciates the flavours they know from growing up.
What you say about Sichuan cuisine being underrated is interesting, because it's definitely one of the most common cuisines to see in restaurants in places I've lived (London, Paris, Madrid, New York). All of those places have older Chinese restaurants opened by Chinese immigrants earlier on in the 20th century. These tend to be more adapted to Western tastes, at least as they were then. But of the *newer* restaurants founded by more recent immigrants (which tend to serve food which is closer to what people currently eat in China), Sichuanese is probably the most popular in all those places. With New York it's harder to say, it's more mixed, but for the others it's definitely true.
Agreed. My city has a pretty nice Sichuan restaurant with a ton of classics, yet it doesn't have a similar Cantonese restaurant
Yeah I (Chris) was kind of surprised about that answer too, but in a lot of ways I understand where Steph's coming from - even though Sichuanese food is like this global phenomenon, there's still a bunch of classic dishes and such that haven't spread around too much around China or the West. Like, tofu rice is a Sichuanese cultural institution, and you can't really find it around much outside of Sichuan.
Interesting. It’s really irritating in a lot of the West, because ignorant people try to position Szechuan as “the only REAL Chinese food” and underrate the lesser known portions of every other Chinese regional cuisine. I would say “over-rated while being only superficially understood/known”, and Xi’an as “under-rated while nearly unknown” and Shanghainese as “barely known and overhyped for just XLB”. And yes, Cantonese as “super under-rated while mainly only known in most stereotyped ways”. This is different in major diaspora concentration sites like Vancouver, SGV, and Sydney, that I’ve seen, but...
The older chinese diaspora contain a lot of cantonese, hongkong and southeast asian chinese, who are mostly cantonese or chaozhou or fujian descendents. So there are lots of cantonese foods and dimsum places. Then the new immigrants who came from mainland china, there are lots of Sichuan people. Then because Sichuan food is so popular even in china, even non sichuan immigrants may have a lot of sichuan dishes in their restaurants. It's harder for other cuisines to have a broad appeal, and that's a risk when you want to open a restaurant. Therefore the dominance of Sichuanese food overseas as well. I'm from Guangxi, but if I wanna open a Guangxi food restaurant in France, I don't think a lot of people will come. People are weary of things they don't recognize. Everyone recognizes Cantonese and Sichuanese cuisine, to some extent.
Thank you for posting this. SO interesting. It can be difficult to find this type of information on the internet, presented in such a friendly and intimate way.🌺
Thank you for answering my question. It is really interesting to me!
that first question got the entire comments section going lol. and what a question.
Huh? 5:45 That's pretty cool. I read in a Swedish cookbook that someone's grandmother ate thinly sliced tomato with sugar on it in the early 1900s.
This was an awesome Q&A! Thanks for not only showing us the beauty and diversity of Chinese cuisine but giving us little lessons on these dishes, their origin, and history. :D I was wondering though, have you guys done any videos on those laminated baozi? I've never heard of those and they look absolutely delicious! (And if possible, I want to give it a try) Thanks again for the great content!
You made a good choice in making cooking vids . You seem a natural at it . It’s always entertaining and the dishes look ad taste threat .keep it up dude ..
Thumbnail: Kitty!
Video: Puppy!
You lured us in, didn't you?😂
MSG originated in Japan
Yeah, MSG, the thing people like to associate Chinese food with, is non native.
MSG is naturally occurring. I think you mean a Japanese person was the first one to isolate it.
@@haruzanfuucha MSG isn't naturally occurring. Glutamic acid and glutamate occurs naturally, but sodium glutamate in crystal form requires human interaction.
Still, natural origin has no bearing on origin. Tomato is naturally occurring, yet South American can lay claim to its origin.
@@HO1ySh33t Yes, it isn't naturally occurring as an isolate but it appears naturally in many foodstuffs. And tomatoes are a species that came from a particular part of the world, they aren't comparable to MSG at all.
@@haruzanfuucha First, not all foodstuffs are naturally occurring, like cheese, or soy sauce. Second, foodstuffs only contain glutamate, not crystalline MSG.
@@HO1ySh33t MSG isn't always "crystalline", it's literally just the sodium salt of glutamic acid.
This is a nice episode! I never really thought to look up Cantonese culture but now I'm fascinated.
Congrats on the 500K subscribers guys, you're the best thing ever and keep it up, you're going to be awesome on this one for sure! 😉
Have you guys explored khmer food much? Still southeast asian but definitely unique, sadly less recognized than its bigger neighbours. Come visit!
Favorite dishes? Unfair question. Good to you for sticking it out.
I loved this video! I could watch stuff like this all day long!
Incredibly excellent channel. Thanks!
"Vietnamese food over here is disappointing"
That seems to be a problem everywhere. It's pretty hard to find good "foreign food" no matter how close the other country is.
The trick is to be so close that you can just cross the border for dinner :p
There's good Vietnamese restaurants overseas outside Vietnam if you know where to look. :) Australia has some good Vietnamese restaurants.
@@thuytienlives8487 agree. america has good vietnamese restaurants too.
LA has good viet food. orange county has lots of vietnamnese. LOLs.
Haidilao in Richmond, BC did the whole noodle dance thing the one time I was there...they also played Happy Birthday every ten minutes over the speakers.
This is a great video. Thank you for making this channel.
This was super enjoyable. Thank you!
omg after 40 min in I just noticed Ⓐ
Can't wait to see the episode with Dawei. The episode with his reminiscence of his favorite childhood dish was so cool!
Glad to see you two in a different setting. Both of you look different from the image I had watching your videos. Thanks for sharing all the great recipes. To me, your recipes are the type I look for as I like learning about the culture, ingredients, etc ... not just cooking and eating only!
Really cool Q&A, recently stumbled across your channel and it inspired me to pick up a bunch of chinese ingredients and start cooking again(been in a bit of a quarantine slump and ordering out an insane amount). So thanks and your video style is informative and entertaining, yet somehow to the point and not too fluffed up, idk it works :)
I really like hearing Stephs opinions and wish she had more of a chance to dig deeper into some of these topics.
The dish with tomatoes and granulated sugar is really interesting. It's considered a very old school way of eating tomatoes here in Denmark - my mom often talks about how my great grandparents would only eat tomatoes with rye bread and granulated sugar.
Cool 😎 info, didn't know that
It's the same in Korea, too, surprisingly.
Slice tomato, dump granulated sugar, into the fridge for 1 hour, take out, devour, drink all the juices, wait for ice-cream headache.
Man thank you guys so much for this video!
Nice video, happy to see both of you on screen :D
By the way, PLEASEEEEE can you teach us that laminated baozi?! I can't even find a reference to it but it looks fantastic!
Agreed!
Most youtuber’s q & a vids: Let’s talk about me for an hour
Chris & Steph: Let’s produce a short historical documentary about our region in China.
I’m so here for it!
This
Love your channel.. & your pup!!!
I’m listening but that dog is so adorably cute 😊. Great video guys and keep up the good work.
Its so funny/apropos that Steph likes khaonom jin ขนมจีน because it's literal translation into English is chinese rice noodle. But yeah Khaonom jin is the shiznit
Actually, ขนมจีน (khanom chīn) is a corruption of Mon word : ခၞံစိန် (khanoṃ cin; ขฺนํจิน์/ขะนอมจิน) meaning "boiled rice" or "cooked noodle" (Mon is one of the major ethnic group in Burma/Myanmar). Thai people just misheard it to be "khanom chīn" meaning "Chinese snack", but the etymology of the word really has nothing to do with China. จีน (chīn) here is စိန် (cin) meaning "boiled" or "cook", and originally pronounced short, while จีน meaning "China" pronounced long, like the word "jean".
Foods traditionally used in Chinese cooking that are not native (just to name a few): garlic, sesame, tomatoes, welsh onion, snow peas, bitter melon, taro, stem lettuce, chili peppers, bell peppers, corn, peanuts, bay leaves, potatoes, pineapple, fava, black, white, kidney, lima, mung, and long beans, carrots, broccoli, mango, black/white pepper, green/black cardamom, msg, winter melon, luffa, king mushroom...
Welsh onion is definitely native to China. Or I think so?? Now you have me second guessing myself.
Any who, that list should shut anyone up. Chinese food uses more non native ingredients than any other cuisine I can think of.
1. I just recently stumbled on this channel. Other than finding myself trying to binge everything at once, loving it so far!
2. Any chance of you guys doing a critter-focused vid? (i.e. your pets.) Though, I'd also be interested in the history of Chinese animal husbandry, and pet keeping in general. 😁
Being Peruvian we are quite familiar with Cantonese cuisine. As a matter of fact, Peruvian cities are full of Cantonese-Peruvian restaurants called "Chifa". And just as mostly-Peruvian ingredients are shared in Chinese cuisine (tomatoes, peanuts, chili peppers, cashew nuts, and potatoes) Peruvian cuisine has been heavily influenced by Chinese ingredients and cooking techniques. Also, unlike other south American countries, we call Asian ingredients by their Cantonese names: kión for ginger, sillao for soy sauce, ajonjolí for sesame, holantao for spring beans, etc. If you ever come to Peru I believe you will be pleasantly surprised.
Aren't sweet potatoes/yams all over the place in China now? (as far as non-indigenous stuff).
Da Wei is always a win.
That's a great question to answer.
Thanks for your consistently thoughtful content! Any chance that Steph would be down to throw together a shotgun bibliography someday (Chinese language, English and any other sources) of either directly or tangentially related cool stuff pertaining to: food, Chinese culinary technique, history, linguistics, culture, diaspora, or something along those lines? 🙏
Why the heck is your voice so soothing?
me: "chris's backstory can't possible be that boring"
Chris:
noooo
Hearing them casually talk about food is soothing in a fun sort of way
For what it's worth, Hai di lao here in Toronto have the dancing noodle pullers. We've really enjoyed it, but very happy to learn we can create a similar experience at home with the branded hot pot seasoning.
More importantly, thank you both for your always thoughtful, detailed, illuminating approach to sharing regional cuisine and technique. We live in an incredible city for pan-Chinese cuisine, but you've given us so many more ways to appreciate, enjoy, and even prepare favourites and new favourites.
I'm just gonna throw this out there: Chris is a very handsome man and should do more cameos. IOW, don't hide behind the camera. :-)