Red, white and bland
When it comes to Chinese food, America is stuck in a tepid congee of ignorance and cliche. It doesn't help that few Chinese chefs are going out of their way to tempt locals to delve into the 5,000-year-old culinary culture.
For the true red, white and blue palate, Chinese food begins and ends with meiguorende kouwei (food cooked to American taste). Chop suey, egg foo yung, sweet and sour pork, spring rolls and huge mounds of rice - all drowned in far too much gooey sauce - are seen as the extent of what China has to offer. And don't forget to add the labels 'fast' (as in fast food) and 'cheap'.
China's culinary renaissance of the past few years has largely bypassed the US. The Chinese living in the US have done little to spread the word and Chinese chefs who want to share the diversity and delights of their cuisine are frustrated by Americans' indifference.
Many Americans would regard themselves as having sophisticated, diverse palates, but that doesn't seem to play out in practice.
Picture the scene. An American woman orders a whole fish at a trendy San Francisco restaurant owned by one of the city's best-known Chinese-American chefs. When the dish is served, and the diner sees her fish which, being whole and from the ocean and not a freezer bag, has a head and tail attached. 'She screams, falls backwards out of her chair and cuts her head.'
It's a true story. Recounting it is the chef himself, Alex Ong, of Betelnut in San Francisco's trendy Union Square area. The typical American, he says, is an unadventurous eater. 'Pork belly to me is heaven but if I put it on the menu, I can't give it away.'
Ong, born to a Chinese family in Malaysia, went to China for the first time in 1999, and after tasting the food, 'threw away all the recipes and notions I had about Chinese food'.
China, he says, is like an artichoke 'in that the more you peel away, the more you discover - and it never ends'. He puts dishes he wants to serve on his menu, but it's a challenge. People want what they know and understand.
'I sometimes think it's easier to get Chinese [language] lessons in the US than a good Chinese meal,' says Olivia Wu, a former food writer, now executive chef at the Google headquarters near San Francisco.
Wu has made it her mission to tell Americans about the complexities, subtleties and delights of authentic Chinese cuisine. Similarly, she's told Chinese chefs how to woo American customers.
She's finding it an uphill battle to get the momentum going in this untapped culinary market, but she's got allies. Last month, Wu led a five-person panel in a debate on the future of Chinese cuisine in the US. It was the first event on the San Francisco Professional Food Society's 2008 calendar.
On the panel with Wu and Ong was long-time TV cooking show host Martin Yan, a household name in the US, two hours off a plane from Hong Kong; Albert Cheng, co-chairman of the Chinese Cultural Centre and co-founder of a programme that, over the past 17 years, has taken 200 young Chinese-Americans to their ancestral villages in China and introduced them to the food of their forebears; and Nicole Mones, the Oregon-based author of The Last Chinese Chef. Since 1977 she's studied and written extensively about Chinese food and culture.
Yan has been sharing the flavours of Asian cooking with TV audiences and through his many books for nearly 30 years. Despite this, Yan is aware that only a tiny percentage of Americans are even vaguely aware of China's culinary heritage.
The Americans are not entirely to blame, he says. Unlike in Europe and the US, Chinese parents don't encourage bright and well-educated young men and women to become chefs. Then, few Chinese chefs in the US speak English, which means they cannot communicate with the non-Chinese diner. And Chinese chefs perpetuate the cheap-food stereotype.
'Few in the US realise that you can go to any number of restaurants in China and have a meal that's 10 times more expensive than the French Laundry,' Yan says, referring to the world-class California restaurant where customers book up to three months in advance.
Keeping prices at rock bottom means most Chinese chefs in the US don't put money into decor, Yan continues. They don't know how to brand, promote and market. If they serve wine at all, it's likely to be cheap. And they don't engage with their customers.
'Do you know, the fire used in a Chinese kitchen is 10 to 20 times stronger than in any other kitchen? Check out any Chinese chef. No hairs on arms and legs. No real eyebrows. Most probably they're too embarrassed to come out of the kitchen,' he says, jokingly.
Yan says his recently opened Culinary Arts Centre cooking school in Shenzhen will go some way towards redressing shortcomings on the Chinese side of the divide.
Since the 1980s, many first-rate Chinese chefs have brought authentic and diverse Chinese cooking to the US. However, few market themselves. 'They have a Chinese clientele and they don't tend to move beyond that,' says Cheng. 'Chinese food has become almost a comfort food in our [US] culture in that people see it as reliably the same,' says Mones, noting that the narrowness of the dishes on offer does nothing to promote 'China's magnificent diversity. Some say there are 5,000 named dishes; some say 10,000; some say 12,000.'
There is excellent Chinese food available in the US, but even for the adventurous American diner there are challenges. 'Restaurants have Chinese menus and English menus. Some of the great Chinese-style dishes are relegated to Chinese menus or to specials written on the wall. Finding out what to order is a difficult task.'
To change attitudes, all on the panel agree, requires commitment from Chinese chefs, journalists to spread the message, respected groups such as the San Francisco Professional Food Society to create awareness - and American appetites.
'It's going to take will and persistence,' says Mones. 'When you go to better Chinese restaurants,' she advises her compatriots, 'ask for the best 'Chinese taste' dishes on [or off] the menu, and refuse to budge until you get them.'
