Sunday, July 25, 2010

Essay #1 Food adventure (Final)

Chinese food and American food
Food is a big and important part of people's life. Different cultures have different ways and ideas to cook food. There are thousands of types of food in this world. Though I haven't tried them all, but I think I'll like all of them. I'm a casual person, which means I am not picky in many things, like food. My parents didn't allow me to be picky about any kind of food when I was a kid. I do have some foods that I don't like, but I don't have any foods that I can't eat. Actually, I like many western foods, such as pizza, hamburger, and steak. I pretty much like all western foods, except pasta. I can't point out the reason; I just don't like it. I go to western food restaurants with my family or friends sometimes. Here I summed up the differences between Chinese food and American food in many ways.
I think Chinese food is much more complicated than American food in terms of the cooking process. Chinese food has five main processes to cook the foods, which are steaming, deep-frying, poaching, boiling, and roasting. A professional cook will make the food into a sculpture, like an animal or a dragon. I don't know much about how they cook American food, but from the end product I can tell that it's not that complex by looking at them. While American civilization tends to use meat dishes as a main course, the Chinese consider high carbohydrate dishes to be primary. If you are using the same basic ingredient, such as chicken or meat, the main difference between the two will be the secondary ingredients used, such as the herbs, spices, and the way of cooking and preparing it. The Chinese prefer rice or noodles to eat with the dish, whereas Americans prefer bread and potatoes.
There are also differences on cooking ideas. Compared with Chinese food, which focuses on taste, American cooking ideas are more rational: no matter what the foods look like or taste like, it has to have enough nutrients (for example. how much calories, protein, and vitamin one person needs to gain from food in a day). Even if the food all tastes the same, you still have to eat them because they are nutritive. For instance, the tastes of steak are exactly the same from Los Angeles to New York City. Chinese food, on the other hand, requires the best tastes. Unfortunately, Chinese food lost their nutritional value while people focused on the taste too much.
Not only in taste or way it cooks, but also the restaurants have big differences. I remember when I was in grade school; each time I got an A on my report card, I requested McDonald’s or KFC. I just loved hamburgers at that time. The red background with a big yellow M logo was beautiful. When you walking into the restaurant, first got my attention was a play ground. I've never see any Chinese restaurant that has play ground in it. Then I awarded that we pay money first at cashier desk and then we wait for the food. At that time, I thought that in America fast food was only the food. But I can say it does give me a good memory because it was the first fast food restaurant that I have been. It was clean and cute, full of cartoons pictures on the wall and has a playground in the restaurant. KFC was the second fast food restaurant that I’ve been to. I loved the fried chicken so much; I believed there was magic in the fried chicken for it to attract me so much.
Pizza Hut was a little expensive for me, so until I went into middle school. If I did well in school and made my parents happy, I could get a pizza meal in Pizza Hut. That was my favorite. Pizza Hut has very nice restaurants in my city. Soft yellow lights were shining in the room which felt warm and romantic. It was pretty like a comfortable coffee room. The Pizza Hut in China has its own flavors and sides. It has mushroom soup or sour tomato soup for the sides, and it also has shrimp, chicken wings, onion rings, and so on. It's so different from a Chinese restaurant; there were no sofas. Instead, there were many square or round tables and a couple of chairs, and the structure is different too. The decorations were all traditional Chinese decorations, like peony, Chinese knot, something like that.
Now I'm studying in the U.S.A, and I miss traditional Chinese food so much. I can't wait to go back and eat all kinds of food, especially my dad's special noodles. It is special to me because I couldn't find any other noodles that are better than my dad's. Seriously, I think his noodles are the best. He has his own recipe to cook sauce that I don't even know. American noodles are more like spaghetti; it's completely different flour than Chinese flour. This type of flour can make noodles chewier, but Chinese flour doesn't. That's why I don't like spaghetti or pasta or whatever. I just don't like chewy noodles.
Another important difference is the way to have the meal. In China, no matter what banquet or feast, no matter for what purpose, there is only one form to eat, which is everyone sit together to share one big meal. Use round-table is better, which has led to a form of solidarity, courtesy of an atmosphere of fun. On the American banquet, even though the food and drink are important, but actually the communication is the main purpose. The core of banquet is to talk to the other people near you. Everyone has his own meal to eat and people are free to leave the seat. They don't have to sit to eat. Instead, they could stand there drinking and talking. It's freer to eat in American banquet.Overall, different countries have their own cultures. The Chinese food is different than American food on the ways it is cooked, and the logos behind cooking. Also, the ways that people eat are different too. I'm not saying which one is better. I like them both because they all have their own special foods or restaurants. We have to respect the differences of different cultures.(1079)

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