What's Fer Dinner?

[gretch]

woza17 said:

I am so over the attitude of the Chinese towards their food.

I feel the same way!!! I went one of my post grad students wedding yesterday and a student who accompanied me, went on and on about how everything associated w/ the wedding is very "famous" escpecially the food!!! When we were getting ready to eat she asked me if I could use chopsticks, not once, not twice, but three m'kaying times!!! And was in disbelif when I told her yes, then picked the damn things up to show her!!!

I'm so sick of that "Can use use chopsticks?" routine...Next time I'm going to show them what else they can be used for and the violent american 'tude will come out!!!

Will I'm ranting: even though Chinese seem to be the least adventerous when it comes to trying diif foods, as you mentioned Woza, God forbid that WE don't like a certain food here. I hate fish, and everytime I'm eating w/a chinese person, they just can't understand that!!! "Oh, but it's so good for you" SO m'kaying WHAT!!!!

[acjade]

Rant away, Gretch. I often feel the same way.

Mostly because I can't eat a lot of the Chinese food because of the intense use of salt and spices. I like my chillie but not every day. I can't eat fat with a thin hairline of meat attached no matter how many times I'm told it's very delicious.

Many Chinese dishes I like but not time after time after time. But I do enjoy adapting Chinese dishes to suit my palette.

[nolefan]

tonight it was philly cheese steaks with vodka tonics.....

[Lotus Eater]

What bemuses me is that everything you eat is so good for you. Had pigs innards the other night (looked like trachea) - and was told that they are very good for making women beautiful. No noticable difference yet.

[Mr Nobody]

I just get down to medical specifics and diet details. They freak. Like how healthy Chinese food is compared to western, then compare, say, the porkfat meat with a decent salad, or the fat and iron content in rare steak, or the goddamn low Calcium in the CHinese diet when they won't even try cheese. HAH.

Now, if I try something, they have to.

BTW - Use chopsticks? Sure, everyone can where I come from. Can you use a knife and fork? Why not?

[woza17]

Lunch today a hearty thick ministrone soup with french sticks baba ganoosh and humus.
While I was cooking away and thinking of the food thread and how excited we are when we find that special western ingredient
I am sure it is like that for the Chinese expats in Aussies
I imagined this conversation between 2 Guangdong Grannies

I was down at the butchers today lah and trying to buy some pigs dicks for my grandson 10th birthday party. Stupid foreigner couldn't understand my English, so I kept pointing to his crutch making pig noises. His face got redder than usual.
This kindly foreigner from Bejing explained to him that I wanted 10 pigs dicks except she called them something Englsih like Tennis, maybe she wanted the balls as well.

Anyway the butcher's face got even redder. He handed me the dicks and didn't even charge for them. Wow this is one lucky country.

I can do even better than that, there is a place near my home where they give really big dogs free to good homes.

[George61]

poo, Woza! Have you never heard of m'kaying PUNCTUATION??
I had to read that bloody story three bloody times before I could work it out!!

[woza17]

George there are 2 full stops a couple of commas and even an apostrophe.

I am sure you have your own punctuation things but hey I will give you some of mine and you can just put them where you want



? ,,,,,,,,,, ...................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! """"""""""""""

[George61]

? ,,,,,,,,,, ...................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! """"""""""""""

Thanks Woz....shall I put them into my posts or yours??

[woza17]

No problem George always happy to help.
I'm fine for punctuation. I have been saving them and have heaps in boxes under my bed. I am a bit of a hoarder when it comes to punctuation.
The Irish guy that wrote that book didn't use punctuation and everyone says he is a genius.

Hey George have you moved yet?

[George61]

Hey George have you moved yet?

Doh!!!
Yes, Woza. We have moved!

[woza17]

George why are you so angry?
Why do you waste so many punctuation things when you post full stop
Question mark.

See I only used one

[Mr Nobody]

!

Punctuation here is one of my bugbears. Nobody teaches it so Nobody has to do it himelf.

... along with sentence structure, paragraph structure, essay structure, and the rest of the grammar book outside of parts of speech, tenses, and irregular verbs, which they don't know either even though their whole teaching seems to be along these lines.

(PS, woza, I don't think James Joyce is a genius. At all.)

[Lotus Eater]

I have a friend staying with me for a couple of days who is a coeliac. We have loads of fun trying to figure out what is safe for her to eat in Chinese restaurants. What is in the soy sauce, what type of vinegar is it? These are questions we are generally lucky enough not to have to think about.

But ... we did find food that works - kao rou, pine nuts and corn, scrambled egg and tomato, doufu, rice, the dried fruits in the Muslim Markets.

[woza17]

Lotus, that is a new one on me. What is a coeliac?

[Mr Nobody]

Someone who only uses kayaks made of seal skin.

sorry.

Overdiagnosed illness usually confined to a small part of the population (for most populations, I think it is less than one in several thousand), but half the bloody doctors diagnose it without appropriate bloodtests for kids with other problems. A 'new' disease that many thought imaginary or bogus, but now is flavour of the month, so people have it 'self-diagnosed' quite often. Modern culture abounds in such misdiagnosis.

Actually refers to a specific autoimmune disease in response to proteins attached to gluten in wheat, barley, and a couple of other grains, probably including rice, but rice isn't on the list, despite having gluten, about half that of wheat. True ceoliacs probably can't drink beer either, even though barley is quite low in gluten, probably about the same as rice. Auto-immune diseases don't really depend on dosage, but are just triggered. Something like people who eat peanuts who are allergic.

www.allergysa.org/coeliac.htm

Oh, yeah one more thing. Since it is flavour of the month, pseudo-health practitioners diagnose it at a very high rate, far more than in any population, probably to sell their special health foods.

However, for people who really have it, it truly sucks the big one.

[Lotus Eater]

Hers is real - stuffs her up big time if she eats anything even lightly contaminated with gluten. Beer is definitely off the list. She gets major headaches, passes out, vomits for hours and then has to sleep if she eats anything with gluten in it. Has affected her internal organs (only recently diagnosed, so she spent many years not knowing why she was permanently ill).

[Mr Nobody]

Yeah, that's real. I didn't doubt it, wasn't accusing. However, I know back in Oz at least six self-diagnosed or alt med diagnosed who just don't have it, and pay for expensive rubbish etc and have their kids on special diets and so on because of it being flavour of the month. For example one single mother: Poor 7 or 8 year old who probably doesn't have it isn't allowed to eat so many things, won't go to a real doctor to check because 'western medicine isn't any good', and her witchdoctor (of some kind - naturopath? something like that) 'told her what it was'. Makes me angry.

One drinks beer every week, no effect, for example.

It is complicated by the fact that immune disorders are often very highly specific. Some people probably will react to say, wheat, but not, say, barley or rice. Etc.

[acjade]

Gaterade for dinner tonight.

Have the la duzi something bad. Oh God. Excuse me.....

[Lotus Eater]

Ji se la pi (chicken strips with potato noodles), suan yi kuang gua, and pidan salad. Cool, refreshing and tasty. And no washing up - plus a discount on the cost for regular customers!

Jade - try to find fishing pills - they are good at stopping the attacks.

[George61]

Pig's ribs done in a tomato and onion gravy, with cabbage.Fried potato chunks on the side.

[ObertonGluek]

I have eine query pour you all!

I used to work in a Chinese restaurant preparing basic food like veg, slicing up ducks/ribs etc, and they used to serve this amazing dish with a thick and sticky sauce on a really really hot plate.

They'd then take it to the table (just the empty hot plate) and start adding stuff to it, which resulted in this amazing sauce. Anyway, I have totally forgotten what it was called.

Any ideas?

Also, what is the (Mandarin) name for Crispy Chili Beef?

Edit: Oh, and seen as I'm learning (and will continue to learn) Mandarin in a Cantonese speaking Province, do waiters/waitresses have any trouble understanding Mandarin?

I guess I should learn both, but it's a hell of a task.

谢谢！

[Decurso]

oberton said:

I have eine query pour you all!

do waiters/waitresses have any trouble understanding Mandarin?

There's another thread going where this is well covered.Bottom line is there are waiters/waitresses in every city who have trouble undersatanding Mandarin.And don't get me started on the cab drivers.

I think the first dish you refer to is tieban(insert name of meat here.My favourite is tiebanhaixian(teppan seafood).The rest aren't very familiar to me,but Chinese food differs a great deal from area to area.

[acjade]

I think the time has come on this thread for us to hold a competition.

The lucky winner will receive a magnificent faux mahogany and bronze Terracotta Warriors Wall Plaque ( never used and donated by AJ ) and a carton of free drink coupons (printed by GG) and the winning cocktail named after their Saloon nom de plume.

Rules of the game:

1. All entries must be original and tested by the competitor prior to submission.

2. All entries must include at least one alcoholic beverage but no more than five alcoholic beverages.

3. All competitors have the right to vote for their favourite entry other than their own. Any competitor caught taking bribes in the hope of winning the Terracotta Warrior Wall Plaque will be made to drink a bottle of baijiu every Saloonie reunion whether present at the reunion or not.

[Mr Nobody]

Good idea.

Er, is it supposed to be a baijiu cocktail? I ain't testing that anymore. I am sticking to turpentine and rocket fuel, perhaps with meths on the side, and other less toxic substances.