"OH, HOW THE TIMES HAVE CHANGED... OR NOT"
The Benedictine sisters provide recipes that not only have very simple titles and easily accessible ingredients, such as fried rice, chicken and tomatoes, and shrimp on toast,[4] but also are very predictable, so that readers are not surprised with unexpected flavors or ingredients. “Tame” recipes are a means to change the treatment and perspective of Chinese people and their culture, and even though these “tame” recipes do what they intend to do, attract white people to Chinese food, they fail to accurately represent Chinese culture and only superficial acceptance of the people would occur. These oversimplified recipes reflect how authenticity is correlated to Americans’ opinion of Chinese culture; the more suitable the dishes are for the American palate, the more acceptable the people are viewed by mainstream American society.
The recipes are not written in an organized fashion; each recipe’s instructions are arranged into one paragraph without many specifics, which reveals the authors’ intent to simplify the procedure to reduce confusion. For example, the instructions to make beef and onions started with: “Heat pan, add 2 T. oil, and sauté beef. Add onions to the beef. Heat thoroughly and serve hot”[5] These directions did not indicate what kind of pan or oil would be ideal, how to sauté the beef, how much onion to add, or how long to heat the food for. The lack of attention to detail is meant to allow individuals to tailor each dish to their own taste in order to make the dish attractive to a wider audience, but it removes the distinctiveness of the dish as the resulting dish would vary among individuals and the dish is reduced to its fundamental ingredients without any real Chinese quality. It is feared that if the procedure were not straightforward enough, white Americans would be less willing to attempt the dish, which is why instructions are short and blunt. The types of recipes chosen also reveal how Americanized The Art of Chinese Cooking is; authentic Chinese foods focus on vegetables and many vegetable recipes are included, but most say, “Very good with Western-style meat.”[6] The addition of meat to dishes that do not require it demonstrates its focused appeal to Westerners, who prefer meat to make up a larger portion of a meal. This tidbit also implies that the food would not be as delicious without a meat supplement. It is particularly interesting that the authors are specific in indicating “Western-style” meat, not just meat in general. This detail implies that meat made “Western-style” is superior to meat made “Eastern-style” and the use of Western-style meat is implied to bridge the gap between the Eastern and Western cultures, and this fusion would be a perfect balance in taste and content. |