Talk:Chinese cuisine/Catalogs

Article Checklist for "Chinese cuisine/Catalogs"

Workgroup category or categories	Food Science Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Derek Harkness 05:40, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

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Curry

This is what WP says about Curry:

Curry (from Tamil kari) is the English description of any of a general variety of pungent dishes, best-known in Indian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Indonesian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Thai, and other South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines, though curry has been adopted into all of the mainstream cuisines of the Asia-Pacific region. Along with tea, curry is one of the few dishes or drinks that is truly "Pan-Asian", but specifically, its roots come from India. The concept of curry was later brought to the West by British colonialists in India from the 18th century. Dishes that are often classified as curries in Europe and America are rarely called curries in the native language.

And I think the general percept is that it is an Indian dish rather than a Chinese. I really think it should be moved from here to a new catalog of Indian cuisine, which I will now create. Hayford Peirce 11:26, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Ignoring wikipedia - The word curry is commonly used in England to refer to the Chinese style curry. It isn't the same dish as the Indian dish but then it's not unusual in English to have two or more things with identical names. Curry should be listed on the Chinese, Indian, Tai, Malasian, Korian... cuisine pages and a disambiguation page created to sort them out. Derek Harkness 11:59, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

If you put it back on the Chinese page, then you are going to have to make a note explaining some of the above. Otherwise the casual reader, coming to CZ, and looking at the Chinese catalog is going to say: "Those idiots at CZ -- don't they know that curry comes from India!?" And will go back to using WP. French fries, for instance are listed on both the French and Belgian cuisine catalogs, but with an explanatory note. Hayford Peirce 12:08, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

What to put into each national Catalog of cuisine

I asked on the British catalog if we were doing 'origin form' or 'popular in'. You replied, "I think it should clearly be food that is popular *in* Britain. Hayford Peirce 23:58, 1 August 2007 (CDT)" Likewise shouldn't the Chinese list be 'popupar in china'. Curry should also feature on the British list as it's one of, if not the most popular dish in Britain. Likewise french fries should be listed on the American list as the are excedingly popular in the USA even if they didn't origonate there. Derek Harkness 05:40, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

My brain must have had an overdose of spotted dick or toad in the hole or some such -- I clearly hadn't thought the implications through. Here are my present thoughts:

• Each national cuisine catalog should limit itself to items that *originated* in that country. Even if people *mistakenly* think they come from elsewhere. So that Chicken Tikka Masala would be British. Chop Suey (shudder) would be American. Curry would be Indian. Etc.
• HOWEVER: we could make certain exceptions. What about abominations like Pineapple and Ham Pizza in the United States? Its relationship to *real* pizza is just about zero. So we could list that as American cuisine -- BUT with an explanation. I will leave the Curry item in Chinese cuisine but I am going to add an explanation from a big Chinese cookbook I have.
• A while ago Stephen Ewen proposed a Catalog of global cuisine. I created it and put in french fries, hamburgers, and mayo. We could expand this to include Curry, Chicken Tikka Masala, Pizza, and whatever else seems worthy of inclusion.

What are your thoughts on this? I will also ask Stephen for input. Hayford Peirce 22:22, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

But what are the implications of setting 'origin' as the decider. Would the American or Australian lists have anything on them at all? The current two on the American list are Hamburger, Rhubarb pie. The first may be German or American depending on who you ask, the second is I think an English import. Apple pie is also a European import to America and you don't get much more American than apple pie. Requiring origin is going to make some odd lists. Derek Harkness 05:40, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

I nominate "Disgusting sandwiches made from incompatible ingredients" for both the USA and Australia, as originating from there. My particular (non)favourite is Jam and peanut butter sandwich. :-) --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 10:25, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

The deeper we get into this the more complicated it becomes! There may well be no absolute definition or classification we can come up with concerning origin and population that will always correctly place an item into the correct catalog. Suppose, however, we put the following into the header and then tried to act in consequence of it (I am saying "French" just as an example):

• "This is a Catalog of ingredients, dishes, and recipes that are widely or commonly associated with French cuisine, no matter what their actual origin is; pizza, for instance, is now widely associated with American eating habits, even though its origin is Italian and it is also listed in the Catalog of Italian cuisine. Similarly, Chop Suez, although clearly of American origin, is also listed in the Catalog of Chinese cuisine because of the widely held perception that it is of Chinese origin. In this specific catalog, french fries are listed, even though their origin is most likely Belgian, in which Catalog they will also be found."

Long-winded, perhaps, but that ought to cover most items.... Hayford Peirce 12:11, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

I have been giving some thought about whether to include things like spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread in the Catalog of Italian cuisine and was about to discuss it there when I saw Hayford's post suggesting I come here. My first observation is that a cuisine is not only geographic, but is essentially a cultural expression. So chop suey and spaghetti and meatballs were invented by, respectively, Chinese-American and Italian American immigrants, who were culturally at least partially Chinese and Italian. Are they "authentic" Chinese or Italian dishes? Most would agree that they are not. Are they found in China or Italy? No, except possibly to restaurants catering to foreigners. (I did see, in Florence, those awful squashed grilled ham and cheese sandwiches misnamed "panini" by Americans. A panino in Italian is a bread roll and by extension a sandwich in bread roll, but I digress). Are chop suey and spaghetti and meatballs considered Chinese or Italian? Yes by a large proportion of our potential readership. So they should be in their respective articles. I don't think we should take a position on whether certain dishes are "authentic", this would violate the " Neutrality policy. On the other hand, we should point out their origin, which would be Chinese/Italin immigrants in North America rather than a Chinese or Italian region. In the Catalog of Italian cuisine, there is a column for "Origin" and I think we should do this for all cuisine catalogues. It would also solve the curry and rhubarb pie conundrum for British and American cuisine, where it could be pointed out that the origins of these popular dishes were India and brought to the US by English colonist(?). Nothing wrong with having curry in both the British and Indian cuisine, or rhubarb pie in the British, American and Canadian cuisine catalogs. In summary, I am proposing including them all, but also pointing out their origin. Luigi Zanasi 14:30, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

I strongly agree with everything you've said above and will take steps to implement your suggestions -- after we've had, hopefully, a little more input from others.... Hayford Peirce 15:39, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

I broadly agree with Luigi. Cuisine = food + culture. If we are listing cuisine then we should list the items that people eat that are part and parcel of their culture. This would exclude modern fashion foods, but would allow immigrant foods that have embedded in that culture. It's not a hard and fast rule, it requires a knowledge of the culture in order to make the catalog. However, where I differ form luigi is in the perspective of the culture. I'll have to research chop suey carefully before I use that as an example, but I can give a reverse example. There is a very popular chain in china called 'California Beef Noodles'. This is part of contemporary Chinese cuisine and culture, however it's not part of Californian cuisine or culture. Even though many Chinese associate this dish with America, it shouldn't be on the American cuisine catalog. Derek Harkness 19:05, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

Suppose that in the Chinese list we put in "Chop Suey" with a simple notation to See Catalog of American cuisine? "California Beef Noodles" is just a chain; Chop Suey is something that hundreds of millions of Americans have grown up with for over a hundred years. It's almost certainly *far* less embedded in the culture than, say, 40 years ago, and certainly less than 60 years ago, but for a while it's what Americans thought Chinese food was important So it's important.

Chinese characters

I just talked with my computer guru about the difficulties of viewing Chinese characters in my Windows computer. The issue is far more complicated than I had imagined. But maybe he's overlooking something simple. Certainly right now all I see on my scream are boxes where the Chinese characters are. Is there something I can do about this? I'm running a pretty high-powered Windows XP system with good screen definition. If not, then I assume that most other English-speaking people reading CZ are in the same situation as me -- in which case is there any point in putting in Chinese characters in the first place? Hayford Peirce 18:29, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

Do you get the same problem on Wikipedia? Chinese characters are everywhere there, which implies most people can read them by default. John Stephenson 21:37, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

Yes, I checked there, before writing the above. For instance, at Chop suey, I saw the same boxes as I see here. That was with IE 7.0. I just checked both CZ and WP using Firefox as the browser. This time I see ?? (question marks) instead of little boxes. As I said, I have a fairly high-powered system, with a big graphics card or whatever you call it. On the other hand, I could easily have clicked on the wrong box somewhere in the Advanced parts of Tools\Internet Settings or some such....Hayford Peirce 22:17, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

There's a site here that might help. John Stephenson 22:22, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

I'm adding a little bit of html code that should help your browser. <span xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">甘肃</span> for the simplified characters and for traditional <span xml:lang="zh-Hant" lang="zh-Hant">甘肅</span>. However, you may need to install a Chinese font. My windows install is the UK version and it had all the fonts already in it, but some distributors strip out some fonts as they just take up space if you don't need them. Derek Harkness 23:03, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

Hey, I went to that site, followed the instructions, and now I can see the Chinese characters! A million thanks! Gimme 3 days and I'll make an order of Almond Pressed Duck to thank you! (It's even more labor-intensive than Peking Duck, although in different ways.) Hayford Peirce 13:17, 5 August 2007 (CDT)