Recently, while visiting Jacob's grandmother in California, I discovered a torn cookbook in her kitchen drawers. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "You found my bible!"  

Titled "Country Cookin'", the book was published in the 1970s by the Monterey County Cowbelles, otherwise known as the wives of Monterey's ranchers. Surprisingly, only a tenth of the book is devoted to red-meat-centric dishes. Most of the recipes are charmingly anachronistic, like Dove in Wine Sauce and Hot Russian Tea (with Tang!). But what really caught my attention were the handful of Chinese recipes. 

Zooming past the egg foo young and sweet and sour beef, I zeroed in on chop suey. After all, it was the page with the most food stains, the telltale sign of a beloved recipe.

(Photo by pointnshoot, CC)

Ed. - Say you're at your favorite Chinese take-out, feasting on moo goo gai pan and crab rangoon. "I bet they don't really eat this stuff in China," you think, recalling the Discovery Channel special on TV last month. You would be correct. But how did dishes like chow mein and the once ubiquitous chop suey, unrecognizable to anyone in China, become such so well-loved  in the US? Author Andrew Coe explores this and other mysteries of the Chinese-American culinary repertoire in his new book Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States, which came out this week. In today's guest post, he gives a glimpse into the past and present life of chow mein.

Now, America isn't the only country that adores fried Chinese food. In Japan, diners go wild for karaage, Chinese-style fried chicken. According to Maki from Just Hungry, "the word kara refers to China, meaning that this method of preparing chicken originated in Chinese cooking (age means deep-fried)". Like the Chinese, the Japanese also marinate their chicken with ginger "to get rid of any gaminess". (Check out Maki's recipe.)

If biting into the crispy shell of General Tso's chicken releases pent-up sugar, biting into karaage will unleash a dark and brooding mix of soy sauce and sake. Dark meat, skin on, is best. And this is a dish that begs to be washed down with cold sake or beer.

I came across this Edward Hopper painting today and, for a few minutes, tried to connect the image with the name. The painting is evocative of everything I associate with the 1920s: men in suits, chic flappers, and dim stylish interiors. Yet if you look closely, there is a terracotta teapot on the table. And try to decipher the restaurant placard outside the window. The restaurant and painting are both called "Chop Suey".

Ask Americans what comes to mind when they think of the Chinese restaurants. The adjectives you'll most likely get are along the lines of cheap, quick, and dingy with fluorescent lighting. Chinese restaurants are now the culinary equivalent of love motels. 

I'm not talking about banquet halls in Chinatowns that cater to the Chinese, which also tend to be lackluster. I'm talking about restaurants for the other 99.5% of America. Whether they know it or not, these greasy take-outs, Panda Expresses, and P.F. Changs serve as cultural ambassadors for Chinese food and culture. And what they represent is cheap food for the masses, not culinary sophistication.

At first glance, anyone who didn't grow up in an Asian culture might scrunch up her nose at herbal jelly. It's black, it's shiny, and it jiggles. But really, herbal jelly, or grass jelly, is like JELL-O, only naturally colored. Whole Foods is losing a big opportunity to market this as the next "it" health food.

Maybe it's the fact that it takes the shape of the tin can it comes from, that may turn people off. If, as a culture, Americans have moved past canned cranberry sauce, we might not be too thrilled with something similarly ridged but not candy-colored. Although grass jelly is made from an herb in the mint family, the taste is pretty neutral. Which is why Asians love it in desserts. In Hong Kong cafés and dessert shops serve grass jelly with mangoes, coconut, and other tropical produce. At bubble tea shops like Saint Alp's you can opt for little grass jelly bits instead of tapioca pearls.

(Photo by Scott Waldron www.dslrninja.com , CC) 

Watch any of the following films with a carton of Chinese take-out instead of popcorn. 

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) - This film, set in Taiwan, is an obvious favorite. It opens with the father, Chef Chu, plucking a live chicken from his backyard coop and minutes later turning it into a steaming, mouth-watering casserole dish. The behind-the-scenes look as his restaurant prepares for a massive banquet is also impressive, as the camera scans down aisle after aisle of uniformed cooks and flaming woks. Beware: Ang Lee shoots the Chu family meals with a food pornographer's eyes. Don't watch on an empty stomach.

I seem to spend half my waking hours cooking up enormous amounts of Chinese food, and the other half blogging about such endeavors. Which was why I was excited to participate in month's Foodbuzz "24 Hours, 24 Meals, 24 Blogs", a live blogging event in which 24 foodies around the world host and blog an amazing meal on the same day. (Foodbuzz also recently officially launched their Featured Publishing Community. Find out more here.)

I spent some part of my childhood living in Puerto Rico, in a small town near Ponce. I was the only Chinese kid in my kindergarten class, and my aunt and uncle ran the only Chinese restaurant in town. It was usually flooded with customers (especially on pay day), possibly because the place also doubled as an ice cream parlor. In addition to healthy portions of tamarindo ice cream, there were huge platters of things like seafood fried rice with plantains and sweet and sour pork with fresh pineapples. It was considered Chinese by the local Puerto Ricans. My 5-year-old self, having recently moved from Guangzhou, thought it was Western food.

(Even though my little town lacked Chinese food, cities certainly had their fair share, as I learned after many weekends of eating at dim sum spots in San Juan and Ponce. It's like going from rural Kansas to San Francisco.)

Are you a huge Chinese food fan? Ready for a challenge?

After taking the now famous Omnivore's 100 quiz, I realized 1) my score's pretty good, and 2) it's because the author ran the gamut of Eastern and Western cuisine, high and low end, like a true omnivore. I decided to create my own 100 list of Chinese foods and drinks that, in keeping with the spirit of this blog, focuses on a broad definition of Chinese food.

I've avoided a few well-known delicacies (like bird's nest and shark's fin) that I personally think are either overrated or too scarce to put on any such list. Some foods here are also present in other Asian countries, but I included them because they're so entrenched in Chinese cuisine. In addition to traditional Chinese dishes and ingredients, there are also some international interpretations of Chinese food and foods in Hong Kong and Macau that have developed in the past hundred or so years. In short, a modern take on Chinese food. 

So copy and paste the list, highlight the ones you've tried, and let me know how you score. Which ones do you absolutely love, which ones would you not eat even on a dare?

Enjoy!

(Also check out Just Hungry's list of 100 Japanese Foods to Try, which was posted just as I was finishing this list.)

"This is the first time I have traveled to another country and communicated with something other than the local language or English," mused Jacob. Finally we could order food in Korea, without pointing to a picture or fumbling through our phrasebook. Knowing Mandarin sure does help if you're overseas, even if it's just at the local Chinese restaurant.

The instance reminded me of visiting Montreal's Chinatown in college, and ordering dinner for a large group in Cantonese because the waitor didn't know much English or French. Or when my family lived in Puerto Rico and frequented the dim sum restaurants of San Juan; once inside, you would never have guessed that we were in a Spanish-speaking territory of an English-speaking country.

The owner of this tiny restaurant near the Korean War memorial was a very jolly third-generation Korean-Chinese whose family was originally from Shandong province. She spoke Mandarin in sing-songy Korean accent, which contributed to her jovial demeanor. She blushed when we asked to take a photo.

"You don't need a menu. I'll just tell you what we have. There's only five things," she said brightly. Which was a relief, and odd, since most Chinese restaurants have edited menus of no less than 100 items.