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Chinese Food

Chinese Food

Date: Sep 25 2007

Themes: Food

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Americans may have hamburgers and mashed potatoes, but at the end of the day, there isn’t really an American cuisine. Thus, Americans love eating food from other countries.

But a lot of the time, the international foods we eat here are a lot different than they are in the countries they’re from. Our Greek and Mexican food is likely to be a lot different than anything you’d find in Greece or Mexico. But no international cuisine is more varied than Chinese food. Chinese restaurants are everywhere in the United States, but the food in some of them is hardly Chinese.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Mason

Mason

Amanda

Amanda

Mason:  I totally was lazy and went out for Chinese food last night.

Amanda:  Where’d you go?

Mason:  I order in from this place called the Golden Panda.

Amanda:  Is that like Happy Panda, like a chain that’s fast food?

Mason:  No. This is this really small place kind of by my house and you know it’s good because it kind of looks dingy on the outside, but tons of Chinese people eat there.

Amanda:  That’s how you know that it’s good food and authentic food.

Mason:  It sounds kind of like a stereotype.

Amanda:  No. That’s true. Because if you want good Chinese food, you go to Chinatown. You go where the local Chinese people are going to go and dine.

Mason:  And you kinda…I kind of mistrust the places that are like really flashy and have all the Chinese adornments on the outside.

Amanda:  PF Chang’s?

Mason:  Well, that’s a whole different…

Amanda:  I don’t want to go into specifics or anything, but…

Mason:  Yeah. It kind of feels like they’re trying to cater to the people who don’t know better.

Amanda:  They don’t know better. And it’s amazing when someone will say, “You want authentic Chinese, go down the street to PF Chang’s.”

Mason:  You’ve heard that?

Amanda:  Absolutely. But it’s completely Americanized Chinese food.

Mason:  Well it’s like everyone’s got kind of a different version of Chinese food though. Because I had Chinese food in London and it tasted nothing like Chinese food here. Who knows what the actual Chinese eat.

Amanda:  That’s a good point. Something to think about. I’ll go ask my dad.

 

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Discussion

Mason got Chinese food from a little place near his house. It has a similar name to a Chinese fast food chain so Amanda is confused for a second.

But Mason said the place he went was really good and he knows it’s authentic because a lot of Chinese people eat there. It sounds silly, but it’s often easy to tell if the food is good at an ethnic restaurant if people of that ethnicity tend to eat there.

Mason says he distrusts Chinese restaurants that try too hard with lots of decorations on the outside. Amanda asks him what he thinks of PF Chang’s, a chain of good, but highly Americanized Chinese food. They both laugh at the fact that some people think that PF Chang’s is authentic.

But Americans aren’t the only ones who alter foods from other countries. Mason had Chinese food in England and said it tasted nothing like Chinese food in the United States! Amanda says she’ll ask her father, who is Chinese, what people actually eat in China.

Have you ever had the same type of ethnic food in two different countries? Did it taste different?

 

Comments

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yanyan5656

yanyan5656

China

i love chinese food and i like to cook it too.hehe

12:36 PM Sep 29 2007 |

yanyan5656

yanyan5656

China

actually,different place and different minorities in china have different chinese food.it's true that chinese food is pop all over the world.but there r fewer restaurants r inreal chinese food in other countries. i can cook chinese food.somrtimes i cook depends on my thoughts.and the food i cooked always will be pop in my family.but the dish i cooked r little difference from cooked in restaurant.but it's still delicious.

12:35 PM Sep 29 2007 |

Christina.shine

Australia

The chracters of chinese food should include three parts: the color, the smell and the taste.I tried different types of chinese food which is from different parts of China. I pretty like the food from the south of China, like Guangdong. If you really like the spicy food, my suggestion is trying the chinese food from Sichuan, like hot spot.

10:39 AM Sep 28 2007 |

walrus21

walrus21

Peru

chinese food is good, but everybody should try peruvian food, it's great, ceviche, pisco sour, etc….....

05:58 PM Sep 27 2007 |

ToTolove

China

not all the chinese food taste spicein south of china such as fujian and guangdong province,they are taste light and delicous.In zhejian province the food is very intricate and you don't even splurge to have it.It's beautiful~Laughing

03:46 PM Sep 27 2007 |

beya

beya

Hungary

I had a little bit strange experience when I was in Greece because we went to a traditional Greek restaurant and the chef and the others were japanese.. :)))

03:39 PM Sep 27 2007 |

bigangel

Turkey

chinese food is very popular all the world.but i, haven't tried yet.i must say that turkish food is excellent.

08:16 AM Sep 27 2007 |

nthuhao

Viet Nam

I like chinese foods. It's fantastic to have chinese foods with some friends or with family.

07:39 AM Sep 27 2007 |

Alexander02

Russian Federation

I tried Chinese food in Almata once. I liked it very much, but unfortunately in Ufa I can’t afford to eat in Chinese restaurant as it is too expensive. I also like Indian food, but we haven’t got any Indian restaurant at all.

07:16 AM Sep 27 2007 |

shanie

shanie

China

yep , authentic chinese food is very great !! but right now I really want to try PF Chang’s …Laughing

06:13 PM Sep 26 2007 |

hcmallari

Philippines

the chinese are everywhere even here in my country,and it's interesting to know and taste how chinese culinary have changed  or evolved because of their adaptation to the country where they've migrated or lived..

02:39 PM Sep 26 2007 |

Force

China

I like chinese food.In my opinion,chinese food is very healthy.

01:03 PM Sep 26 2007 |

shv_2005

shv_2005

India

this is good

12:16 PM Sep 26 2007 |

abdeeq

abdeeq

Somalia

chinese food is best food in asia !!

11:46 AM Sep 26 2007 |

snello

snello

Saudi Arabia

   I LOVE Chinese food, It is ''SCRUMPTIOUS''

 simply the BEST and the FINEST food in the world..and I my self can cook some of their dishes like>> Chinese noodles and also the fried rice :) with vegetable..both smell and taste just GREAT,,no BEYOND great,, that ,,they make your mouth water,,.

 

YUMM-O :P 

 

 and you know what?!!  Mexican food also taste really,,really good,, maybe you guys, should make another lesson about Mexican food :P 

 

  not a bad idea after all Cool,,  yea,, you can't imagine how easy it is, to make enchiladas with cream cheese,, yum mm,,, but i don't use chillies at ALL.. although Mexican people,, adore chillies and consider it an ESSENTIAL ingredient  .>>o k ..time to stop :)

04:28 AM Sep 26 2007 |

tear_drop

tear_drop

Poland

Food is always interesting and up- to date subject for conversation ! :) I love, love POLISH FOOD and think – everyone should try it ! Highly recommend !!! ;)

10:45 PM Sep 25 2007 |

renato.moura.b

Brazil

I definetely agree to the the point that the chinese food is almost never authentic. In Brazil, the taste in chinese restaurants is much different from the american's. Nevertheless, I still love all those tastes that somehow resemble chinese. And, when compared to "american cuisine", everything's better.

 |)

I've also heard about many brazilian restaurants and barbecue places in the US. There's a guy that left Brazil and made his fortune over US by opening a chain of barbecue restaurants there. I didn't have the opportunity to go to one of those, but I don't think it's changed a lot, because you can assure that most of the people working there are immigrants, instead of what we see in chinese restaurants, when there is one chinese cooker and his employees have no trace of a spanish eye…Cool

06:19 PM Sep 25 2007 |

Tanucha

Tanucha

Russian Federation

I like Chinese cuisine.I can't say if the foods I taste are authentic because I've never been to China. But I have another experience. I'm Russian and I'm living to France.So I can say that foods I taste to Russian restaurants in Paris are hardly Russian. Of course, they have much atmosphere: decorations, music, dancing. I like it. I have my favorite restaurant in the center of Paris.This place is really good and prices are not very expensives. I often party there with my friends.

01:32 PM Sep 25 2007 |

babyxiao

babyxiao

China

I have a chinese stomach, although I could eat some bread. :-)

01:18 PM Sep 25 2007 |

babyxiao

babyxiao

China

Most chinese food in China, you do not need to doubt, delicious.

But elsewhere, like in the article in the US, or where I am now in Germany, the socalled chinese food does not need to be REAL, because they tend to modify it to suit the local people better.

Anyway, that idea is always good, where most people go (in this case Chinese), the food there must be good.

Guten Appetit!

:-)

delicious

01:13 PM Sep 25 2007 |

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