[Sca-cooks] Chinese dinner was Period substitute for tomatoes?

[Johnna Holloway]

I suspect that if and when we go to Shanghai for the university
session of two months,and if I end up being able to go, what I will end up
making with Chinese ingredients
will be something along the lines of not very good Chinese. I don't have
the way with a clever that they do, but I will cook white rice (which is
peasant food and not served in the best Shanghainese restaurants)
and stir fry most everything else. We tend to have white rice with fish
sauce in the evenings here, so what will the difference be?
And maybe by the time we leave I will have learned how to make soup
dumplings
like they make at Din Tai Fung.
http://www.shanghaiexpat.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1103558

But I am miles ahead of most new ex-pat housewives because I already know
where the four story restaurant supply store is and the housewares district.

I suspect many Chinese cooks if given an American market could probably 
turn out excellent American like fare if so instructed. They are well 
versed in hamburgers, french fries, fried chicken, ice cream etc.
Pizza Hut is, of course, a hot date restaurant in Shanghai and there
are Starbucks on nearly every corner.

Johnnae

David Friedman wrote:
>
> Imagine the dinner that would be cooked by a Chinese cook shopping in 
> an American supermarket. Compare it to the dinner that would be cooked 
> by an American cook shopping in a Chinese marketplace. The dinner with 
> American ingredients would end up as a Chinese dinner, the dinner with 
> Chinese ingredients as an American dinner.