Like how Chinese people, especially snobby ones, look at Chinese-American cuisine All the distinctive dishes of which are just different ways to douse fried chunks of meat in sauce
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The amount of meat and oil and stuff being tremendously indulgent by Old Country standards and yet the level of craftsmanship and quality etc. being at the level of the meanest peasant food The invention of junk food/fast food The whole American experience in a nutshell
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My favorite thing about this is the invention of orange chicken Traditional Chinese haute cuisine did in fact use orange *peels* in chicken marinade, which isn't that different than French chefs making Duck a L'Orange
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The Chinese-American takeout version of this is to completely drown breaded pieces of chicken in an orange sauce with large amounts of sugar added so the dish *literally tastes like you're eating an orange* and barely tastes like meat at all (because the meat is low-quality)
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This is something the US public finds irresistible while actual chefs from both cultures find it gross There was a great thread here a while back of a NY chef adding "director's commentary" to his menu saying "I hate orange chicken but they won't stop ordering it so here it is"
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If I were to name one thing that's specifically distinctive about "bad" American cuisine it wouldn't be fat or salt, it'd be *sugar* No question -- it's the one thing other countries can't stand about eating here, everything is so fucking sweet
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We joke about this being the result of high fructose corn syrup flooding the market due to corn subsidies but that's putting the cart before the horse "Syrup culture" was a thing before HFCS that led to the invention of HFCS Goes back to the triangle trade and whatnot
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Huge part of our economy was tied to Caribbean sugar plantations, rum being the primary product used as a trade good but cheap molasses being a cheap by-product, that poor Southerners ended up putting on everything
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This is a scene in To Kill a Mockingbird, when the high-class Finches have a little farmer boy over for dinner, who politely asks for a jug of molasses and then douses his entire plate in it Scout gasps in revulsion and Calpurnia scolds her not to shame their guest for his ways
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(It hasn't changed that much, nowadays the low-class American shocking his host with his unrefined palate would be covering his food in Heinz ketchup or Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce or whatever)
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Anyway this is an *acknowledged* thing The author of Salt Fat Acid Heat acknowledged there are more than "four elements" of cuisine and the single biggest "fifth element" she left out is obviously sugar And it's Americans' favorite element
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We love making things sweet that aren't supposed to be sweet, compared to other cultures' "universal condiments" ours, ketchup, is notable for being sugary, we can't even seem to drink beverages that aren't sweetened (Southern sweet tea, Starbucks coffee drinks)
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So like she intentionally left sugar out because, you know, Americans could stand to have less of it (just as she emphasized acid as an element because it's so central to Iranian cuisine, the tradition she was raised with, and Americans are scared of sourness)
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