Indonesia Travel 04: CNNGo.com

Sunday, May 6, 2012

CNNGo.com

Clarissa Wei: American-Chinese food is real Chinese food

Posted: 06 May 2012 09:01 AM PDT

American-Chinese food Yes, I'm actually going to defend orange chicken (陈皮鸡).

Fundamentally fried chicken with sauce -- the perfect late-night snack and, quite frankly, great drinking food -- orange chicken is beloved by millions of people of all ethnic groups (including many Chinese) in the United States.

As with most American-Chinese food, however, there's a stigma attached to orange chicken.

Chinese food snobs call the dish, as well as the restaurants that serve it, "fake" or "not authentic."

Superior foodies love nothing more than bashing the chefs and restaurant owners for their alleged perversion of the sacred culinary genre -- as if only they know what real Chinese food is, as if someone died and made them arbiter of all Chinese cuisine.