Perspective on the "MSG is bad for you" Canard

SH magazine has published a good opinion piece on "the greatest urban legend of all" by Christopher St. Cavish. It's a good sumary of all the pros and (very few) cons of MSG, including the now famous quote by Jeffrey Steingarten: “If MSG is so bad for you, then why doesn’t everyone in China have a headache?”

I'm in full agreement with the writer, but I wish he had added one of my favorite talking points: one of the richest sources of digestible glutamate in nature is mother's milk. And you thought it was the cute containers that bring the kids back for more.

Bearding the Dragon in Montreal's Chinatown

I don't eat sweets, so I obviously can't indulge in Dragon's Beard candy, which is mostly spun, well, pulled sugar. But I can't resist visiting Johnny Chin's small stand in Chinatown every time I'm in Montreal, just to watch it made and schmooze with the affable Johnny.

Dragon's Beard Candy, loved by children (and maybe even adults) in China and Hong Kong, is a mass of hair-thin strands of sugar wrapped around sweetened peanuts, chocolate and coconut or the like. Labor intensive to make, and with a very short half-life of freshess, it's extremely difficult to find, and Johny Chin's storefront stall at 52B R. La Gauchtiere may be the only bricks and mortar location in North America dedicated to the craft.

On a recent visit, Johnny had an apprentice working for him, an attractive but unsmiling young Chinese woman who was obviously well on her way to mastering the craft. Johnny was cagey about her relationship to him, if any, but she obviously was trusted enough to free him up for some holiday travel. Johnny and his wife were on their way the very next weekend to San Francisco for the first time, he told me.

For the young woman, who appeared to be of college age or younger, it was the coolest of summer jobs, I imagined, and wondered if she got to eat her mistakes.

The 10 Famous Teas of China (all 20 of them)

One often encounters references to the "Ten Famous Teas of China." The list is somewhat problematic, however, because there is really no "official" list and it differs slightly from source to source, with the only constant being that my favorite, longjing (Dragonwell) tea always tops the list. One enterprising website, chinese-teas.net, has taken the bull by the horns, collecting 20 different lists and ranking the teas by the number of times they appear on the lists. Only two, longjing and biluochun, achieved a perfect score. Here is the list developed by chinese-teas.net.

Score	Generic Name	Chinese Name	Province
20/20	Dragon Well	XiHu LongJing	Zhejiang
20/20	Green Snail Spring	DongTing BiLuoChun	Jiangsu
18/20	Iron Goddess	AnXi TieGuanYin	Fujian
17/20	Fur Peak	HuangShan MaoFeng	Anhui
14/20	Silver Needle	JunShan YinZhen	Hunan
12/20	Qi Men Red	QiMen Hong	Anhui
11/20	Big Red Robe	Wu i Da HongPao	Fujian
11/20	Melon Seed	LiuAn GuaPian	Anhui
10/20	White Fur Silver Needle	BaiHao YinZhen	Fujian
10/20	Pu'er	YunNan Pu'er	Yunnan
9/20	Oolong	DongDing WuLong	Taiwan
9/20	Cloud & Fog	LuShan YunWu	Jiangxi
7/20	Fur Tip	XinYang MaoJian	Hunan
5/20	Sweet Dew	MengDing GanLu	Sichuan
4/20	Fur Tip	DouYun MaoJian	Guizhou
3/20	Jasmine	SuZhou MoLiHua	Jiangsu
3/20	Jade Dew	EnShi YuLu	Hubei
2/20	Pearl Tea	PingShui ZhuCha	Zhejiang
2/20	Monkey King	TaiPing HouKui	Anhui

"We're not in China anymore, Toto!" -- Chinese food in Lawrence today

Those of us who live on the Coasts, or in the City With Broad Shoulders, sometime take the availability of reasonably authentic Chinese food for granted. If all we had to eat was the stuff that the Center for Science in the Public Interest recently pilloried again for having a lot of salt and fat (I am shocked, SHOCKED to find that fast food is being sold with salt and fat in it!) we probably wouldn't be Chinese food fans. Or would we? There are plenty of Chinese food fans in places like Lawrence, KS, even though the Chinese food they have available might be somenthing we vaguely remember from distant and simpler times. The Lawrence-Journal World recently interviewed persons in the street, asking what their favorite Chinese foods were, and invited readers to comment with their own favorites. Here's the Chinese dishes of choice in Lawrence:

What is your favorite Chinese food?

March 22, 2007
Asked at Massachusetts Street

"I like General Tso’s chicken. I guess I like it because it’s always the same in all the restaurants, so I always know what I’m getting."

— [Name Withheld], engineer, Lawrence

"I really like the combination fried rice because of the variety of all the ingredients they use."

— [Name Withheld], title abstractor, Kansas City, Kan.

"Crab rangoon, because it’s somewhat sweet and it doesn’t have anything too crazy in it."

— [Name Withheld], Washburn University freshman, Topeka

"General’s chicken. I keep trying other things, but I always go back to it. It’s something about the sweet and spicy flavor."

— [Name Withheld], Lawrence High School senior, Lawrence

Comments

[Edited by Gary Soup to delete flippant and/or demeaning comments or excessive prolixity; each bullet represents a separate reader's comments]

• Broccoli and chicken

• Beef and broccoli with steamed rice from Hy-vee. It is always fresh and the broccoli is still crisp in the center. Yummy

• cashew chicken. mmmmmmmmm.

• Chinese burritos.

• Hot and Sour Soup, Sweet and Sour , Lo Mein whatever, Crab Rangoon.

• Their green beans. Also Mushroon Chicken, and the Pepper Beef, and the skewered chicken. At China Buffet in Leavenworth they have steamed mussels on the shell (evenings). Yum.

• Mongolian Beef with Beef.

• Hmmmmmmm....Can't say that I've tried everything yet, so, I dunno. I can say that I tend not to like Chinese desserts. A dessert must contain more than a dash of sugar!

• i love the broccoli beef.........hold the broccoli

• Lo mein noodles. Love them.

• I have to watch how much sodium I eat, so Chinese food is a once in a great while treat for me. I love hot and sour soup and anything (well almost) in hot garlic sauce.

• mu shu shrimp

• shrimp lo mein with crab rangoon simple but goooood

• Bu zhidao, keshi wo chang chang xihuan chi yi pan mongol niu rou he yi wan suan la tang.

• Egg drop soup from the Plum Tree

• Cashew Chicken in Plum sauce from The Royal Peking (I think the best Chinese in town). I don't think any place else does the Plum Sauce with their Cashew Chicken. I like General Tso's Chicken also.I like most Chinese food, actually.

• ... I'll go dine with jayhawk1234 as I like the broccoli beef minus the beef. Bring on the fried green beans, too. General Tso's Chicken, one spring roll, one rangoon, and some dry fried pork will fill up my plate nicely.... The kids like the authentic Chinese ice cream bar there.

• actual favorites are oriental salads........with tofu

• 酸辣土豆丝

• I forgot - crab rangoons are a food group unto themselves. The hubby-to-be has to be reminded often that eating 6 of them at a sitting is unhealthy. But they are so GOOOOOD.
  

• I love Jade Mongolian BBQ. It is so cool to be able to pick the veggies you like and mix it with whatever meat and sauce you like! They also have a regular chinese buffet. Hot and Sour Soup rocks!

• My favorite is Grilled Lemon Chicken from Peking Taste chinese buffet and Crab Rangoon from Jasmins in eudora

• Love them Raman Chicken Flsvor Noodles too.

• Favorite foods...pretty much everything. I love the Spicy Peppered Beef and their fried potatos.

One long quote was too revealing to butcher by shortening:

"I love Panda Garden, King Buffet and Royal Peking also. Oh, and the answer to the question: Cashew Chicken or the sweet Walnut Shrimp from King Buffet. I still remember the first time I had Chinese food. I was a senior in high school 1985 and my mom and I went to Wichita to shop. She saw a little place that was a converted hamburger drive in. You parked by the old speakers and there was a paper menu taped to the old sign. It indicated that you could wait for a server to come out, or you could come in. We went in, and I tasted my first Cashew chicken. Also my first Chinese hot tea. I couldn't drink it because it smelled like A&D ointment (diaper rash ointment). Still can't! But I treasure the memory of that "exotic" lunch with mom, and have been a fan of Chinese food ever since."

Haute Chinese Cuisine: The Novel

As mentioned in my previous entry, I had planned to be in Shanghai by now, but I ended up postponing my trip until later in the year, for a variety of reasons. Someone who is in Shanghai at this moment, however, and who just sent me a report on the crab xiaolong at Jia Jia Tangbao's new location is Nicole Mones, a new e-Friend and Chinese food soulmate. Nicole is an Old China Hand, a novelist, and a food writer for Gourmet. She's just written what may be a literary first: a contemporary novel entirely framed by the world of high-end Chinese culinary art, The Last Chinese Chef. It's not due to be published until May 4, but she was kind enough to offer me an advance copy, which I have just received. I undoubtedly will have more to say about it once I've read it; in the meantime, you can get a preview of her novel, including a taste of Nicole's stimulating verbal food porn at her website.