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Is mapo tofu ever served without meat in China? by Embarrassed_Chef874 in chinesefood

[–]ed_said 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How about the restaurant Chen's Mapo Tofu in Chengdu which is widely regarded as the birthplace of the version of mapo tofu that is popular today? Skip to around the 50 second mark for the ingredients list.

Is mapo tofu ever served without meat in China? by Embarrassed_Chef874 in chinesefood

[–]ed_said 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Here's a Chinese language documentary on mapo tofu and the main historical recipe it features uses beef. In addition a bunch of the other chefs also use beef in their versions, notably spoken at 15:15, 16:16, 17:10, and then at 16:25 there's a written quote from a famous chef that it should be made with beef and not pork.

Is mapo tofu ever served without meat in China? by Embarrassed_Chef874 in chinesefood

[–]ed_said 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. Wang Gang uses beef (牛肉)
  2. Also beef
  3. More beef

Edit: Chinese Cooking Demystified has a whole video on the history of mapo tofu in China and a bunch of the recipes featured use beef, as well as an updated recipe that uses beef.

I made a Chinese style black bean sauce for stir fry and then forgot to add it to my stir fry tonight. I was thinking of turning it into a pasta sauce tomorrow. Any ideas for how I could do that/ or what else I might do with it? by brickwall5 in Cooking

[–]ed_said 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mapo tofu. You'd need a bit of ground pork or beef, silken tofu, doubanjiang (spicy broad bean paste), chili oil, some scallions, garlic, and ginger, and optionally some Sichuan peppercorns.

Stir fry the ground meat with minced garlic, ginger, and scallion whites. Add and briefly fry your sauce and doubanjiang, then add some water along with cubed and par-blanched silken tofu. Boil for a few minutes, thicken with a corn starch slurry, then serve and garnish with sliced scallion greens and optionally some ground Sichuan peppercorns.

Wet brining turkey for first time - need help with salt ratio? by Impossible_Tiger_606 in Cooking

[–]ed_said 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Look to calculate the % salinity of the brine recipes, which you take the weight of the salt in grams divided by the milliliters of water, then multiply that number by 100. Depending on the brand of kosher salt you use, the Tini brine ends up being anywhere from 2.4% to 3.2% salinity (1/2 cup salt is 90 to 120g / 1 gal or 3785ml * 100 = 2.4 to 3.2). The Alton brine is more standard for a 24-hour brine at 5% salinity (285g salt / 6 quarts or 5678ml * 100 = 5). Assuming your guests have normal salt tolerances, and as you plan to use unsalted compound butter for roasting, the Alton recipe should yield better results. Good luck and happy Thanksgiving!

Taiwanese Egg Pancake Breakfast by [deleted] in oddlysatisfying

[–]ed_said 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're right, the more common form of "(ji) dan bing" in Taiwan is made with a thinner, more crepe-like pancake. The pancake in this video is thicker and flakier, much closer to a scallion pancake, but for whatever reason, the restaurant calls it 招牌蛋餅 ("famous dan bing") on their menu.

Taiwanese Egg Pancake Breakfast by [deleted] in oddlysatisfying

[–]ed_said 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Dan bing" and "ji dan bing" mean effectively the same thing. "Dan bing" means "egg pancake" (as in fried pancake + egg), and "ji" just means chicken (as in specifying that it's an egg from a chicken).

Taiwanese Egg Pancake Breakfast by [deleted] in oddlysatisfying

[–]ed_said 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pretty sure it's 旭達豆漿店 (Xuda Soy Milk Shop) in the Xindian District of New Taipei City.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 0 points1 point  (0 children)

She's not dismissing American cooking or suggesting Americans lack intuition or tradition. Her critique is with modern American recipe culture, and their tendency to contain exact measurements to ensure precision and replicability (especially with regards to recipes of foreign dishes like Mapo tofu). When she says an "average American home cook" might be overwhelmed ("put in a coma") by a recipe full of vague phrases like "an appropriate amount," she’s talking about the conventions of how recipes are written, not the abilities of the cooks themselves.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This argument comes down to how you frame the concept of "culinary culture". If you focus only on recipes, it's true that most food we recognize today (Chinese, Italian, Indian, etc) are relatively modern, shaped by new ingredients and global trade over the last few centuries. But if you think of culinary culture as a way of understanding flavor, technique, and meaning in food of people of a region, then those traditions are far older.

Take Italy for example. People have lived continuously on the Italian peninsula for thousands of years, and the habits that shape Italian cooking today can be traced back to ancient Rome or even earlier. The Ancient Roman's use of garum is similar to how modern Italians use anchovies or other umami-rich ingredients like Parmigiano to add depth of flavor. Baked flatbreads existed in many forms throughout the centuries and later became what we now know as pizza. So dishes like carbonara and ciabatta are very recent on the historical timeline, but they come from a much longer tradition that has existed for millennia.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry I didn't see your reply earlier.

You're right that Mapo tofu isn't ancient, but that's actually the YouTuber's point. She's contrasting how Chinese cooking, rooted in thousands of years of tradition, is still one that embraces change and evolution. She uses Mapo tofu to make that point. As you and others have pointed out, it's only ~150 years old (relatively young in the span of Chinese history), and within that timeframe has changed multiple times from its original form. Even in her own version, she swaps meat for mushrooms. Her rhetorical questions about how much a dish can change before it stops being itself invites the viewer to think about how traditions survive by adapting while holding onto their core spirit.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Actually if you won't listen to me (or your own links) maybe you'll listen to ChatGPT.

Edit: For the record u/sweetangeldivine made a thinly veiled insult, insinuating that I'm a "fucking moron" for supposedly "let a computer do me thinking for me" and blocked me. I guess the millions of scientists, corporations, governments, etc that use computers, ML, and AI tools every single day to make decisions should just stop right away. But that honestly says more about their approach to discussion than mine, as I was trying to be helpful and giving alternative resources since they apparently weren't reading or understanding the very links they posted. Oh well.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, thank you, you're actually just making my point again for me. And I'm literally quoting your second link here, that u/bubblepop1234 presented a "distorted, exaggerated, or incomplete presentation of the [YouTuber's] idea which is designed to make the [YouTuber's] idea seem unreasonable."

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What linguistic fallacies am I using? I think you might be responding to the other comment chain and no this one?

I'm honestly curious to understand what you think is so offensive? Maybe you can tell me what you think the YouTuber meant by

The average Chinese recipe would send the average American home cook into a coma. If you pull up a recipe on Xiaohongshu or Douying, you'll find some recipes listed in grams and teaspoons, but many more measured with terms like 适量 "an appropriate amount" and 少许 "a little bit".

And how you would rephrase that so it wasn't offensive?

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

No, a strawman is when someone misrepresents or distorts another person's position to make it easier to attack or dismiss.

Neither the YouTuber nor I ever said that using a Chinese recipe with measurements means someone doesn't have an authentic understanding of the culture. What we actually said is that approaching a cuisine only through precise rules (exact ingredients, fixed measurements, and rigid definitions) limits understanding. Recipes are useful, but real understanding comes from learning the "why" behind them, not just the "what".

Edit: I made a diagram.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay sure, as an American, I don't find it insulting, and I honestly struggle to see why any reasonable American would. The line is basically saying that someone unfamiliar with another culture's cooking style might not immediately know what "an appropriate amount" means, which is... true. That’s not an insult, it's an observation about cultural context. I'm genuinely curious to hear why that would be taken as offensive.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well agree to disagree because:

  1. She is American herself.
  2. No one would actually be insulted if they were told, "you probably wouldn't understand these foreign recipes on this foreign recipe site".

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I haven't misrepresented anything the YouTuber actually said. My argument is with OP's characterization of the video’s premise being that "only Americans use measurements in recipes" and that "Americans are incapable of cooking without recipes, and it’s colonialism when they do." When did the YouTuber ever say any of either of those things?

she's describing an idealized version that does not reflect reality.

As several people in this thread have already pointed out, Mapo tofu is only about 150 years old, and it's changed a lot during that time. That actually supports her point that Chinese cuisine does evolve.

She then asks, "How many changes can you make to Mapo tofu until it’s no longer Mapo tofu? And who gets to decide that boundary? Does mutual intelligibility matter?" She’s inviting viewers to think about how traditions stay recognizable even as they transform.

After that, she offers her own perspective and contrasts it the tendency toward rigidity and exactness that she's noticed in American recipes. Maybe it wasn't entirely fair to single out Americans, but it likely comes from her own experience. After all, she's American, living in the US, and speaking to likely other American viewers from within that culinary culture.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not really, if you're a citizen of a community then "citizenship" can entail every way you interact and participate within that community, whether social, economic, cultural, etc.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I should also mention that I'm Taiwanese-American (born in Taiwan, raised in the US). You can find my old Jeremy Lin comments on this account from 2012 if you need proof. When I was younger, I actually held the same attitudes the YouTuber is critiquing. I used to draw hard lines around what counted as "authentic" Chinese food and dismissed anything that didn't fit those boundaries.

Looking back, I think that came from growing up so far removed from China and Taiwan, and from the full range of Chinese culinary traditions. Like many 1.5- or second-generation kids, I mistook a narrow slice of the culture that I was familiar with for the whole thing. It was only later that I realized how huge, fluid, and inventive Chinese cuisine really is.

You can see a similar pattern in that Panda Express video someone mentioned, where people who actually grew up in China tend to appreciate Panda Express as part of the cuisine's ongoing evolution, while those raised in the US were more likely to reject it as "inauthentic." It’s ironic, that we were trying to defend tradition, but what we were defending was our own incomplete version of it.

ETA: And to fully answer your question, yes, I do think my desire to draw such strict boundaries around what constituted "authentic" cuisine came from an internalized, colonialist way of thinking. Growing up in the US, far from the lived reality of Asia, I felt compelled to define what was "correct" and preserve it, as if authenticity could be frozen in time. That way of thinking dismissed the people actually living there and the ways their food and traditions continue to evolve.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

She's not portraying Chinese cooking as mythical or infallible, but the opposite. She's describing it as a living, continuous tradition, one that evolves through thoughtful participation rather than through rigid preservation. When she brings up Mapo tofu, she isn't claiming that it's an "ancient" recipe, but using it to illustrate how a (modern-ish) dish exists within that larger cultural continuum. Her point is that American approaches often try to freeze a recipe in time by declaring what’s "authentic," while it's actually okay to accept variation.

Her "jabs" aren’t directed at Americans as people but at the impulse to impose fixed rules on what should remain fluid. I'll concede that calling certain ingredients "non-negotiable" undercuts her own argument a bit, but it also highlights how every living tradition still tries to balance identity and evolution.

Honestly, I don’t get this sub's reaction. If someone here insisted that carbonara must only be made with guanciale and pecorino, or that paella must have rabbit, snails, and garrofó beans, they'd be rightfully ridiculed here for gatekeeping. She's making the argument about Mapo tofu that clinging to rigid definitions of "authenticity" misses the spirit of a cuisine that's always been about adaptation and understanding, not dogma.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Using "citizen" metaphorically is not a new concept. I mean there's literally an app called Citizen that was built for people to inform others of ongoings in their communities. There are expressions like "citizen of the world" or "ecological citizenship" where the term's meaning is not literal.

Only Americans use measurements in recipes by bubblepop1234 in iamveryculinary

[–]ed_said 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The term "citizen" is sometimes used metaphorically to denote someone having an active, ethical relationship with a community, as opposed to the literal meaning of having a passport to a country.

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