Why I’ll never be able to cook Chinese food

The Chinese are extraordinarily precise about a number of things.  Angling in the wrong direction one tiny dash in a character can completely change the character’s meaning, or render it meaningless.  Children’s coloring books have one page showing exactly what the finished product should look like next to an empty page.  The child who in their coloring can most closely replicate this finished product is praised.  When learning to write compositions, students are given a model that they then imitate.  Imitate to the extent that most Americans would label it as plagiarism–a fact that leads to a great deal of frustration in my writing classes.  I always have to weigh whether or not to give my students examples.  If I don’t, they may misunderstand the concept.  If I do, I’m sure to read the same exact phrase with (maybe) slightly different words 26 times.

With all of this preciseness, one might expect Chinese cooking to be very exact.  On the contrary, cooking is perhaps the one area of freedom from this rigidity.  Nothing is measured.  There are no exact times.  No exact temperatures.  No exact order.  Just throw this here, and put that there for a while, add a bit of this, maybe some of that.  I admit there are times I cook “western” dishes like this, but only with dishes that I’ve mastered and become very comfortable cooking.  This method is not how I learn to cook.  Consequently, I doubt I will ever become a half-way decent cook of Chinese dishes.

The other reason I’ll never master Chinese cooking is simply because I’m lazy.  Why go to the time and trouble (and mound of dirty dishes that must be washed by hand) when the same dish is prepared ten times better right next door?  If I ever move back stateside and start missing Chinese food, I may want to actually learn how to cook for myself.  I understand now would be the time to learn…but right now?  Zero motivation.

All that being said, I think there may be one dish I might be able to perfect.  Some students came over tonight to learn how to make banana chocolate chip muffins and to make Coca cola chicken wings for me.  This dish is as wonderful as it sounds…chicken wings slow cooked in coca cola until there’s only a thick, sweet, gooey sauce left.  So simple, and so good.

(Notice the mostly empty bowl of wings.  I was too busy devouring them to bother taking a decent picture.)  Some of the steps the students did before arriving, but I think I might just be able to manage this one.  My students, on the other hand, found it quite hilarious and ridiculous how precise American cooking is.  The measuring spoons and cups just blew their minds.  We may have creative freedom in the classroom and in our coloring books, but when it comes to the kitchen, we’re all about precision.