Hello again, and welcome back to American under The Microscope aga.
欢迎你又回到闲话美国。
Hello James.
Hello, everyone.
Today we are going to talk about a very common and quite interesting topic-food.
Oh yes, great topic.
You’ve been in China for a few years, you must be missing food that’s from home.
On occasion, I may say yes.
Whenever people mention American food, sorry to say that but I can only think of hotdogs or hamburgers.
Then I am sorry for you, there are so much more.
Ok, so let’s explore them in this episode. So first of all, could you give us a general introduction to American food?
Yes sure, so when Americans think of food, we think a lot of different food over the world, because America is a country of immigrants. We come from all over the place, our families are from Europe, Mexico, Asia and our families bring our foods to the United States. So when Americans think of what they want to eat, they don’t usually just think of, er, I just want to eat the local food, they go, today let’s have Italian, tomorrow Iet’s have Mexican, later let’s have Chinese or Japanese and so on.
美国因为是a nation of immigrants移民国家, 所以大家也比较熟悉这种 food from all parts of the world. So what is normal for Americans to eat?
Well, at home, it really would depend on the family, for a typical family dinner, it’s not uncommon for a lot of Americans to vary their diet. So, growing up, in my household, we had Italian like spaghetti and lasagna some nights; other nights, we had Mexican, tacos and things like that; Other times we would have what’s considered traditional, I guess British/American kind of roast potatoes and vegetables.
So Italian food is very very normal for Americans to eat, in general, like pasta.
Oh yes, it’s very common to eat pasta.
What about Chinese food?
Chinese food is also quite common, not normally cooked at home but going out to eat is a very popular cuisine to eat. What are the most famous or the most common dishes that Americans ordered at a Chinese restaurant?
Well, the most popular dishes in Chinese restaurant were usually be Kungpao chicken,宫爆鸡丁and? Sweat sour pork.糖醋里脊or糖醋排骨，I guess. Yes, pretty close to that, and something called General Tso’s chicken. General Tso’s chicken, oh, it’s that thing that keep ordering on the Big Bang Theory. That’s right, it’s a fried chicken has err…like spicy and sweet sauce on it?
左宗棠鸡or左公鸡？I don’t know if any of you have heard of it or have eaten it. So what is the flavor about Chinese food? What is the most popular flavor? Is the sweet and sour or more spicy?
I’ll definitely say that most people would prefer sweet and sour over spicy.
Do Americans like spicy food in general?
Oh yeah, there are a lot Americans do like spicy food, but it’s not something they normally eat on a daily basis.
And one more thing about Chinese restaurant, you know, I’ve got a America friend who was visiting China and asking me where can I see fortune cookies in a restaurant? Fortune cookies.幸运饼干。The first time they ask me, I was like “What?” So, what are fortune cookies?
Fortune cookies are a traditional American Chinese restaurants, after the meal, they give you this simple cookie and inside there is a little piece of paper. And on the piece of paper, just some kind of saying in English like “Fortune will find you in the near future” something like this. It’s actually a Japanese recipe that an immigrant to San Francisco came up with the idea.
所以幸运饼干的事情也本来就是在美国创造出来的。But you see them a lot of the times in Chinese restaurants.
Not just Chinese restaurants, any Asian restaurants, Japanese, Korean, Chinese all have them.
So we said Italian, Mexican, Chinese, what else?
It’s pretty common to find things like German food, sausages and such; Indian. Curries, Curries yes; Thai, which will be more curries and pad Thai and things like that, you can also find if you’re in a big city, even some more unusual things like Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and so on.
So it’s really very much like you said it’s very diverse, it’s varied.
Yes, it is.
But that’s cuisines of the world, that’s a world food. America is also a huge place, like in China, we have regional dishes and 地区性差异。Must be things that are similar in the United States, there’re different parts.
Oh yes, we have, er, different parts of the country, we do have different dishes. Based on like products and animals that are available and also with which immigrant groups normally showed up there first.
那我们来看看美国各地的食物特点。So first of all, Northeast.
Oh yes, Boston, this area. Ah, Boston lobster. That’s right. 龙虾 So the Northeast of united states, it’s well-known for its seafood- lobster, but not just lobster, crab and clams as well. One of the popular dishes in that area is lobster roll which is basically a type of sandwich with lobster meat in it.
That sounds yummy, and something I heard called clam chowder. What’s that?
Well, clam chowder is basically a milky soup, so it’s made with clams and milk, potatoes. So fairly, heavy dish, quite popular in winter times.
奶油蛤蜊汤？So, it’s err… It’s like a soup you can eat essentially.
Oh yes.
What about the south? Oh, yes, the south, so where we call the south, but if you look at the map, it’s more southeast. Now this area is famous for American barbecue.
Well, you said American barbecue, how is that different from other barbecue, like Australian barbecue?
Because a lot of other countries they talk about barbecue, it’s actually grilling, so they take the meat cooked on high heat very quickly, it gives the smoky flavor, like you have the Chinese lamb kabob.
中国烤肉串那种就是Grilling. But that’s not American barbecue.
No, American barbecue is low temperature for a long period of time to give the meat flavor and make it very tender.
How long are we talking about? How slow?
All day.
You cook it for a whole day?
Yes. What kind of meat do you cook.
All of them.
OK. Pork and beef are by far most common, but they will do barbecue on lamb, they will do barbecue chicken, duck any other major meat groups. The other day I saw pulled pork sandwich, is that considered barbecue?
Yes, because the meat is barbecue before they pulled it apart and put it bond with barbecue sauce and eat it. 手撕猪肉。It’s actual very good.
Oh yes, it’s really good, highly recommended.
And with American food like you said, there are so many cultural influences from other countries with different types of people, so when people think of, for example Louisiana, there are 2 words that you keep hearing, you heard Creole food ?
Creole food and Cajun food, 克里奥尔风味和卡真风味there are no other ways to translate them, so what are they?
Basically these are cooking techniques that kind of mix from different culture that moved to this area. So, it’s a lot of French, Spanish and African cooking techniques and flavors, spices, kind of mixed together. So this food is known for the local seafood like claw fish.
Claw fish, Is that 小龙虾？
It is. Do you eat it spicy?
Yes they do, but it’s a different type of spicy, and they also do spicy stews or rice dishes and also unusually deep fried alligator.
Deep fried alligator? 就是炸鳄鱼。
Yes ,that’s right.
Is that a common food?
You can get it in a restaurant around there, it’s pretty popular. Have you tasted that? Sadly I have not, I would like to. So if you are ever in that part of America, you can try either claw fish, the Cajun style, or like James said deep fried alligator.
So we said about Northeast, the south, Louisiana, so what about west coast?
I’m much more familiar with this, because I’m from the West. You are from the west coast.
Yes. So a lot of west Coast actually has a big Asian influence. Because the population? Yes, because when Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese Japanese when they immigrated to the US, they arrived in the west, places like San Francisco and Seattle. So these areas we have lots of Asian food. This is where American and Chinese food, a lot of it comes from.
亚洲移民首先是到西海岸，西海岸的饮食也是受到Asian influence. That’s pretty much some of the very distinctive food types or flavor types in America, but you also see a lot of the restaurants in America that says Fusion Food, F-U-S-I-O-N. Fusion Food, I checked it out fusion means combined together.
Yes, basically it means mix. So these restaurants they take ideas from two different cultures cuisines and foods and put them together.
Like?
Well, common ones will be things what we would call Korean Mexican food.
What’s that like? Korean Mexican, Kimchi Taco or something?
Not too far from that. It would be more like Korean barbecue style meat in Mexican style tacos.
Oh,就是墨西哥玉米饼卷上韩国烤肉.What’s that like?
Honestly, it tastes like a taco Korean meat.
Another type of fusion that I quite like, it’s not health but I like it, it’s Tex-Mex.
Oh, Tex-Mex, Tex-Mex is Mexican food, but with a more of American flavor to it. Basically they add a lot of cheese because traditional Mexican food doesn’t have much cheese.
And in the end, let's talk about special holiday foods, like we talked about before, because a lot of the holidays in any culture very much food oriented. Oh yes. So we all know Thanksgiving Day is, for Americans is the turkey day.
Yes, turkey is traditionally eaten along Thanksgiving with pumpkin pie and other things like cranberry sauce, pecan pie and various other very unhealthy things but taste very good. Of course, those are big food holidays.
What about Christmas? I remember once doing a Christmas episode with Anlan, and we talked about how British people would eat probably turkey or something else for Christmas, what about Americans?
Oh well, some Americans can eat turkey on Christmas, but traditionally in America, we eat hams on Christmas.
Oh 火腿, is it like a big chunk of ham cooked and then cut?
It will be a big ham, usually it would be glazed with some kind of sauce or just different kind of salty flavor, and then it will be served with all kinds of different things. But being America is a country of immigrants, Christmas does vary from family to family. So in my hometown, we have a lot of Mexican immigrants you know, Christmas they eat something called Tamale.
Yeah, I’ve heard of that, I never really understood what that was.
Hard to say, it will be like a long quad dumpling, but inside they have season stewed meat. It’s very good, I would highly recommend people to try it.
Is it like 墨西哥肉卷?
Kind of, but it is not. It is one whole thing, it’s not rolled, it’s really hard to describe.
Yes, so next time, if you are in a Mexican restaurant, maybe you can, I would say definitely.
Definitely try Tamale.
And I think that’s over for basic episode, in the advanced episode, we are going to explore more about food and also about people’s habits of eating out and some other related topics.
Sounds good.
We will see you next time, bye! Bye!

Key words:
Varied diet
Country of immigrants 移民国家
Food from all over the world
Normal for Americans to eat
Italian (pasta 意大利面, Lasagna 意大利千层面)
Chinese (Kungpao Chicken/General Tso's Chicken)
*You can find "fortune cookies" in Chinese restaurants in the US
Mexican (Taco 玉米饼）
German
Japanese
Indian (Curry 咖喱）
Thai
Unique regional food 美国各地区特色美食
Northeast
Lobster and sea food
Lobster rolls 龙虾三明治
Clam chowder 奶油蛤蜊浓汤
The South
American style barbecue 美式烤肉
Pulled pork 手撕猪肉
slow cooked meats
Louisiana 路易斯安纳
Creole foods 克里奥尔风味
Cajun foods 卡真风味
Crawfish 小龙虾
Spicy stews 辣味炖菜
West Coast 西海岸
Asian influence
Fusion food 混合风味（两种或几种菜系融合）
Korean Mexican food
Tex-Mexzz- Special holiday foods
Thanksgiving (turkey/pumpkin pie/cranberry sauce/pecan pie)
Christmas (Ham)
Mexican food: Tamale 墨西哥肉粽

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