differences between Chinese and Japanese food?

differences between Chinese and Japanese food?

Being Chinese, once I interviewed my Japanese coworkers who work in China,

“What Chinese cuisine do you DISLIKE the most?”

I asked this question because all of them have been constantly telling me they love love love Chinese food. When I asked them which cuisine is their favorite, they gave me an unbelievable long list. But, the thing is, 99.99999% Japanese people are freakishly polite, especially when they are your coworkers (which means, you can easily know what they like, but you can hardly know what they dislike). So I was deadly eager to hear their real voice.

From 20+ coworkers, I got a ‘The Worst Chinese Cuisine For Japanese’ rank. And the No.1 totally shocked me.

The steamed freshwater fish.

There are lots of ways to cook fish in China. And steaming is commonly considered as the most authentic way, because you only put the scallion and ginger slice, light soy sauce in, steam shortly, without heavy cooking, to keep the original flavor of the fish as possible. It also means you can only make this dish with 100% fresh fish. In inland regions, people usually use freshwater fish to cook it because those are fish they can buy living from the tanks of morning markets or supermarkets. It’s also a gorgeous and expensive cuisine in high-end restaurants. Generous Chinese hosts like to order it for their VIP guests.

But my coworkers hated it, despite that they tried hard to pretend to enjoy it for politeness.

The reason?

1. The fishy taste of ‘freshwater fish’. Most Japanese people eat mostly sea fish, hence their tongues are unfamiliar with the taste of freshwater fish, hence ‘fishy’. (Likewise, lots of my inland Chinese relatives who are rarely exposed to seafood say sea fish tastes ‘fishy’.) Some of my Japanese coworkers got shocked by knowing carp is a common dish too in China which they considered as ‘inedible’.
2. Too many bones. ‘Putting something into your mouth then spitting part of it out’ is considered a no-no in Japanese table manner. So most cuisines in Japan are prepared bone-less. In the case bones are unavoidable, they tend to use the sharp chopstick tips to neatly remove the bones before putting into their mouths. There is no such a table manner in China. In a typical Chinese restaurant, a small plate is placed in front of each person. People freely spit out bones, nut shells, fruit seeds etc onto them. Waiters frequently replace them with clean plates. Most steamed freshwater fish have far too many bones to remove by chopsticks. This is a typical Chinese cuisine which is designed to ‘use your mouth and achieve your food’, which, apparently became ‘a pain in the ass’ to my poor coworkers who grew up in another food culture.
3. ‘I just can’t stand making eye contact with a fish to be eaten.’ Well, enough said.

(Side note: Interestingly, 100% of my Japanese coworkers fell in love with Yangcheng hairy crabs, or in Japanese language, ‘Shanghai crab’, despite the facts they are from freshwater, they have countless bones which costs you a great effort to remove by mouth, and, their tiny eyes occasionally make contact with you too…)

Lots of ‘weird food’ are on the rank, such as duck’s tongues. Apparently my coworkers are not particularly into French kissing ducks.

Frogs.

Snakes.

They don’t hate the taste. They hate the awareness they know what they are eating- things which are considered ‘inedible’ in their culture.

Different food cultures not only make ‘dislikes’, they make ‘likes’ too.

My Japanese coworkers have a consensus:

The best beef is in Japan. The best pork is in China.

They make love with different, creative and diverse Chinese pork cuisines.

Braised pork with brown sauce is one of their ‘must order dishes’.

Sometimes Japanese coworkers who are karato (spicy food lovers) would suggest to eat hot hot Hunan cuisine. And every time, the first disappeared cuisine is this one- West Hunan chili fried pork.

And their favorite Shanghai dim sum is these juicy-to-spill pork dumplings.

They are also very much into cuisines from ‘typical Chinese’ ways of cooking, such as steaming and quick stir-frying.

And it’s very good to know the different food preferences. When I arrange a Chinese business dinner for guests from Japan, who are too polite to tell me their real dislikes, I would avoid ‘troublesome and scary’ cuisines like ‘drunk living shrimps’.

Shiny and bouncy ‘Crystal Shrimp’ without shells would be more likely liked.

I wouldn’t order stinky tofu for Chinese food beginners who probably would otherwise think something went wrong in the bathroom next door.

Still, I would recommend cuisines of some different cooking ways/ingredients/flavors, which would be a new thing to try, but not too ‘shocking’.

Such as braised baby cabbage in broth, with small pieces of pidan (preserved egg) and Chinese sausage. Mild but unique.

Differences make things interesting.

^^

(All images are from the internet.)

Image source Twitter

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