Cuisine in a carton

There's no crime, according to restaurant emperor Mr. Yang, that compares with what's been done to the reputation of Chinese cuisine. "In the '60s, Chinese cooking stopped developing, while the French started their nouvelle cuisine," he observes. "And besides they have a whole country behind them, supporting great cooking schools and encouraging the highest standards." Now, finally, in the belly of the gastronomic monster, I fully understand the complaints that I'd been hearing all over the world. After all, a French chef went to Escoffier's, got his own country inn and was awarded the Legion d'Honneur. A Chinese chef got up at 4 a.m. to make dim sum and after 50 years or so he could retire with a clean undershirt.

And all the while Chinese food was continually being bastardized as the world's bargain fare. What, indeed, would the world think of the French claims to gourmet superiority if there were millions of Froggie take-outs where people totally unqualified by anything other than their French origins slopped out the fastest, cheapest, greasiest versions of canard a l'orange and reine au moutarde?

Analyzing our dinner at Au Mandarin, I wonder if the finest Michelin-star counterpart could ever come up with so many flavors and ingredients. The genius of Chinese cooking is to make more out of less, while the French make less of more with their nouvelle portions. As French food is the supreme expression of surfeit, so Chinese food is the supreme expression of scarcity.

-- John Krich

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