Eddie Huang and Tianmianjiang Pork (Jing Jiang Rousi, 京酱肉丝)

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On Immigrants and Chinese Food: ‘No Coupons’

The National Immigrant Integration Conference came to Nashville this past weekend, and one of my favorite immigrant writers showed up to give the opening talk. The one and only Eddie Huang—Taiwanese-Chinese American chef, author and provocateur  of Fresh Off the Boat and Huang’s World fame—was in fine form (and even wore a suit!), giving a speech he wrote called “No Coupons.”

I dragged my little Chinese immigrant along with me, hoping she would take to heart what he had to say.  He talked about how his dad ran a steak house when Eddie was young—because Chinese food was too cheap to make a profit from—but that he always offered coupons for the prime rib because, as his dad explained, “no one is going to pay full price to buy steak from Chinese people. We have to compete on price…

“Eddie,”  he went on, “immigrants can’t sell anything for full price in America.”

Twenty-something years later, the wildly successful son stood in a ballroom full of immigrants and those who support them and said, “My name is Eddie Huang. I was born in America, my ancestors are from China, and my parents were born in Taiwan. I sell Taiwanese guabao for full fucking price.”

The audience, who had just heard from a Black Southern woman preacher that “these are dark and dismal times” for immigrants and refugees as Trump prepares to take office, roared in approval at Huang’s words. He went on to make the point that he refused to be “discounted” as an American because he’s not white.

This conference was about much more important things than my little blog, of course, but his words were perfectly timed for me personally, since my immigrant daughter and I had just opened an online Sichuan specialty food shop one week prior. Our prices were a little high, and I knew it. And within a week, I had lowered them slightly. But only slightly. Because along with the fact that it’s not cheap to source, store and subsidize the shipping of products, I am not willing to discount premium ingredients and products just because they are Chinese and people expect Chinese food to be cheap.

You might argue that we can get away with selling Chinese food at its rightful price because I’m white, and that could be true. But I would argue that it is often Chinese merchants, cooks and consumers themselves who undervalue and undersell their cuisine. Though that fortunately is beginning to change, with acclaimed Chinese restaurants—many of them Sichuan—popping up all around the country and charging prices that match the quality of their food.

This NPR story, for example, highlights the other MáLà Project (who apparently loved our name) and other new-wave Chinese restaurants in NYC and puts them into context by quoting  a stellar recent book:

“In his book The Ethnic Restaurateur, the food studies scholar Krishnendu Ray writes that economic and cultural reasons, largely revolving around class and race, play a crucial role in determining why certain cuisines are ranked higher in what he calls the ‘hierarchy of taste.’ In other words, the richer the immigrants from a country, or the more economically developed the country, the more prestigious—and expensive—the cuisine.”

Ray also tells the author, Esther Wang, that as China and its immigrants grow increasingly wealthy “… 20 years from now, the perception of Chinese cuisine in America will have undergone a shift, much like Japanese cuisine.”

Back at the immigration conference, Huang said during the Q&A that he doesn’t think it’s “appropriation” if  non-Chinese people cook Chinese food, as long as they respect it and the culture it comes from. “Every time you [or anyone] stand at the stove, you’re standing on the shoulders of giants”—the cooks who came before you.

Then Huang paid homage to the cook that came before him, his mom. He remembered how she taught him to make a simple shrimp and bean stir-fry when he was young:

“She taught me how important and how hard it was to make a dish right…. She would devein the shrimp, dry them individually… roll each one in cornstarch… stir-fry them, remove the shrimp, stir-fry the scallions, remove the scallions, stir-fry the beans, then bring them all back together with just the right amount of salt and white pepper…. When I saw how much work went into doing something right, I gained a lot of respect for it, and then I was proud of my culture. I was proud of who I was, and I was proud of my family, because this isn’t easy. This is something to be proud of.”

That’s how I want Fongchong to feel about her food and her culture. (Even though just last week her math teacher—in a majority-immigrant high school—quoting a Korean student actually uttered the words “dirty Chinese eat dogs.”)

The very first stir-fry I ever made for my new daughter, almost six years ago, was this simple tianmianjiang pork and bell pepper dish with scallions. She loved it so much, it was also the first dish she was ever willing to help me with and learn to cook. I don’t know why I chose this dish as my first attempt at making her real Chinese food. It’s not even spicy! Probably because it’s homey, and comforting and simple. It’s classic home-cooking flavored by little more than fermented wheat paste (tianmianjiang). Though of course I did spice it up just a bit by adding a little fermented chili bean paste (Pixian doubanjiang).

But even though it’s simple, it’s important to make it right.

peppers for tianmianjiang pork
Stir-fry the bell pepper and scallion strips, then remove and hold.
stir-frying pork for tianmianjiang pork
Next, stir-fry the pork strips until lightly browned, then push the pork to the sides of the wok and add the sauce ingredients to the center well.
tianmianjiang pork jing jiang rousi dish
Add back the green vegetables, stir-fry briefly, and you’ve got a tianmianjiang pork dish that’s miles better than ‘pork in brown sauce.’

Tianmianjiang Pork (Jing Jiang Rousi, 京酱肉丝)

By: Taylor Holliday | The Mala Market | Inspiration & Ingredients for Sichuan Cooking

Ingredients 

  • 1 pound lean pork (such as boneless loin chops)
  • 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 2 green bell peppers
  • 6-7 scallions
  • 2 tablespoons tianmianjiang (sweet wheat paste)
  • 1 tablespoon doubanjiang (Pixian chili bean paste)
  • 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
  • 1 tablespoon Chinese light soy sauce

Instructions 

  • Freeze pork chops until somewhat stiff, which makes it much easier to slice them into thin strips, about ⅛-inch thick. Mix with 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine and salt and leave to marinate. Cut bell peppers and scallions into thin strips similar in size to the pork, about 3 inches long. If the scallions are fat, also cut them in half vertically.
  • Heat a wok over high flame until wisps of heat start to rise and add 2 tablespoons canola or peanut oil. When the oil is hot, add bell pepper and scallion strips and stir-fry until they are starting to soften. Remove them and hold in reserve.
  • Return the wok to high heat and add 2 tablespoons oil. When oil is hot, spread pork around the wok in one layer and let it sear on one side. Flip the pork over and let it sear on the other side. Stir-fry the pork strips until they are lightly browned.
  • Push the pork to the sides of the wok. There should be a few tablespoons of juice from the pork. Add the sweet wheat paste and chili bean paste to the liquid in the center of the wok and let it cook briefly. Add ½ cup water, 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine and the soy sauce and mix well with the meat. Add back the vegetables and stir-fry everything together until it is hot and the flavors have melded.

Tried this recipe?

 

About Taylor Holliday

The Mala Market all began when Taylor, a former journalist, created this blog as a place to document her adventures learning to cook Sichuan food for Fongchong, her recently adopted 11-year-old daughter. They discovered through the years that the secret to making food that tastes like it would in China is using the same ingredients that are used in China. The mother-daughter team eventually began visiting Sichuan’s factories and farms together and, in 2016, opened The Mala Market, America’s source for heritage Sichuan ingredients and Chinese pantry essentials.

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16 Comments

  1. Great story, Taylor! Last week I ate dinner at a very nice sit-down Chinese restaurant. The food and the customer service were terrific! They charged prices higher than I like, but it was worth it!

    Thank you for this recipe. It looks really good and gives me an excuse to use the tian mian jiang I have sitting in my fridge, haha!

    1. Thank you, Christopher! Tian mian jiang is super useful as a stir-fry base. Glad you have some to experiment with.

  2. I am glad to hear that Chinese chefs and cooks are taking back their cuisine! As far as I am concerned, America is built by such people and America will only get better and more interesting as all immigrants make themselves felt. America will always be evolving and will never be the same as it was before. That is the beauty and the power of America. America is there for all people to value and to benefit from.

    You should call out those other folks who took your name…. even if they had to add nyc as a suffix . ( I googled it. ) Darn!! Well,…… Next time you are in New York, you’ll have to go and check them out.

    About the dog comment, that young Korean does not know his own culture: when they had the winter in Olympics there a few years ago, they were talking about shutting down temporarily a lot of the dog meat restaurants in deference to many of the British and Americans who were raising a fuss about it. We humans eat a lot of different kinds of meat…. anything that walks, flies, swims or hops.

  3. I think a lot if it has to do with North Americans finally coming to realize that Chinese cuisine is not just your ubiquitous small town “Chinese and Western Cuisine” restaurant fare. Cathryn and I travelled through China (as much as we could see in a month) and beside the wonderful fact that we got to eat Chinese three times a day we were amazed at the diversity of regional cuisines.

    Here in small town Kansas we have one of those Chinese/western cuisine establishments. He makes a living but that’s about it. I swear if he was to start using his talents on his regional mainstays as opposed to breaded pork balls in plum sauce he would make a killing.

    Currently I am harassing the east indian desk clerk at the hotel here to open up a restaurant. Some fish vindaloo, garlic naan and paneer; I will pay more than full price. Plus then I can stop hanging out in her lobby inhaling her cooking.

    1. That is the story of small-town America. But I’m not sure there are yet enough people like you there to support real Chinese or Indian food. All signs point that direction for the future though. 🙂 In the meantime, thanks for being one of my first, best customers and making your own authentic regional Chinese food in the middle of Kansas.

  4. I think the disparity in perceived value is only visible to those (including myself) who realize the true treasures of authentic Chinese cuisine. Recognition of, and then demand for, authentic cooking will naturally drive the prices up. That is what you are doing with your blog and what I am doing in my limited circle of friends 🙂

    I don’t believe it is anyone’s “fault” that Chinese food is perceived as cheap. Chinese immigrants came here, adapted their recipes to suit American tastes (read: omit specialty ingredients, add lots of sugar and familiar vegetables) and since most of it is fried it became a cheap fast food option for many a college student. But as more natives grow comfortable offering dishes that are closer to how they are prepared in their homeland, I hope and believe an appreciation for it will develop in time.

  5. Hi Taylor! So excited I discovered your blog! I love cooking Chinese – especially Sichuan, and am thrilled to come across such awesome recipes and insights!

    1. Welcome to The Mala Project, Helen! I appreciate your kind words, and hope the recipes work for you.