Posted by In our brave new world of “alternate facts”, our Chai-latte, lactose-free soy-milk, sipping urban liberals in North America like to think they are the guardians of all that is intellectual and sophisticated in our society. They are patrons of haute culture, the trendsetting hipsters that the frothing mass of beer swilling “deplorables” can only aspire to emulate. They are also generally pretentious turds who tend to get it very wrong. I laugh (and cry inside) every time I see or hear them butcher another culture they are so pathetically trying to ape themselves in their sad attempt to appear cosmopolitan. Let’s start with something I just mentioned that is quite popular amongst the coastal liberal crowd these days (no I don’t mean Avocado Toast) – soy milk (or almond milk).
Here’s the definition of the word milk. “(n) an opaque white fluid rich in fat and protein, secreted by female mammals for the nourishment of their young.” Unless soybeans have somehow become mammals and began secreting opaque white fluid for their young, IT IS NOT MILK. The Chinese invented it and have drunk it for centuries. We sometimes even have it hot for breakfast and we call it 豆漿 (Dòujiāng) which is literally translated as “bean puree/broth”. It’s a sad world when even an uneducated peasant in rural China knows 豆漿 isn’t milk but the university-educated Toronto elite crowd can’t make this basic distinction. The proper English translation should be something like soy beverage or soy drink.
Yes, I’m a bit like Danny from the movie Role Models when he takes a piece out of the barista behind the counter of a coffee shop. If you can’t watch the video clip, I’ve put the transcript below:
Danny: And a large black coffee?
Barista: A what?
Danny: Large black coffee.
Barista: Do you mean a venti?
Danny: No, I mean a large.
Barista: Venti is large.
Danny: No, venti is twenty. Large is large. In fact, tall is large and grande is Spanish for large. Venti is the only one that doesn’t mean large. It’s also the only one that’s Italian. Congratulations, you’re stupid in three languages.
Barista: Look dick, venti is a large coffee.
Danny: Really? Says who? Fellini? Do you accept lira or is it all euros now?
The girl who Danny is with then berates him for being a miserable dick explaining that FYI its called a venti because its 20 ounces – twenty – venti; before storming out the door. Danny muses to himself out loud “is that true?” Well yes and no. According to Starbuck’s own website, a venti is 20oz for hot drinks but 24oz for cold ones. It doesn’t really matter because I personally hate Starbucks. To me, Starbucks is an abomination and affront to European (specifically Italian) coffee culture and to Asian tea culture. But it’s one that urban North Americans like to indulge in so they can put on the airs of being cultivated and well-travelled. That’s why Starbucks comes up with all these lame and pretentious foreign-sounding names for their beverages and cup sizes; even if they are a complete bastardisation of the original.
This is my home coffee machine; a very expensive DeLonghi that grinds the beans, heats and froths the milk and pulls the espresso automatically at the push of a button. Its part of the reason I don’t go to Starbucks even though there is literally a store across the street from my house. Why pay $5 to wait in line for burnt and bitter coffee beans at Starbucks when I can make one at home that tastes way better (I am currently using Cuban and Hawaiian beans but have used Italian Illy and Lavazza beans in the past). The default standard coffee setting is actually an espresso while latte will add hot milk and cappuccino will add foamed milk as it should be. But notice that it says Italian macchiato; it doesn’t say Italian latte or Italian cappuccino because we should already know that all of these are Italian. So why does my machine have to explicitly say it’s an Italian macchiato instead of caffè macchiato or espresso macchiato or just macchiato? Despite being an Italian machine and an Italian company, it is an American (export) model. To the average Starbucks drinking American (or Canadian), a macchiato is not an espresso with a tiny dollop of milk foam on it (macchiato means spotted or stained in Italian). It is this sickly sweet vanilla flavoured concoction with caramel syrup stripes on top that Starbucks calls the caramel macchiato (see Starbucks website screen capture below).
Undoubtedly some American bought the same machine I did years ago and then complained bitterly to DeLonghi (probably demanded a refund too) that the macchiato was nothing like what a “real” macchiato is supposed to be like so DeLonghi probably just started adding the word Italian to its machines to avoid lawsuits and confusion. Still, it annoys me because these are the sort of people who dine at the $7.99 all you can eat Chinese buffet (what the hell is a chicken ball anyways) and then complain when they go on a vacation tour of China that the food tastes nothing like the “Chinese food” they get at home.
One more complaint about the North Americanising of Italian traditions and culture before I return to bashing Starbucks. After we finished filming our movie (hopefully to be released soon) in Jamaica last July, I returned with the crew to Miami to start post-production work and editing. As a treat, I said I would cook dinner for the week and asked what they would like to eat. Our production manager, a Puerto Rican, said he loved Italian food so I said OK, like what. He said he wanted carbonara and I said, “I can do that but do you want an American carbonara or a real Italian carbonara?” He looked at me puzzled and asked what’s the difference? I told him American carbonara is generally a cream sauce with bacon and often other vegetables like mushrooms, peas or chives. An Italian carbonara actually has no cream at all and the creamy texture comes from egg yolks being added at the very end to warm and cook in the residual heat of the pasta without coagulating. He said “whaaaaaat? No cream?” and then we went with the authentic Italian carbonara (although I couldn’t find pancetta so I used thick sliced bacon instead).
Unfortunately, Starbucks wasn’t satisfied with bastardising Italian coffee culture for the self-aggrandizement of urban American yuppies; they had to expand into other product lines and do the same to Asian tea. I mean seriously, WTF is an Oprah Cinnamon Chai Tea Latte?
To understand the insanity and pretentiousness, it is necessary to go a bit into the history of tea. Wikipedia describes “tea is an aromatic beverage commonly prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to Asia.” In other words, tea has to come from brewing a specific species of shrub which we can call the tea-plant for convenience in order for it to be accurately called tea. Just like coffee is the roasted seeds of the berries (sometimes called cherries) of the coffee plant; tea is the processed leaves of the tea plant. All the other whacked-out flavours and ingredients (plants, fruits and spices) you get at Teavana are not technically teas; they are herbal infusions.
The Chinese character for tea is 茶 which is pronounced chá in Mandarin and Cantonese. In Japan, it is known as お茶 Ocha. In fact, throughout Asia tea is known by some variant of the word “cha” as its use and consumption spread from China down the silk road. In Turkey, it’s know as “Çay”. In India, tea is called चाय or “chai”. A chaiwala is literally a “tea seller” (usually in the streets but can also be in an office) as most of us in the West discovered after watching the 2009 movie Slumdog Millionaire where the lead character is a “chaiwala from Mumbai.”
It is only when we get to Europe that the name changes from a derivative of “cha” because the main trade route for tea to Europe wasn’t via the ancient silk road. Trade between China and Europe took place by sea and the main port that sold tea to the Europeans is Xiamen (previously called Amoy) in Fujian Province. Xiamen is actually my 家鄉 (jiāxiāng) or ancestral hometown as my father’s family comes from there. Most of the Chinese who went to Singapore and Malaysia as well as Taiwan originate from Xiamen and they still speak the local Chinese dialect called Hokkien. In the Hokkien dialect, the character 茶 is not pronounced “cha”, it is pronounced “teh”. And since the Europeans traded tea with the Hokkien, all the European languages adopted “teh” or some derivative as the word for tea. Of course English is tea. German is tee. Spanish is té. Italian is tè. French is thé. All three romance languages actually come close to the Hokkien pronunciation of 茶 teh.
So to explain what an Oprah Chai Tea Latte is, well the first part is easy, it’s Oprah Winfrey who happens to likes Chai Tea Latte’s and co-markets the product with Starbucks. Chai is simply Hindi for tea as it is known in India. Tea is of course English derived from the Chinese Hokkien pronunciation of 茶. Latte is Italian for milk. So Starbucks has squashed three languages together to create an Oprah’s tea-tea-milk. Seeing as tea-tea-milk sounds stupid, Starbucks made up this ostentatious name by corrupting foreign languages when in reality all they are doing is selling an Americanized Masala chai which is an Indian milk tea with many spices added that is sold by chaiwallas on the streets throughout the subcontinent for a couple of rupees. The only difference is Starbuck’s bastardised chai, like its bastardised coffees, are swimming in fats and sugars and costs about 20x more than one on the streets of Mumbai (7Rp a cup at an exchange rate of around 50Rp to a US$, you do the math). A supposedly healthy Starbucks Chai Tea Latte has more sugar and calories than a Snickers bar.
As much as I loathe Starbucks, they are not alone in their corruption of foreign cultures and practices in the North American market. And the practice is not limited to dissing the Italians; Clever urban intellectuals in coastal America and Canada love to get everything wrong from around the world and then put on the airs of sophistication and superiority for the country hicks and rubes from the “bridges and tunnels” crowd.
Of course Americans would get everything French wrong. While those chic Parisians may think they are “le coeur de culture” for the Western world, New Yorkers know they are far more sophisticated. Take any menu in America from a mid-priced eatery to an upscale restaurant and an entrée is the main course. Unfortunately, entrée is French for “entrance” which is exactly what it is supposed to be. The starter or appetizer before the “plat principal” or main course (followed by a cheese or dessert for a full three-course meal). Once, while on business in New York, we finished our last meeting in Midtown at around six at night. So my colleague and I decided to go to a restaurant that we passed by earlier that looked pretty good and crowded. I can’t remember the name but it was a little French style bistro with a bar but when we walked in and asked for a table for two (of course no reservation), we were told they were full up but we could eat at the bar. I asked if we could have the full menu at the bar and they said sure so we went along with it. The waiter came by and introduced himself in French and gave us the menus before walking away. The menu was in French with English underneath each item so when the waiter came back and took our order, I blabbered out the whole thing in French including the drinks. Only after I had wasted all that time did he then apologise and say “sorry, I don’t speak French.” I mean seriously? I wouldn’t normally order in French in New York but you came up to me and introduced yourself in French and gave me a French menu… Only in New York. Gotta love it.
I do not have much of a sweet tooth; I rarely order desserts and don’t drink a lot of soft drinks like Coca-cola. This partially explains my abhorrence of Starbucks whom I view as a purveyor of sugary milk drinks with burnt coffee flavouring. I read somewhere that Starbucks immolates its coffee beans for this reason; because if it didn’t, customers couldn’t taste any coffee flavour at all through all the milk and sugar it puts in its drinks. But one of the few pâtisseries that I do enjoy on occasion is the macaron; perhaps because they are so small and bite sized that it doesn’t fill me to the point of nausea. As the title of this missive suggests, I have a problem because in North America, most people refers to them as macaroons even though the two are spelled and pronounced differently. Now the actual French macaron (mah-kah-rohn) is a sweet meringue-based confection filled with a ganache or jelly-like filling. Macarons come in a multitude of flavours and are epitomized by the Paris-based chain Ladurée which air-freights its macarons frozen to its branches around the world rather than make them on-site. By contrast, the macaroon (mah-kah-roon with two o’s) is a small circular cake, typically made from ground almonds, coconut, and/or other nuts and originated in Italy. Unfortunately, macarons are a little expensive; usually more than $2 each for the little bite sized snacks so I was pleasantly surprised to find them at Costco for about $0.60 each. They actually weren’t bad (not up to Ladurée standards but for 60 cents what do you expect)? The problem is the packaging. Of course they are French macarons, what else would they be? Russian? This is kind of like my stupid coffee machine that has to label itself an Italian macchiato because the average consumer on this continent can’t differentiate between a macaron and a macaroon.
Last year, we had a nice dinner in a fairly expensive seafood restaurant in Miami after discussing a possible television project. For whatever reason, they gave me the wine menu and asked me to select a wine for dinner. When I asked what would they prefer, the response was a resounding “red” which raises a problem because you generally don’t pair red wines with seafood. Of course that means I had to look for a lighter red wine because a heavier red like a Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot is far too strong to pair with seafood. I decided on a moderately priced Burgundy (Bourgogne) upon which I was challenged why I didn’t order a Pinot Noir (a lighter red). Most old-world (European) wines whether from France, Italy or Spain generally are labelled with the geographical area of origin or style of wine from a particular region and are generally blended from a variety of grapes grown in that region. The tradition of making and labelling wines from a single grape varietal is a very new-world phenomenon which the Americans, Australians, Argentinians, Chileans, etc. tend to follow. And America makes some really great Pinot Noirs, especially from the Sonoma region of California and the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The problem is that, unlike virtually all other regions in France and Europe, Burgundy is special in that it is almost always made from a single varietal. In the case of red, Burgundy wines are almost always Pinot Noir and in the case of white, Chardonnay. So when someone asks me why I ordered a Burgundy instead of a Pinot Noir… I really don’t know how to answer that.
Unfortunately, the American corruption of French doesn’t end in the realm of cuisine. Take the word résumé which is that little piece of paper you submit to a potential employers detailing your education, experience and skills. In French, a résumé is simply a summary and has nothing to do with a job application. Most Europeans refer to that sort of document using the Latin name, curriculum vitae, or CV for short. That Americans have adopted the use of the word résumé for that purpose is not a problem. Either spell it correctly as a French word or anglicise it to English by dropping the accent acutes (é) and make it resume. Sort of like café, we all know what it means and how it’s pronounced so you can just call it a cafe and drop the accent. You would not believe how many CV’s and cover letters that have been dropped on my desk that have the title resumé. I have no idea what a resumé is because it is neither French (which has accents on both e’s), nor English (as English has no accents at all). What I take it to mean is that the writer is an over-educated pretentious douche who wants to show that he knows there should be an accent acute somewhere but doesn’t know where. It doesn’t help that we have corrupted the pronunciation in English so badly (reh-zhu-may instead of ray-zhu-may) that the word sounds as if there should only be one accent acute on the final é. Nonetheless, whenever I saw a job application with the word resumé in it, that CV was immediately put in the circular filing cabinet.
But the North American debasement of foreign cultures doesn’t end with the poor Europeans. I am always confused when people suggest we go out for Chinese food because I have no idea what that means. To me, it’s a little like saying “we should go out for European food” because you’re going to have to narrow it down a little in order for me to make an intelligent suggestion. Cantonese style (粤菜 Yuècài) alone is massively diverse and is the one most Westerners are familiar with, but good Chinese restaurants tend to specialise in different regional cuisines. Major styles include northern Peking-style (京菜 Jīngcài), Shanghai-style (around the Yangtze river delta area including Jiangsu 苏菜 Sūcài and Zhejiang 浙菜 Zhècài), Hot and spicy Sichuan style (川菜 Chuāncài), it’s even spicier neighbour Hunan style (湘菜 Xiāngcài), and Shandong style (鲁菜 Lǔcài) which is typified by a lot of seafood. Even rice is not a given staple for all Chinese as most Westerners assume as most Northern Chinese cuisine revolves around bread (饅頭 mantou), noodles (面条 miantiao) and dumplings (餃子 jiaozi). Don’t even get me started on the Kiwi fruit but you can read my rant about that here at your own leisure.
But the worst offense North Americans commit is probably on Japanese cuisine. One thing I noticed is the common usage of the term “Kobe beef” in America. This is a particularly egregious term because it is used by “foodies” to show a certain level of snobbery and sophistication as Kobe beef is supposed to be rare and expensive. The problem is that Kobe (神戸) is a region of Japan and America has hijacked the name Kobe beef as a marketing tool to the unwashed masses. The French had the same problem with Champagne and won (unless it comes from the Champagne region of France, it is supposed to be labelled sparkling wine). The Italians had the same problem with Parmesan and sort of won with Parmigiano-Reggiano being only used for the original cheese from that region in Italy. The Japanese are still being screwed because the correct term should be Wagyu (和牛 or literally Japanese cow) which is a Japanese breed of cattle (much like Angus or Texas Longhorn) prized for its marbled flesh and mythically being fed a diet of beer while being massaged and listening to classical music. The irony is that while Kobe is considered to be one of the great Wagyu beef regions in Japan, it is not the only one. Other regions such as Matsusaka (松阪) and Yonezawa (米沢) are just as famous in Japan but I guess Americans went with Kobe because its easy to pronounce and remember (think Kobe Bryant the basketball player).
All Japanese beef is graded on a scale of A-C for the yield and 1-5 for the quality. The highest rating would be A5 representing a great cut with optimal fat marbling. You will notice the illustration above is probably from America as it uses the incorrect terminology Kobe beef. If you’ve had Kobe beef in America, there is a 99.9% probability that it actually isn’t Kobe beef but Wagyu beef raised in America or Australia by cross-breeding with Angus cattle. Congratulations!!! And despite what you saw on How I Met Your Mother, there is no such thing as Kobe Lobster:
Jeff Coatsworth: Do you know what Kobe beef is?
Marshall Eriksen: The most expensive beef in the world.
Jeff Coatsworth: The place I’m taking you has Kobe lobster. That’s lobster that is fed on Kobe beef.
Which leads me to my number one pet peeve Americanization of foreign culture and cuisine – Sushi. It took me a long time to figure out why sashimi sucked so bad from coast-to-coast. The first difference is this massive fixation with rolls or makizushi (巻き寿司), especially the ubiquitous “California roll” and other weird concoctions smothered with salad dressing and no nori (seaweed) on the outside. While they do eat sushi rolls in Japan, I think it is far less common and generally smaller in size. The Japanese prefer Nigirisushi (握り寿司), or hand pressed sushi or straight up sashimi (刺身). All of these are generally available overseas in most Japanese restaurants so that is not the problem.
Like the media with its “fake news”, American (and Canadian) Japanese sushi restaurants have been serving us “fake fish“. It took me a long time to figure out because the fish looked and tasted wrong. At first, I thought it was just because it wasn’t fresh (I live 1000km inland you know) but it turns out its endemic even in wealthy and cosmopolitan coastal cities like New York where 74% of sushi restaurants were found to have mislabelled fish. I will save you the trouble of trying to figure it out because while some things like mislabelling farm-raised salmon as wild caught is easy to understand, the rest is very complex. Most of the problems revolve around tuna. As far as I can figure out, there are principally four types of tuna used in sashimi, Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, Pacific Yellowfin Tuna (a.k.a. ahi tuna), Big Eye Tuna (confusingly also called ahi Tuna in Hawaii) and Albacore Tuna (also from the Pacific). The middle two are from the same place and I think are very similar so I’ll lump them together under the banner Pacific Yellowfin.
Do not confuse the Yellowfin Tuna with Yellowtail known in Japanese as Hamachi (ハマチ) or Buri (鰤) like one of my know-it-all, but actually-doesn’t-know-jack relatives. Hamachi is a staple fish in Japan (for sushi and other things) and is often farmed (like salmon is here). It is actually a Yellowtail Amberjack or Japanese Amberjack and not even remotely related to tuna.
When we talk about sushi cuts for tuna, there are three major cuts. Maguro (鮪), Chūtoro (中とろ), and Ōtoro (大とろ). These correspond to the regular (red coloured) flesh, middle-fatty tuna belly, and super-fat tuna belly (the most expensive part). Here is a photo I took from a lunch at a sushi place by the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo. Its kind of sad that a random hole-in-the wall restaurant in Tokyo still has better sushi than most of the expensive places I have eaten at in North America. It’s kind of like how the coffee we had at the train station in Venice last year is still better than Starbucks. The far left is toro tartar and then a seared toro but starting with the deep red piece in the middle, you can see the difference between Maguro, Chūtoro, and Ōtoro
In Japan, they mostly use Atlantic Bluefin Tuna although there is some Pacific Yellowfin Tuna, especially for cheaper cuts, sold in restaurants. So contrary to what smart ass foodies say about how “fresh” their sushi has to be, the Japanese eat flash frozen Atlantic Bluefin Tuna; and it is delicious.
The problem is that the Japanese pay top yen for their Atlantic Bluefin Tuna at the Tsukiji Market auction which means that, although we fish the darned stuff ourselves off the East Coast, almost none of it makes it to market here in North America as 80% of the catch goes straight to Japan. In other words, when you order maguro or tuna in America, odds are that it won’t be expensive Atlantic Bluefin Tuna but far more likely (as in almost 100%) going to be Pacific Yellowfin Tuna. Now I don’t know what they use when they sell toro (tuna belly) in Canada, but I assume it is Yellowfin Tuna just like maguro. Now look at these two photos: The first is otoro I purchased in Tokyo or “fatty Bluefin Tuna belly”; you can see the fat is already starting to melt on the plate at room temperature. The second is so-called toro purchased in Vancouver (where they keep telling me the sushi is so good) or “I have no idea what this is”. Not only does it look nothing like toro that I’m used to, it looks like it was cut by a blind woodsman with a blunt axe.
Oh but it gets worse; much worse. Analysis of fish sold in sushi restaurants in New York show that 84% of white tuna is not tuna. What the Japanese call white tuna – Shiro maguro (白鮪) – is supposed to be Albacore Tuna. The problem is that Albacore tuna is not actually white, it is more like pink but compared to the deep red of its other tuna cousins, I guess it looks whitish. Now look at the photo below and you will see Albacore (left) and Escolar (right) which is what most sushi restaurants in North America market and sell as “white tuna”. Escolar is not even a tuna, it is a snake mackerel and it is banned in Japan because excessive consumption can cause severe stomach problems and explosive diarrhea due to the wax ester in the flesh.
So the conclusion that I have come to is, I don’t eat a lot of sushi and sashimi in North America. I wait to go to Tokyo or Hong Kong to satisfy my urge for raw fish because it’s just not very good over here. There may be some really expensive high-end places in New York or Los Angeles I haven’t tried yet but between the California rolls, unrecognisable toro, excessive use of salmon (uncommon in Japan) and the Escolar “white tuna”, I’ve just given up. I’d rather just wait until I fly across the Pacific, which I do at least twice a year anyway, than spend a lot of money and roll the dice.
On a final note, I hate the word “foodie”. It is a relatively new term because I hadn’t heard of it until I moved back six years ago. I think it arose at the same time that eating and celebrity chefs started making a mark on North American cuisine thanks to popular TV shows like Iron Chef, Top Chef, Chopped, and Hell’s Kitchen as well as entire TV networks dedicated to cooking and eating like the Cooking Channel and Food Network. Before that, cooking shows were a boring a dull routine that showed some idiot like Martin Yan preparing ingredients and cooking a dish for bored housewives. I dislike the word “foodie” because we had a lot of perfectly good words to describe the same thing like connoisseur, gourmet, epicure, gourmand, and gastronome. But perhaps all those sounded too snobby and French so Americans invented the word “foodie”. To me, a foodie is someone who eats fish tacos off a food truck while comparing it to the Kimchi burrito he had the previous day. Don’t ever call me a foodie; of if you do, make sure it’s behind my back so I don’t hear.
Bon appétit!