New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee traveled the world to crack the case of the fortune cookie's cryptic origins, hunt for the infamous General Tso and track chop suey back to its creator. Turned out, many of the answers were closer to home than she'd ever imagined.

The author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food served up her favorite Chinese food facts, myths and mysteries to AOL Food, and then she took your red-hot questions on Slashfood. Here's how Jennifer 8 Lee responded.

Q: What makes you pick a particular Chinese restaurant from all the ones around it?

A: Well, I tend to like Chinese restaurants that cater more to Chinese people rather than to an American palate. They may both serve General Tso's chicken, but you can look at a Chinese menu and know if they expect a more Chinese clientele. For example, cold appetizers -- especially jellyfish – is a giveaway. Lamb dishes are also ore Chinese. Anything with whole fish, and certain kinds of noodles: cold noodles, dan dan noodles.



Q: What do you always order and never ever order?

A: Of course, if I am traveling around the country doing research for my book, I order General Tso's chicken (which at the Naval Academy is called Admiral Tso's chicken), because I am fascinated by his long march across America and how it has morphed. Sometimes it's yellow, sometimes it's orange, sometimes it's red. Sometimes it's dry and long. Sometimes it's really soupy and chunky. Sometimes you can't tell where the meat ends and where the crispy-fried coating begins. Seeing all the variations of a dish marketed under a single name is amusing.

What don't I tend to order. Hm. fried rice. I prefer white rice. Fried rice is pretty unhealthy for you. Also American fried rice tends to add little bits of weird stuff, including frozen veggies like pea and carrots.

Q: Do you ever use the duck sauce or mustard packets?

A: No. And couldn't picture a scenario where I would except for maybe being stuck at a house occupied only by men who do not cook and the only food of sustenance they had around was condiments.

Q: Are there any Americanized Chinese dishes that are popular or even eaten back in China?

A: Not that I know of. However, there is something weird I once experience – California roll in Beijing. Only they don't have really have avocado in China (it's Mexican), so they substituted banana.

Q: What are your favorite Chinese junk food and high-end dishes? Are there any Chinese standards that you just can't bring yourself to eat?

A: I've tried and tried to like sea cucumber because I know it is good for me and expensive and etc. And I just cannot get excited about it. (Have you ever seen a photo of these things alive? It will remind you of the more squeamish elements of ninth grade biology). Also on principle I guess I would avoid shark fin soup, though I have seen vegetarian shark fin, which is I suppose, the Chinese version of tofukey for Thanksgiving.

Q: Where does Chinese chicken salad come from?

A: If this is the dish also known as Oriental chicken salad (the only things that are allowed to be "oriental" in PC-America are rugs and chicken salads these days), I think one of the places that popularized it, if not invented it, was Chinois on Main, in Santa Monica, which was started by Wolfgang Puck. It was totally hot in the 1980s, and still has that mid-1980s Miami Vice feel to it.

Q: You say there is no soy in American soy sauce packets, but you list "hydrolized vegetable protein", which is (more often than not) soy protein. I am allergic to soy, so I am very careful about this. Your information may be harmful to someone who is allergic to soy.

A: Indeed, hydrolyzed vegetable protein is chemically distilled from soy and wheat into a brownish sludge that is then used in soy sauce. I am very careful to say that it does not contain soy as an ingredient, as opposed to it does not contain soy at all. But you are right, people who are allergic to soy should avoid the packets. Though people who are allergic to gluten in wheat (celiacs) should be excited to know there is now a gluten-free soy sauce.

Q: Kikkoman isn't the only soy sauce with real soy. That's misleading. There are many American brands, even one "in house" label for A&P, which is "America's Choice." It has no additives and no artificial coloring. Also one of the best is Eden Organic Shoyu. There is soy in REAL soy sauce, especially organic, not the commercial junk or the junk packets one gets with a take out order

A: Indeed. Kikkoman is not the only soy sauce with real soy. I don't and wouldn't say that, since that would be misleading. It is just an example of one soy sauce. Many other bottled soy sauces are made from soybeans. The ones to watch out for are the ones in the transparent packets (Kikkoman has opaque packets).

Q: What does your middle "initial" stand for? Do you have a favorite Chinese place in Northern NJ? Come on, you know you've been over the bridge! :)

A: 8 connotes prosperity in Chinese. The Chinese love the number 8. For example, the Olympics this year start on August 8, 2008 at 8 p.m.

I have indeed been over the George Washington bridge many times. My family does have a favorite place in Northern New Jersey. It is a Korean restaurant called Palisadeum on the banks of the Hudson River. It is where we go to eat Thanksgiving dinner now that we have all come to a consensus that we really didn't like turkey (It is too bland).

Q: Jennifer, does the Chinese use meats that are not traditionally eaten by Americans. I have heard some cat/rat stories and the foods does look different. What's the scoop.

A: No cats that I know of. They do eat dog in some places. And I'm not aware of rat meat being eaten in China (maybe somewhere obscure). Some rodents are eating in Vietnam, according to a front page Wall Street Journal story recently.

Chinese are also more into forms of seafood – abalone, geoduck, sea cucumber, jelly fish – than your average American.

Q: Kikkoman soy sauce is produced in Walworth Wisconsin for must US markets, not Japan

A: Yes. I have been there! The funny thing is, one of the reasons they chose to be there is similar to the reason the beer breweries grew up in nearby Milwaukee – the quality of the water. I am very curious what the Japanese ex-pats who get dispatched to Wisconsin think of it. It is very different from Japan. There is a book called The Kikkoman Chronicles: A Global Company With a Japanese Soul by Ronald E. Yates that covers Kikkoman's factory opening in Wisconsin.

Q: When people on TV are about to eat with chopsticks, they always tap them together several times. What do they do this and what does it mean? It almost looks like they are sharpening them, which does not make sense since they are wood!

A: I'm not sure what you are referring to with tapping. But I have observed people rubbing them together (sometimes I do it too, but only with the round ones). I always assumed we did it to get rid of any splinters that were sticking out of the wood. But I must admit, I have never asked.

Q: When and why did Chinese food get Americanized? Why do you think that the modified dishes hold more appeal to people in this country than the traditional Chinese fare?

A: Chinese food got Americanized shortly before the turn of the 20th century and the first example of a mainstream dish is chop suey. It was, in my theory, something the Chinese did to survive when they were forced into laundries and restaurants because of the (often violent) anti-Chinese sentiment among American laborers.
The modified dishes appeal because they are designed for the American palette, the same way that Indian Chinese food is designed for the Indian palette, Jamaican Chinese food is designed for the Jamaican palette and Mauritian Chinese food is designed for the Mauritian palette.

Q: What do you think about "MSG Syndrome?" Real allergy, or a
psychocultural phenomenon?

A: Despite years of research, no credible scientific evidence for MSG Syndrome exists. That being said, anything in large quantity can't be good for you (sugar, salt, etc.). I have, on occasion, felt headaches after eating at a low-grade American-style Chinese restaurant. And my mom insists too much MSG makes her feel ill too.


AOL Food: Chinese Food Myths Busted

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