General Tso...Chicken? I think not.

[Monte Smith]

He served with distinction during the Taiping Rebellion, a civil war which lasted fourteen years and which saw at least 30 million dead. That's thirty frigging million.

With thirty million, you get eggroll. Oh!

[steve(thelil)]

check your private messages, Chung King

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by steve(thelil)

check your private messages, Chung King

I got it, (lil). You want a number fourteen and a six, but we're out of Cum of Sum Yung Guy.

[steve(thelil)]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

I got it, (lil). You want a number fourteen and a six, but we're out of Cum of Sum Yung Guy.

I heard you were whipping some up as we speak.

[Sandi22]

I really like Kung Po shrimp and make it for ourselves when I can get the chili's, and their peanuts.

When we go to Portland we try to eat at Chens Dynasty or at Uncle Chens, both places have excellent food. Then afterwards we go to China town and go to the little Chinese markets there and pick up things we can't find elsewhere, but we've given up on that since the food scares, and finding out that in China they have some severe problems with their own foodstuffs. People get sick there all the time from things being made with suspect ingredients and probably from not having the most sanitary conditions in their bottling and canning factory's.

Still, Kung Po shrimp is a favorite, but it's treacherous to cook, as the fumes from the hot hot oil and chili's cooking at such high heat, really does take your breath away, leaving you strangling and choking from their fumes.

[Sandi22]

Jeeze guys.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by steve(thelil)

I heard you were whipping some up as we speak.

God bless the Chinese eatery. One near me is called Wong Cock.

[Hudson Boy]

There was a restaruant near me, about ten years ago called the Caucasian (referring to the mountains of that name), owned I guess by Russians or Eastern Europeans. A lot of traffic, including a bus line, ran past it. They must have gotten complaints, because they changed the name after a few months.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Hudson Boy

There was a restaruant near me, about ten years ago called the Caucasian (referring to the mountains of that name), owned I guess by Russians or Eastern Europeans. A lot of traffic, including a bus line, ran past it. They must have gotten complaints, because they changed the name after a few months.

Now that irritates me. Because you can have a Thai eatery called Phuk Hard Gang Bang and no one blinks an eye.

[Sandi22]

One track, no denying it.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

Now that irritates me. Because you can have a Thai eatery called Phuk Hard Gang Bang and no one blinks an eye.

Blinks an eye?? They'll line up!

[Gary Sisco]

I used to live near a Thai-Vietnamese grocery and got a lot of staples there. Eventually they branched out and started including produce as well. One week they had these beans looked like string beans except they were about 14 inches long. So, I got some and at the register I asked the woman what they called them. "Beans," she said.

[groover]

Anyone want extra formaldehyde on their lo mein noodles?

Tainted food common in Asia

Chemicals often used as preservatives, enforcement is lax
By MARGIE MASON, Associated Press
Posted Sunday, June 17, 2007

HANOI, Vietnam -- As Nguyen Van Ninh needles his chopsticks through a steaming bowl of Vietnam's famous noodle soup, he knows it could be spiked with formaldehyde. But the thought of slurping up the same chemical used to preserve corpses isn't enough to deter him.

"I think if we don't see those chemicals being put in the food with our own eyes, then we can just smack our lips and pretend that there are no chemicals in the food," he said, devouring a 30-cent bowl of pho on a busy Hanoi sidewalk. "Why worry about it?"

While the discovery of tainted imports from China has shocked Westerners, food safety has long been a problem in much of Asia, where enforcement is lax and food poisoning deaths are not unusual. Hot weather, lack of refrigeration and demand for cheap street food drives vendors and producers to find inexpensive -- and often dangerous -- ways to preserve their products.

What's exported, for the most part, is the good stuff. Companies know they must meet certain standards if they want to make money. But in the domestic market, substandard items and adulterated foods abound, including items rejected for export.

Formaldehyde, for instance, has long been used to lengthen the shelf life of rice noodles and tofu in some Asian countries, even though it can cause liver, nerve and kidney damage.

Borax, found in everything from detergent to Fiberglas, is also commonly used to preserve fish and meats in Indonesia and elsewhere. Farmers in various countries often spray produce with banned pesticides, such as DDT.

"The people who do this want to make money. And if they're stupid and greedy, this is a bad combination," said Gerald Moy, a food safety expert at the World Health Organization in Geneva. "It's the Wild West."

The quality of Asian food has come under harsh scrutiny after toxic substances were discovered in several Chinese exports.

Wheat gluten tainted with the industrial chemical melamine has been blamed for killing or sickening thousands of dogs and cats in North America. Fish containing pufferfish toxins, drug-laced frozen eel and juice spiked with harmful dyes were among other unsafe products shipped to the United States.

The problems in Asia are not limited to China. Ice cream and sweets made with the same industrial dyes used for coloring garments have been found outside schools, and farmers have been caught dipping fruits in herbicide, to add shine, a day before going to market. In India, pesticides often taint groundwater and produce.

No one knows the extent of chemical-laced food in Asia or how it will affect public health.

"It might be that you consume it today, but you don't see any effects for 10 years," said Peter Sousa Hoejskov, a food quality and safety officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Thailand. "Some foods have issues that are developing over a long, long time and others you have an immediate reaction."

Copyright ©2007, The News Journal.

[Monte Smith]

I had a friend in college who used to maintain that General Tso was a communist hero who had a particularly difficult time during the Long March. His men were cut off and ill-supplied, and tragically they had to resort to cannibalism to survive. Only the General's invention of a delicious, tangy sauce made the experience endurable.

[Gary Sisco]

Your friend sounds like he has a real grasp on history, there, Monte.

[groover]

I'll stick with the tofu.

[clinthopson]

Kung Pow anything floats my boat.

Chile and peanuts, what can be wrong with that?

[Gary Sisco]

I dig it, too. There's a place in Burlapograd that makes a wicked kung pow.

I like General Tso's too but I've only known one place that makes it really well. Most of the time it's just a gooey red, sticky substance of some kind with a bunch of red peppers tossed on it.

[groover]

There's a little mom-and-pop place near my office that makes excellent General Tso's, along with everything else on their menu. The Chinese woman who does the cooking makes everything from scratch herself using select ingredients. Unfortunately, her husband and business partner is a good old white American blockhead who is angry at the landlord and planning to close up the place at the end of the month.

[Gary Sisco]

That happened to us, twice, with two Thai places of choice in a row. Tragedy. We ate at one or the other (they existed serially, same building) at least once a week.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

But how do you really spell this Chinese dish anyway?

I've seen it General Tsou's, General Tzou's, General Tso's, General Gao's. General Gho's, General Zhao's, General Zhou's and just plain General's Chicken.

FWIW, I have heard the cannibalism story from several sources, many of them Chinese nationals. There's gotta be something to that. It's too prevalent and besides, how else would a general gain fame for cooking? A colonel maybe, but not a general.

[Gary Sisco]

Kevin -- There's no way to answer your question with this keyboard. ;-)

The dishes are supposedly named for having been created for this or that mofo. Who cares, really? Who named macaroni macaroni and what difference would it make if it were named something else?

It's not like we're talking freedom fries....

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Who named macaroni macaroni and what difference would it make if it were named something else?

Well, if it were named testicles, it might be a little less popular.

[clinthopson]

Mmmm testicles and cheese - a real comfort food.

[Gary Sisco]

Not if testicles were called macaroni.

[Gary Sisco]

I forgot. Them Italians been here a long time, huh?

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

The dishes are supposedly named for having been created for this or that mofo. Who cares, really? Who named macaroni macaroni and what difference would it make if it were named something else?

That would be a guy by the name of Yankee Doodle, I believe. He stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni.

[Dr Dave]

fixed:

Originally Posted by Jimmy Cantiello

That would be a guy by the name of Yankee Doodle, I believe. He stuck a feather in his hat and called it General Tso's Testicles.

[moneyp]

Here you go.

[Gary Sisco]

Great Wall of China Oysters?