![cat in the kettle at the peking moon youtube cat in the kettle at the peking moon youtube](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0QZDIv-UGPY/hqdefault.jpg)
So, what is chicken chow mein, pork fried rice, duck and sweet sour sauce where you live?Īs I mentioned in the OP, what we seem to have down here is not Chinese-American, but Chinese-Hispanic or more properly a Chinese-Cuban original variant. Any Chinese here would have immigrated from those areas rather then California/West or China and brought their cultural adoptions with them after 1960.
![cat in the kettle at the peking moon youtube cat in the kettle at the peking moon youtube](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oLwm3h0Yq9g/VtdKMr1mdYI/AAAAAAAABl4/fd_1ydhI0ss/s320/IMG_8127.jpg)
This area is directly influenced by the Caribbean and Latin America. That was about the same time that the Tiki lounges were popping up serving "Polynesian food". I must have been 12 or 13 before I ever had what I thought was Chinese food in a Chinese restaurant complete with the tea, background music, spring rolls, almond cookies, and soups. The same stuff was served in the public school's cafeterias for lunch. It was this thick meat and vegetable porridge-like concoction in a thick gravy served over canned dry noodles with soy sauce on the side. There weren't many Chinese restaurants around here back then and my first exposure to something called Chow Mein was in local cafeterias. In fact, what's called fried rice, sweet and sour sauce, and duck sauce is something totally different then what's served here.Įven what's served here changed some time during the 60's. I found that out during the 70's in CT, again living in TN in the '90's, and then visiting one of my kids in MA about 10 years ago. At least not by published recipes and Utube. I'm not going into details to keep this simple, but what we know as CCM here and served in virtually every restaurant in the tri-county area isn't the same thing sold elsewhere in the states. I realize this sounds like a silly question.