Help choose the subject of the next Cookalong

[Elawin]

Not sure what your point is posting those pages, but it seems to be generally accepted that dim sum culture, even though the words dim sum might not have been used, started long ago in tea houses in Canton, then spread and evolved from there. Of course there have been changes over the years, that happens with all food cultures and languages, and I think we can all agree that the Chinese people are remarkably adaptable when it comes to locally available ingredients and tastes.

Case in point, I found the Greek cookbook. The author uses a slightly different word for dolmades. I don't remember what it was, but the spelling was a bit different. There was also a recipe that seemed to be the lalangia mentioned in the Greek thread, but, again, the spelling was different, actually quite different other than beginning with an "l". That book is about 30 years old.

I also have a book from my mother that is pushing 80 years. It was given to her as a young bride. There are instructions on how to put together a pantry, how to set the table for a casual family meal to an extremely formal event, how to instruct servants on preparing and serving meals, how to set up a root cellar, build a smokehouse, canning, preserving, etc., plus all kinds of recipes, some of which use ingredients most people wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole today, but people used regularly back then. And for an example of the reverse, lobster in the US was once considered a by-catch and basically trash. It went home with the fishermen for their table because no one would buy it...

Food, just like language, is fluid and constantly changing. Visit a dim sum restaurant or look up a menu on-line for one and you'll see all kinds of things on the menu for dim sum, not just dumplings.

I quite agree with your reply. The point was that I've never had dim sum - in fact I'd never even heard of it until the 1980s and even then it was only a mention of it in an Australian soap that my daughter used to watch in her younger years. It was still a while before we found out what it actually was - no home internet in those days - and our local Chinese restaurants and takeaways never listed them as such even if they sold them. The article I copied is interesting from an historic point of view.

 

[Morning Glory]

I'd never even heard of it until the 1980s

You are right that it wasn't on the average Chinese restaurant menu - but I had Dim Sum many times back in the mid 70's. But that was in Chinatown (London). It was served at lunch time in a Dim Sum restaurant (or that was what everyone called it). Basically, you sat at tables with white cloths and waitresses would walk up and down the aisles between tables pushing trollies full of steaming baskets with different varieties of dumplings - and there were spring rolls too. You paid a flat fee (I think) and could just keep picking things off the trollies.

As I understand it from the research I've done, Dim Sum is recognised in China as a celebratory meal (lots of small courses of different dumplings and other things). It wouldn't be something eaten every day.

 

[Morning Glory]

There is no mention of egg rolls or indeed dim sum in my old Chinese cookery book (bought in the very early 1970s). The book is by Kenneth Lo, so I think he should know what he is talking about. He does mention "Spring Rolls (or Pancake Rolls)" and "Wraplings or Chiao-tzu", the smaller type of which are called wuntuns. I've attached copies of the relevant pages below.

View attachment 13006

View attachment 13009

I love the idea of 'wraplings'!

 

[Morning Glory]

Not sure what your point is posting those pages

Oh, we like seeing old foodie books - food history is a fascinating subject. Ken Lo of course, although Chinese by birth grew up mainly in the UK from age 6 and studied at Cambridge. That is not to say he wasn't an expert in his field of course. A bit like Ken Hom - who is an American by birth.

 

[Elawin]

You are right that it wasn't on the average Chinese restaurant menu - but I had Dim Sum many times back in the mid 70's. But that was in Chinatown (London). It was served at lunch time in a Dim Sum restaurant (or that was what everyone called it). Basically, you sat at tables with white cloths and waitresses would walk up and down the aisles between tables pushing trollies full of steaming baskets with different varieties of dumplings - and there were spring rolls too. You paid a flat fee (I think) and could just keep picking things off the trollies.

As I understand it from the research I've done, Dim Sum is recognised in China as a celebratory meal (lots of small courses of different dumplings and other things). It wouldn't be something eaten every day.

The mid-70s is probably a clue there. I worked in Soho in the 1960s and there were plenty of Chinese restaurants there, and in the 1950s of course the Chinese were mainly around Limehouse. I don't remember anything called dim sum on their menus then, but from some of the articles on the internet it does seem to be also a collective name for several different types of dishes such as those mentioned in the copies I posted from my cookery book.

 

[Morning Glory]

The mid-70s is probably a clue there.

It certainly wasn't a new restaurant. It was huge and I gather it had been there for a long time. I've had to think back to date this but I reckon I first went there in the early 70's. I was taken there by a former partner who was older than me and lived in London. He had certainly be going there for some years. But anyway - whatever the ins and outs, these things taste good!

 

[Elawin]

It certainly wasn't a new restaurant. It was huge and I gather it had been there for a long time. I've had to think back to date this but I reckon I first went there in the early 70's. I was taken there by a former partner who was older than me and lived in London. He had certainly be going there for some years. But anyway - whatever the ins and outs, these things taste good!

Good point, but perhaps they just didn't appeal to my group of friends and me. We were more into Indian restaurants - the type that Indian people actually went to for a meal, rather than the modern equivalent/takeaway.