Important Topic Du Jour

I made two trips to Beijing last year and definitely didn't see any ground beef. In general, the quantities of meat used in real Chinese cooking are much, much smaller than in American cooking. Instead, you see a lot more vegetables and many varieties of tofu.

In general, the quantities of meat used in real Chinese cooking are much, much smaller than in American cooking.

No surprise there. Concentrated protein is expensive. China is getting more wealthy, but it's still a relatively poor country.

Most Chinese probably wouldn't recognize much of what we call "Chinese food" (I also hear that pizzas in Italy can be unrecognizable to Americans as well).

But my point is that though they have many beef dishes, it never occurred to them to use it in the ground form.

Of course, that's true of most other world cuisines as well. It seems to be an American thing. Why would be an interesting sociological/economics study.

The Chinese put minced meat in dumplings and other dim sum snacks. A casual read of Wikipedia indicates that the practice is rather common in Europe and the Middle East.

Chinese food is designed to be picked up with chopsticks - ground beef is too loose, but bite-sized chunks of meat and vegetables are perfect (so are dumplings with ground pork *inside*)

"ground beef is too loose"

So is rice.

Jethro:

Short-grain rice releases more starch during cooking and binds quite well. That is why the Chinese have not been eating rice one kernel at a time for all of recorded history.

Well, that might explain why I can't find any "Kung Pao Hamburger Helper."

Maybe ground beef isn't as tasty to them as dog/cat/(insert other domestic animal here)?

My wife makes a fantastic Ma Pao Tofu with ground beef. It is so good I overcame my religious aversion to tofu.

And you know, Chinese use spoons as well as chopsticks. Ground meat is often pressed into meatballs for soups and such.

"Short-grain rice releases more starch during cooking and binds quite well. That is why the Chinese have not been eating rice one kernel at a time for all of recorded history."

Which doesn't account for dishes like fried rice, where the oils prevent that. Nor the fact that not all chinese dishes call for short grain rice.

I'm sorry the correct answer is they either put a bowl to their mouth (or just below) and shovel (or scoop) with the chopsticks or use a spoon, as noted above.

The fancy word for the type of Chinese food we eat is called fusion cooking. It's where East meets West.

I was going through the pantry couple weeks ago: fried ramen noodle, bag of mixed frozen vegetables, the last 1/3 cup of stir fry sauce, and a block of frozen ground turkey. Hmmmm, Lo Mein time, it turned out pretty well.

Chinese food does not make use of ground beef.

Yes it does. Often with dim sum or inside of dumplings (xue jiao) or steamed buns (man tou), but not always. My mother in law makes a wonderful dish with bok choi and ground beef. My wife's aunt is also a fan of adding ground beet to her savory pastries, and I can't get enough of them.

Xai jian,
Brock (aka, Ma Song-Shan)

Neither strictly Chinese, nor ground beef, but a Chinese friend of mine, born in Sechuan (however it's spelled) province and moved here for good at 15, makes amazing meatballs based around ground turkey and, by the taste, ginger. I need the recipe. She's a great cook, whether it's Chinese or fusion or other.

My guess on ground beef's origins would be that it was a way to make the less savory elements more palatable and maximize use of the animal. Ground beef is vastly better now than what I remember when I was a kid, even if you buy the lowly 75% that's actually better for some things than the overpriced 90% or 93% stuff. That was probably a way to get extra marginal revenue from a carcass, while giving poorer folks something resembling meat. Much as you might grind some parts people wouldn't want to identify clearly and include it in sausage filler.