Sweet and Sour Pork - The Difference thinking between Japanese and Chinese Balanced Diet
Yi Shi Tong Yuan (医食同源), literally means medicine origins from healthy food, which means having good food keeps one healthy and away from sickness and disease.
One topic that I am very keen in getting more in depth is the difference between Japanese and Chinese thinking about healthy eating.
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There is this one Chinese dish, Sweet and Sour Pork, I ate a lot, and did cook myself too when I was young. Somehow, most of the ingredients that stayed in my mind was pork or may be onion, which I don't remember liking it. Pineapple was one option to replace the vegetables, but it wasn't that convenient to get for replacement. At first, I thought I was too obsessed with pork that I only used more pork than ever. Somehow, I found some similarity. If you googled for sweet and sour pork photos, my goodness, 2/3 or 7/8 is pork, pork, and pork! Most of them are by Chinese, I presume. The result of search and the volume of meat was a blow to me. I was such a normal Chinese dish lover, and that sadden me.
It's only after I came to Japan, I then realised there was so much vegetables in the same dish prepared by any Chinese cook in any restaurant. At first I hated it; onion, green pepper, carrot, none were my favourites nor it ever existed in my shopping list. I thought Japan's things are expensive and people try to "cheat" themselves by adding more vegetables to get the balance of volume.
It took quite a while for me to understand why the balance of Japanese cooking. For Japanese, each dish supposed to be on a balanced diet on its own. When Japanese order a sweet and sour pork lunch set, all the balanced diet are focused on that dish, with rice and may be a soup. That's the total balance of its universe.
Whereas for Chinese, the balance comes from a bigger universe; we perhaps have more dishes — 3 to 4 from each different cooking — and it totals up at the end, may be in the stomach. This might not be true if you look into it in more details. But, with sweet and sour pork, I find it interesting to see the differences. Both have the same balanced diet, I think.
Have you realised how you cook your sweet and sour pork? More pork or more vege? Enjoy, anyway!
Now, I am curious how the thinking differences between the two if we look at the way to mix food.
