Three Examples of Unintententional Fusion In China

Sometimes, national cuisines can be more similar than what one might think. For example, take Italian and Chinese food. The obvious bleed over between culture comes by way of meatballs and noodles. Contrary to legend, Marco Polo didn't bring pasta back from China. Pasta arose in Italy before Polo even stepped foot into the Middle Kingdom. That said, China still created the concept of noodles first. There is no arguing that. So, I once went out seeing if I could find an example of "unintended fusion." By that, I mean a naturally occurring Chinese food that Italians and Italian-Americans (me!) might love. So, upon my first search, I basically found something that mixes noodles with tomatoes. 

The first one is perhaps the easiest thing to find in all of China. This is 刀削面  Dāoxiāomiàn. This is one of the most common Lanzhou Chinese Halal dishes there is. Lanzhou beef noodles are popular and easy to find. Every Lanzhou noodle joint will have this dish. It's basically hand shaved noodles with beef in a rich tomato flavored base. The broth actually reminded me a little of minestrone. Just like any  other type of cuisine, not all restaurants the same. Plus, a fundamental rule of soup applies here -- the more watery and thin the broth, the more likely the soup is going to be a failure. 

If we stay with Lanzhou soups for a moment, there is this  牛肉烩饺 Niúròu huì jiǎo. That sort of translates as "beef braised dumplings." The idea of a noodle encasing a filling is not unique to China. In Poland and Eastern Europe, something like a dumpling would be called in perogie. In Italy, that would be a ravioli. Ravolis do not always have to have cheese inside of them. In fact, beef filled ravolis are very common -- just like beef filled tortellini are common. This soup shares the same broth as shaved noodles. However, I have not seen this at every Lanzhou place I have been to, and trust me, I do look for it. 

This is a dish at Hefu Noodle, a chain that tries to do Jiangsu cuisine approaches to noodles. Southern Jiangsu does not really do spice all that much. In fact, Wuxi, Suzhou, and Changzhou are know for sweetness. Thankfully, this is not a sweet dish. It's  慢烤番茄牛肉面 Màn kǎo fānqié niúròu miàn. The base broth is made from roasted tomatoes. The above photo had something that tasted a little like beef brisket in terms of texture. Hefu has since altered its menu. This is gone, but there is something very similar that tastes like spare ribs. That is OK, because my mom used to put ribs into her tomato sauce every Christmas.

So, there are three examples of "unintentional fusion." The word fusion here might be slightly incorrect. Whoever created these dishes never said, "You know what, let's mix Chinese with Italian food." These dishes naturally evolved by themselves. Still, that doesn't change the fact that people who love Italian food would probably like these dishes.