LightSnake posted...
Hey, Spaghetti and Meatballs coexists with risotto just fine. Like I said, American Chinese food was made by Chinese immigrants in the US, same as a ton of other foods.
Italian food gets to be a bit more bizarre because spaghetti carbonara is generally considered an "authentic Italian dish" yet it wasn't really invented until World War 2, largely to feed American GIs because American occupation forces had large quantities of bacon and eggs. So an 'authentic' Italian dish like spaghetti carbonara is actually *newer* than Italian-American food like chicken parmesan, which is a whole layer of irony in itself.
American Chinese food tends to vary when it comes to being different from stuff eaten in China and Taiwan. Some stuff (i.e. hot and sour soup) is virtually the same thing, some stuff (i.e. sweet and sour chicken) is not that similar, and some stuff (i.e. kung pao chicken) really is just a sweeter, less spicy version of a dish eaten in China, likely modified to fit white people's palettes. I don't think it makes the food any less Chinese - in fact, it's a testament to the resilience and hard work of Chinese immigrants - and, speaking about my own culture here...changing what you do in order to adapt to other people's tastes so that you can take their money is a pretty damn Chinese thing to do.