Talk:Suanla chaoshou

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Are there any sources to support the main entry (cookbooks, recipes, links to discussion on some Asian cooking site, etc.)? Net searches seem to turn up only the Mary Chung version of this dish, and not the one that is given as the main definition. If both versions do exist, it would be nice to have some explanation like whether they are from different regions of China, whether there are other differences, etc.

I have had the "real" thing, so I can vouch that it does exist. In fact, the restaurant across the street from Mary's, Pu Pu Hot Pot, has an authentic version. Rlove 23:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

What makes the peanut version "authentic"? I've been eating both of these regularly for over 26 years.

Contents 1 From China? 2 From China? Ask a chef... 3 Crossed hands? 4 Pictures added

[edit] From China?

There aren't many more than 100 Google hits for this, using the Chinese characters. This isn't a real traditional Chinese dish, correct? Badagnani 23:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] From China? Ask a chef...

Insofar as chaoshou are "real" Chinese dumplings (dialect) and hot&sour is a "traditional" Chinese way of preparing some types of foods, I think the answer would be "yes". But if you really want to know, ask the chef at the Hotel Kunlun, in Chongqing. "In addition to preparing authentic chaoshou, chef Deng Wandi can also discuss its origins and the unique features of this dish."

http://www.btmbeijing.com/contents/en/btm/2005-08/diningguide/tastechongqing

[N.B. Beijing This Month magazine deleted the entire August 2005 issue; website now skips from Jul-Sep. Plug the quote in to Google and use cache to read the article. Suanla 21:27, 15 November 2007 (UTC) ] I can't read Chinese, but the characters for "suan la" match "hot&sour" from a local menu. Perhaps "chaoshou" was translated literally instead of writing "hundun" or "wonton" or whatever, and that's caused your low hit-count? Suanla 22:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crossed hands?

This would be very odd. InfernoXV 19:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoever put in the Chinese characters used the character for the word "hand" as the final one, so that matches (enter "hand" at www.zhongwen.com to see the character). I can't match the 3rd character with "cross", or "fold". But then again I'm illiterate. Could you say more specifically what you mean by "would be very odd"? Such a name for a dish seems no less unusual than, say, "Ants Climbing a Tree"... Suanla 09:29, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The third character means to fry. I've never seen it meaning 'cross' or 'fold'. InfernoXV 16:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Now that actually kind of seems odd, because nothing in the dish is fried! Because of this anomaly, plus the fact that the final character does seem to translate to "hand", plus the desire for *some* independent, published confirmation of where this random word came from, I undid your most recent deletion of "nonsense". Although "River Town" was published as non-fiction, I'm not sure it rises to the level of a citation -- but to delete it, rather than inserting text casting some sort of reasoned aspersions on its authenticity, seems like a mistake. If it's "true folklore", then it's useful. If it's false folklore -- despite being published -- then it would be nice to have a Chinese chef to discount it and explain the word's origin and why the Szechuanese don't just use "hundun" or "wonton" in this dish, as they do for others. Suanla 08:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, but 'chaoshou' is just the common name for it almost everywhere else outside of Canton. I apologise for having been heavy-handed, but 'chaoshou' simply cannot translate as 'crossed hands'. InfernoXV 17:44, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, toward that end perhaps we could "dis-authenticate" the word "hand". I only know how to lookup in the "forward" direction; maybe that 4th character back-translates to something(s) more appropriate after the word "fry"? (Of course this relies on the characters being correct.) Suanla 21:23, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Whoops. I checked the dictionary, and chaoshou seems to be only used when referring to wontons in a sichuan context. It's probably a location-specific name, and when prepared in sichuan style, even outside of sichuan, the wontons retain the sichuan name.

On the other hand, things get murkier upon checking chinese wiki and baidu. *I* remember the word being written as 炒手, but chinese wiki lists it as 抄手. 抄 means to copy, duplicate or even plagiarise. google reveals both being used on the net for the food item. 酸辣炒手 gives 223,000 hits, while 酸辣抄手 gives 75,000. 炒手 gives 2,950,000 hits (not all relevant, as it 炒手 can mean several things), yet 抄手 gives 367,000 which are nearly all about some form or other of the wontons. It thus seems that both 炒手 and 抄手 are in use. Perhaps 抄手 is a Sichuan dialect form? My head is starting to hurt. I think I shall have a dish of them tonight, whatever they're called! InfernoXV 05:28, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Found a citation! It uses the characters you mention 抄手, and even has a literalization as "folded hands". ("The Eater's Guide to Chinese Characters"; James D. McCawley; University of Chicago Press, 1984; p.118 & p.220). So I'll make a big edit, including substituting "Szechuan-style" as the adjective over your original edit "Large" wontons -- because that's the essence of what you said above. But before I go off the deep end, could you teach me the reason for editing the pinyin from 4 words into 2? (I.e: Revision as of 19:24, 16 October 2007 (edit) InfernoXV (moved Suan La Chow Show to Suanla chaoshou: proper pinyin) Suanla (talk) 21:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

It's gotten murkier still. A native of Sichuan assures me that it's called 'chaoshou' because it'd be 'shouchao' in standard Chinese, meaning hand-folded, but apparently it's common in Sichuan dialect to reverse word order, giving 'chaoshou'. I'd ask to keep 'large', because the wontons made in Sichuan are larger than those in the rest of the country. Pinyin follows certain rules about the division of syllables - usually words that are of the same grammatical unit, such as 'suanla' meaning 'sour-spicy', will be written together, hence 'China Development Bank' is not 'Zhong Guo Kai Fa Yin Hang' but 'Zhongguo Kaifa Yinhang'. The correct division depends on some knowledge of Chinese, alas. InfernoXV (talk) 13:37, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

(1) Then both explanations (hand-folded and crossed-points) should go into the entry until one of them is somehow proven apocryphal. (2) Can I convince you that "Large" is just one attribute of the multi-attribute "Szechuan-style"? Yes, large is concretely descriptive, and Szechaun-style could mean many things. But in fact it does: what makes these dumplings (and the words!) unique is the very thing we've been talking about: their Szechuan origins. (3) I'll just leave the pinyin alone. But your pinyin example didn't help me, because the English result of China Dev. Bank is also 3 words (3 concepts, regardless of language). My references (one menu, one "dictionary") both separated out the 4 words. But the menu might be intentionally made for kindergarten pronunciation, and the dictionary might intentionally be trying to chop words so each character is understood. Alas, I have seen both "suan la tang" and "suanla tang" written. Doesn't it hinge on whether (to a Chinese chef) sour-hot is a single well-known spice style, or whether making something sour, and then making it hot, are recognized separately? Suanla (talk) 03:46, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures added

I uploaded some (low-styling) pictures. The Mary Chung's version is the one shown on the page, just because the wontons are visible instead of all the coverings in the PuPu Hot Pot version. However, if someone knows how to get multiple pictures into the pre-programmed frame, be my guest: in addition to Image:SuanMary.JPG , I uploaded Image:SuanPuPu.JPG Suanla (talk) 00:01, 1 March 2008 (UTC)