Posting another “fried rice” as is again!
Shanghai Veggie Rice 上海菜饭, only salt and white pepper as seasoning. Not even scallions this time! (This is the traditional way of doing it. Look it up, I dare you)
This time, it’s even a little mushy!
So enjoy this on your feed! I’ll be prepping another one next week!
I do like Uncle Roger’s recipe and his comments on other people making fried rice. But in general I don’t like gatekeeping. I try to follow “don’t yuck someone else’s yum”. The most important thing is that you enjoy your fried rice, fuck the haters.
I get it. One controversial rule that I do follow is “no msg”. It’s one of the few things that might drive people crazy. Especially Uncle Roger.
Back in the early 2000s there was a government (not sure if regional or national) campaign in China that pushed for reducing MSG consumption based on health research at the time. While I’m not sure how many households actually listened, ours did - no MSG in anything homemade + avoid eating out whenever possible.
These days, it seems like the MSG health debate has shifted in the opposite direction. I still avoid it whenever possible cause (1) a lot of times people add MSG to sub for ingredients that add umami and it’s easier to add the actual stuff (dried scallops, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, sugar, etc) and (2) suppose someone says high fructose corn syrup is safe to eat in large quantities tomorrow, are you willing to make the switch? I’m pretty sure most people would still be hesitant.
So things would probably taste better with MSG, but I just prefer to personally avoid it. That being said, if guests would prefer to add it, they are free to do so themselves.
That push happened in the US too around the same time, but it only focused on Chinese food. News outlets made a big fuss about it, yet rarely if ever pointed out how widely MSG was used in the US outside of Chinese food.
The claim was that MSG caused headaches based on research from the 70s and 80s, which has had mixed results in studies throughout the years and now has no strong link IIRC.
Either way its usage is personal preference, like any other spice or cooking method, and I wholeheartedly agree with your first point about subbing msg.
Yeah, it turns out that racism causes headaches. There is more MSG in a can of Campbell’s soup than an entire vat of Chinese cooking.
Yeah, I also avoid MSG because I think it makes everything taste the same.
Messaging while eating? No way!
For the uncultured swines like me:
i’d already been really sick of that “everyone’s so creative” cooking content for a while, because it’s mostly just bullying, but uncle roger put me off him for good when he ballbusted a 12 year old for using a bench scraper. you know, the extremely common tool that every youtube cook uses in every single video.
Uncle Roger is comedy, he’s not actually going after anyone. Like Lionfield, who do this for Italian food. I don’t like culinary gatekeeping, but I can still see their content for what it is intended to be.
Racist AF?