Americans absolutely horrified by what Brits call Chinese takeaway

Americans are throwing tantrums all over social media at what Brits would call a good Chinese takeaway, because apparently people can't eat yummy food without someone telling them they're doing it wrong.

There are few things in life better than a good Chinese, and when you find a quality takeaway near you it's a gamechanger, but if the wonderful place shuts down it's like losing a family member.

TikTok has been abuzz recently with videos of Brits posting their Chinese takeaway orders, often slathered in curry sauce.

This has led to a backlash of Americans making videos, which pretty much all start with them saying they're not here to judge anyone, before proceeding to be very judgemental.

Americans have wondered 'what are you doing' and said they're 'at a loss for words' over the state of Chinese takeaways, especially when we 'smother it in curry sauce'.

TikTok/@soogia1

With the honour of salt and pepper chips in curry sauce on the line, Brits have hit back at this backlash trying to explain to Americans that, despite how it looks, a Chinese takeaway is actually lovely and is really not trying to authentically replicate proper Chinese cuisine.

If you want the proper explanation, in the 1950s and 60s, plenty of Hong Kong Chinese emigrated to Britain and many set up businesses that served food.

We should probably make the distinction here between a restaurant and a takeaway, which are two very different things - with one serving sit-down meals and providing a dining experience, while the other is basically just a kitchen and a counter you can get food from to take away with you.

Twitter/@daxdives

These first Chinese takeaways adapted their cuisine to fit the tastes of their customers, creating a meld between British tastes and Chinese food, which proved to be incredibly popular.

Many of the dishes were certainly not 'authentic' Chinese cuisine, but instead rather food made for Brits that was inspired by Chinese dishes and sauces.

Tastes in the UK have adapted over the years and some of the stuff you can order at a Chinese takeaway is a good deal closer to being authentic than it used to be. However, in that time, the inauthentic dishes became staples of the good old Chinese takeaway and Brits expected to see them on the menus.

I don't know how many people in China are tucking into chicken balls in sweet and sour sauce, but I imagine it's not many, and that does absolutely nothing to diminish their deliciousness.

Twitter/@makeupbyshaniah

While we might be willing to concede the point that chips really can't make any claim to be Chinese, it just makes good economic sense for a UK-based takeaway to offer chips as an option.

While the dining experience has become far more authentic over the years, it's still not a one-to-one recreation of Chinese cuisine and there are plenty of things on the menu that are there because they've proven to be incredibly popular over the years - rather than being Chinese.

Put it this way, places serving 'British' food over in the US have the sort of menus that would bear little resemblance to actual British food.

Ben Molyneux / Alamy Stock Photo

The trick with this sort of thing is not to win over a nation with the 'authentic' depiction of another country's cuisine, but to give your customers the thing they already wanted packaged slightly differently.

Besides, it's not as though the US hasn't seen this exact same thing happen with Chinese food over there (Panda Express, anyone?), or indeed plenty of other cuisines.

This is nothing new, wherever you've got people making a living cooking food, you've got people cooking food that the local customers will like.