DARE TO ASK: Chinese food a favorite with blacks?

By PHILLIP MILANO, The Times-Union

Question

It seems that in America, black people are crazy about Chinese food. What are the cultural reasons behind this?

Tom I., white, 34, Paris

Replies

What do you base this weird assumption on?

Sharon, black, Michigan

It's for the same reason Chinese people in America love McDonald's: it is quick, inexpensive and tasty.

Michele, 38, white, Jacksonville

Chinese food is just good as hell!

Nyla, 17, black, New Jersey

Chinese food tastes good to lots of folks. I see many Hispanics whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant.

E.D., 48, black, Missouri

I never ate rice without sugar until I moved up North. My first taste of fried rice hooked me for life. It was bought at the corner rice house, where most African- Americans buy and prefer.

Vivian, 56, black, Houston

We do spend money on good food - that's why we encourage the Greeks, the Japanese and others to bring their cuisines to the ghetto ... they'll get rich! We would love to have other foods in our community, but for the time being, we are fighting just to get grocery stores.

Diane, black, Charlotte, N.C.

Expert says

Tom is on the right track. Once we found a strange, brown folded cookie wafer lying on the ground. We cracked it open, and inside, oddly enough, was a thin strip of paper with a message on it: "Trust your intuition. The universe is guiding your life. And remember, don't tell white people how off the chain this Chinese food is."

Truth is, of course, that eating preferences vary just as much among African-Americans as any other group, says Eric J. Bailey, professor of medical anthropology at East Carolina University and author of Food Choice and Obesity in Black America.

That said, as major cities developed in the United States, various ethnic groups did find themselves in proximity to one another, among them Chinese and black people. That led to mixing and matching of cuisines, Bailey said. And consider Chinese food's similarity to soul food: basic food products that are altered with extra sauces to be made sweet or spicy.

"Soul food was developed that way, too. By adding sauces to stuff that was bland, it began a pattern of modifying food. Slaves had to find a way to use the remnants left behind by their owners. You try to make whatever is available usable and tasteful for the palate. You experiment ... when you're given scraps, you're going to try to make it nice for everyone."

And like soul food, Chinese food, with its fresh ingredients like vegetables and some meat sauteed in for good measure, can and should be changed to make it better for the body.

"We can still adhere to the pattern, but we can use sodium substitutes or find other ways to affect things like the amount of cholesterol," he said. "We can maintain the feel, but make it healthier."

Phillip Milano, author of I Can't Believe You Asked That! (Perigee), moderates cross-cultural dialogue at Y? The National Forum on People's Differences. Visit www.yforum.com to submit questions and answers.