When we were kids, our exposure to foreign cuisine came from the grocery store. Pizza came in boxes with doughy crusts, sweet tomato sauce in a packet, and desiccated cheese. And Chinese food came in a can. And to this day, I can still hear the jingle “La Choy makes Chinese food…. swing American!”
We got these things, along with Rice-a-Roni, sometimes, and they were always a treat. A break from the Hamburger Helper that was the staple. My sainted mother was many things, but a cook she was not.
As my beautiful wife is traveling this week for business, I picked up a can (well, a package of two cans taped together). But instead of going with the chow mein, which is probably we got annually or twice every three years, I went with the sweet and sour chicken.
And…. bleh.
Decades later, I have a more sophisticated palate, having eaten a variety of different cuisines at various levels of competency. But there are definite limits in what you can put into a can, and this is it.
Although perhaps I didn’t do it right–I didn’t rinse the vegetables enough, and I absolutely messed up the rice by thinking the 1/2 cup scoop was 1 cup (leading to some very wet rice).
Maybe I’ll try again with the chow mein. And add a little red pepper to it. Maybe beef instead of chicken.
But, man, the 1970s. We lived there. It was different.
