Defining ‘authentic’ Chinese cuisine
I have a very sentimental attachment to the Chinese-Canadian food that has seemingly been superseded by ostensibly more authentic Chinese cuisine.
From the mid-1950s to the early 1980s, my father and uncle ran the Marco Polo Tavern Restaurant on Bank Street near
Heron Road, serving the staples of Chinese-Canadian food. All through high school, I packaged egg rolls, put lids on containers of chicken balls and bagged the lot of them for take-out.
When I worked at the Marco Polo, I grew to love Chinese-Canadian dishes, even though as a young boy, my first reaction to our restaurant’s food was to be disappointed that it wasn’t as tasty as my mother’s — authentic — home cooking.
Indeed, my connection to Chinese-Canadian food extends to the paternal grandfather I never knew, who operated the Ontario Café on Rideau Street, where the Rideau Centre is now, during the 1920s and 1930s as far as I can tell.
While many details of my family history are still a mystery to me, I’m pleased that one online listing of Ottawa restaurants in the 1930s yields this: “Ontario Café (Prop. James W. Hum)... 64-66 Rideau Street. Directory indicates ‘Chinese.’ Brief search indicates name and owner. Restaurant principally appears to have served European/Canadian food, with Chinese dishes as feature.”
You can knock sweet and sour pork and garlic spare ribs as outdated and inauthentic if you want. Canadian writer Ann
Hui doesn’t. She came to a fresh understanding after writing her recently released book Chop Suey Nation, which looks back on Chinese-Canadian eateries both in Hui’s family and across the country.
“These are dishes made with local ingredients, made with local palates in mind, made here in Canada that tell this very Canadian story of immigration,” Hui said in an interview with Postmedia News. “To me, it’s as Canadian of a cuisine as anything else — as maple syrup, as poutine, as the peameal bacon sandwich.
“This is Canadian food.”