Posted by Ilene on February 4, 2004, at 17:19:51
In reply to Re: MAOI diet and Chinese restaurants--any advice? » gardenergirl » cubbybear, posted by sb417 on February 4, 2004, at 11:37:06
>Printing a card is a good idea, but will the cooks read it? Can they read? Will they understand it? The kitchen may be filled with knowledgeable people, or they may be overworked, lowly paid illegal aliens who can't speak a word of English. If they speak Chinese, how do you know which dialect to use?
All Chinese languages and dialects are written the same way because the Chinese script is symbolic, not alphabetic. To express the word "fish", instead of writing F-I-S-H or P-O-I-S-S-O-N or F-I-S-C-H (English, French, and German words that all mean "fish"), the Chinese write an ideogram (sort of a picture) that means fish. It's like using the Christian fish symbol instead of writing the word.
Now we just need someone who is can compose a card in Chinese.
Remember, it's not only soy sauce--Chinese food also uses oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, black bean sauce, plum sauce, and dried shrimp. I'm almost positive black bean sauce is verboten, but the others might or might not be okay. Then there are other Asian cuisines, which use flavorings such as fish sauce.
Ilene
poster:Ilene
thread:309075
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040204/msgs/309439.html