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Chow Mein: The Australian Classic
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How did chow mein become a uniquely Australian food?
- 16 Comments | Join the discussion
Chow mein in Australia is a monotonal mush that you would cook with the express purpose of annoying the convalescent. It looks terrible and most of the components – rice, cabbage, celery, carrot, onions – are cooked to a nigh on uniform texture. If anything retains the last vestiges of their original consistency then the chow mein requires more boiling. The other key ingredients, a packet of chicken noodle soup, Keen's brand curry powder and light soy sauce, provide the MSG umaminess and salt hit that makes the dish worthwhile. This is not the chow mein that the rest of the world eats but is nonetheless, delicious.
Australian chow mein bears currently no resemblance whatsoever to American or Chinese chow mein. Crispy, deep-fried noodles in a starchy sauce are the dominant elements of both the US and Southern Chinese styles; noodles only appear in the Australian version as a corollary of chicken noodle soup rather than as a main carbohydrate. In the US, chow mein remains available in restaurants where in Australia, it is primarily a home-cooked food.
So how did chow mein become a uniquely Australian food that is also of Asian origin, like the Australian dim sim or Chiko rolls?
My original theory was that chow mein in Australia was like chop suey – a dish that was imported with Chinese and American miners (from America, where it was popularised) some time during the late 1880s and early 1890s - but survived in Australia where chop suey failed. Writing in The Argus on 21 September 1929, John Owen writes of a mythical visitor to Melbourne "down from the country for a week’s holiday, and determined in that week to see the best that the city has to offer". Amongst the restaurant recommendations, Owen suggests:
The next two nights he spends paying visits to some of the Chinese and Continental restaurants in the neighbourhood of Russell and Bourke Streets. Here, for a small sum, he procures strange Chinese foods, probably choosing one of the two well known dishes, chicken chop suey or chicken chow mein
It appears that by the late 1920s, chow mein was a well established dish in Australia; that it was mentioned in the same breath as chop suey suggests that it was held in equal esteem and possibly, the only other well known Chinese dish in Australia. At some point in the 1940-1950s, Chinese restaurants in Australia stopped cooking chop suey and chow mein. Today it is a very rare restaurant that serves either or both as a part of their menu but chow mein has lived on in Australian home kitchens.
My only theory is that chow mein was reintroduced in Australia with the Margaret Fulton-spurred wave of Chinese home cooking in Australia in the late 1950s and 1960s. Possibly, the addition of chicken noodle soup happened as a suggestion by a chicken noodle soup manufacturer (the brand Continental manufactures a "Chow Mein Mince" recipe base in Australia and New Zealand) or as a recipe in a popular women's magazine. The mix of mirepoix and cheap cabbage, mince and packet food smells like vintage Women's Weekly.
Does anyone have a less apocryphal Australian chow mein history?
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Comments (16)
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07 Jan 2010 16:52 AEST
From:
Kai si min
My mother used to cook something similar in the 60s - Kai si min - it was from the sunbeam mix master cookbook - i think. It was basically mince cabbage and soy sauce boiled up to mush. - yuk. This was my first taste of chinese food - I was not convinced to try anything Asian again until the 80s.
10 Dec 2009 9:36 AEST
From:
Chow Mein or Chop Suey?
We had something similar to this as a regular staple in our home growing up in Oz. It also had minced beef in it. My pommy grandmother introduced us to it but she called it Chop Suey. I absolutely loved it and still do. I still make it to this day. A great winter warmer.
02 Dec 2009 2:27 AEST
From:
Great Aussie Food!!!
Delicious...easy to cook......adaptable...can taste slightly different each time you make it...nutritious...economical! Indonesian sweet soy sauce is perfect with it... a great Aussie dish!!!
23 Nov 2009 17:35 AEST
From:
Where did it come from?
After considering the comments on the blog, I have to wonder if the idea has sprung from the recipe ideas leaflet / cookbooks that have been supplied with the ever so popular Electric Frypans. The phenomenom of the "one pan" dinner was rife through that era. Just about every kitchen had an Electric Frypan. Most "Would be if they could be mother chefs" were trying one dish or another. Daring to be different, than the regular meat and three vegs.
22 Nov 2009 18:49 AEST
From:
Chow Mein "A Classic Aussie".LOL!
I am totally amazed by this article on Chow Mein. Never heard of such a disgustingly described Frankenstein dish. You?ve not only corrupted and ruined a very nice Chinese original, you also have the gall to label it ?A Classic Aussie? I beg your pardon, me thinks you?re deluded, given in to your imaginations cause it ain?t NO classic Aussie in any way shape or form. In fact it looks like some sort of Slavic concoction and if you are of Slavic ethnicity that is probably the dishes origin. Chow Mein is available in every Chinese restaurant in Perth; in fact the whole of WA and it is served with crispy vegetables and your choice of either soft or crispy noodles.....no rice or curry powder in it. It is also served in the same manner in Little Burke Street in Melbourne where I have also eaten it. ?Classic Aussie? my bottom!! Who writes such utter rubbish?
21 Nov 2009 16:19 AEST
From:
Different!
I remember visiting our next door neighbour when I was in my teens, smelling the odours from the kitchen. Coming from an English background our meals were fairly bland. They were Italian Aussies, 5 kids, one wage. The smell of the curry was delicious, but when I saw the concoction the same as above I had to ask.. what on earth is that? It looked somewhat like a pile of vomit, I was asked to sample...I was wary...but low and behold it actually tasted quite delicous. My family never did make it.
21 Nov 2009 11:34 AEST
From:
Chow Mein Saga
I've never heard of this version of Chow Mein. In WA it is always lovely crisp vegies with a choice of meat and soft or crispy NOODLES and is still readily available - as a delicious dish should. This version must be an East Coast thing. Must say it looks and sounds disgusting.
20 Nov 2009 11:50 AEST
From:
Father's favourite
My father, who died in 1994 at age 87, loved his food, and was an innovative cook. He grew up in a poor family during the Depression. In later life, he made up for that period by sparing no expense on raw ingredients and was always open to the newest product. Sliced bread, bread rolls, garlic, olive oil - embraced enthusiastically! As was real Chinese food discovered in Sydney's Chinatown. He cooked chow mien from our home-grown vegetables and his home made noodles! In 1956! My food hero.
19 Nov 2009 23:11 AEST
From:
Chow Mien or Chow Fan?
Chow mien in Chinese is "fried noodles" - NO rice Chow fan is "fried rice" In China I often ate chow mien from the little street stall that would appear right at dinner time on the corner. The man (I affectionately called him "noodle man") would fry noodles with some meat and vegetables tossing in some MSG to keep me coming back! And I did! Absolutely delicious! The chow mien described about sounds disgusting!!
19 Nov 2009 19:14 AEST
From:
Chow Mein???
My memory of Chow Mein never looked like the revolting pictureabove, it had nice crispy vegetables in a rather bland sauce, never curry flavoured, hence the addition of soy sauce and was served either with soft or crispy noodles
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A blog about what the world eats, when and where it eats it, and why it matters to us all. Only much less ambitious than that sounds and with more excruciating puns.
Phil Lees grew up in rural Victoria, the first generation in his family to not have lived on the farm and thereby not slaughter their own meat.
In 2005 he moved to Cambodia and started the nation’s first food blog, Phnomenon.com, named after the best pun that he has ever made. It turns out that Cambodian food is delicious and unlike the warnings in most guidebooks, is not likely to kill you with any immediacy. Gridskipper called him a “national treasure”. Lonely Planet’s Greater Mekong guide called him “the unofficial pimp of Cambodian cuisine”. The New York Times laughed at a funny hotdog he saw.
Phil makes a mean sausage, a hoppy pale ale, a modest laksa. He owns three barbecues and is in the market for a fourth.
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