Most of the following entries represent Mandarin (M) or Cantonese (C) pronunciation, or both, with Mandarin followed by Cantonese romanizations. See also “A Note on Romanization and Terminology.”
Bao Bing (M): Thin crepe-like pancakes that diners roll around mu xi pork, slices of Peking duck skin, or other fillings.
Baozi (M): Also “pao-tzu” and other romanizations. Filled yeast-raised buns, usually cooked by steaming.
Cai (M): 1. Green vegetables as a class; 2. Cuisine or cooking in general; 3. Dishes served to accompany rice or another starch at a meal (see fan and sung). In the first two senses, the Cantonese equivalent is choy.
Cha Shao (M), Cha Siu (C): A special roasting technique for pork (or poultry) hung on prongs or hooks in a vertically oriented oven, often mistranslated as “barbecuing.”
Chao (M), Chau (C): Stir-frying. The word “chow” in early English-language newspaper accounts may have been confusedly picked up from Cantonese “chau.”
Chao Fen (M), Chau Fun (C): Stir-fried broad rice noodles.
Chao Mian (M), Chau Min (C): Stir-fried wheat noodles or “chow mein.”
Chao Za Sui (M), Chau Tsap Sui (C): Literally, stir-fried mixed fragments. The early romanization “chow chop suey” was the basis of the garbled English term “chop suey.”
Chi You (M), Si Yau (C): Soy sauce.
Cohong: From Cantonese gung hong, the consortium of Guangzhou merchants that functioned as a cartel controlling the movement of imports and exports under the eighteenth-century “Canton system.”
Da Shi Fu (M), Daai Si Fu (C): A classically trained “grandmaster” chef.
Dao (M), Dou (C): Knife (specifically, the cleaver-shaped Chinese kitchen knife).
Dian Xin (M), Dim Sum (C): Cantonese-style dim sum or the Northern Chinese counterpart.
Dong Xian Cai or Dong Han Cai (M): A variety of mallow (Malva verticillata), once well known as a leafy vegetable.
Dou Ban Jiang (M), Tau Ban Jeung (C): Fermented bean paste, used as a seasoning. The best-known versions are based on fava beans and chili peppers and come from Sichuan Province.
Fan (M), Faan (C): Cooked rice or other grain-based food, the defining principle of any proper meal. Non-rice dishes (cai or sung) that accompany fan are understood as ancillary factors.
Fu Rong (M), Fu Yung (C): Originally a name for the white hibiscus or lotus flower; a dish of eggs (or sometimes egg whites) stir-fried to a lightly scrambled consistency with small amounts of any desired meat, shellfish, or vegetable. In chop suey–era Cantonese American restaurants it became a heavy, thick omelet studded with a medley of meats and vegetables and served with a brown gravy.
Gong Si (M), Gung Si (C): Business, company, corporation.
Guangdong: Canton Province.
Guangzhou: Canton City.
Guanxi (M), Gwaanhaih (C): Network of connections and relationships.
Hakka: A Han Chinese people widely dispersed throughout China and Southeast Asia.
Han Ren (M): Chinese person or people.
Hanjian (M): Traitor.
He Ye Juan (M): Lotus leaf bun; a small yeast bun with two folded lobes for “sandwiching” a filling.
Hokkien: Fujian Province, as pronounced in the southern Min or Hokkienese language. Colonies of Hokkienese people became widely dispersed throughout Southeast Asia in early modern times.
Hong Shao (M), Hung Siu (C): “Red cooking,” a form of braising named for the deep color imparted by soy sauce; it is especially identified with the cuisines of the Lower Yangzi River basin east of Nanjing.
Hua Gong (M): Literally, “Chinese labor,” the class of manual workers who left China (chiefly Guangdong) in search of work during the late nineteenth century.
Hua Shang (M): Literally, “Chinese commerce,” the class of merchants, traders, and brokers who generally directed the flow of goods and people leaving China in the late nineteenth century.
Hui (M), Wuih (C): 1. A meeting, association, committee, or other group organized for a common purpose; 2. A cooking technique in which a few complementary ingredients briefly “meet” in a pan.
Huiguan (M), Wuihgun (C): An association of people from the same home village or district.
Huo (M), Wok (C): The basic all-purpose Chinese cooking pan.
Huo Qi (M), Wok Hei (C): Literally, the “air” or “life force” of the pan, a complex effect slightly resembling smokiness that results from skillful restaurant stir-frying.
Ji Za (M), Gai Tsap (C): Literally, “chicken miscellany,” a stir-fry dish of assorted chicken innards.
Jiangnan: The general region to the south of the Lower Yangzi, encompassing the important culinary centers of Nanjing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuxi, and Suzhou.
Jiaozi or Kau-Tsi (M): Small filled dumplings.
Jin Shan (M), Gum Saan (C): “Gold Mountain,” the usual Chinese name for California and later the American Pacific Coast regions during (and for a time after) the Gold Rush.
Jin Shan Zhuang (M), Gum Saan Jong (C): Exporting–importing businesses that dispatched Chinese goods (including cooking ingredients and equipment) from Hong Kong to North America from Gold Rush times on.
La (M): Hot in the sense of pungently spiced.
La Chang (M), Lap Cheung (C): Small, dry-textured cured pork sausages.
Liang Mian Huang (M), Leung Min Wong (C): “Two Sides Brown” or “Two Sides Yellow,” fine, cooked egg noodles pressed into a pillow-like shape and lightly crisped on both sides before being served with a stir-fried topping.
Lu (M): Cooking in a “master sauce,” or intensely deep-flavored sauce or gravy in which poultry or meat is slowly poached. The cooking liquid is saved for poaching another bird or piece of meat, becoming richer with each use. The technique is sometimes called “flavor-potting.”
Luo Mian (M), Lou Min (C): Stir-fried noodles very quickly, thoroughly tossed and mixed with other ingredients; usually romanized as “lo mein.”
Mantou (M): Steamed wheat-flour buns or mini loaves.
Mei Zai (M), Mui Tsai (C): Bondwomen, sold as young girls into domestic service as maids of all work.
Mian (M), Min (C): Wheat flour, also wheat-flour noodles.
Momingqimiao (M): Baffling conundrum or puzzle.
Mu Xi Rou or Mu Xu Rou (M): A stir-fried pork dish, one of the earliest Northern Chinese dishes to catch on in the United States.
Nan (M): South, southern.
Nanyang (M): Literally, “Southern Ocean,” a collective name for all the regions of Southeast Asia in which Han Chinese from the mainland settled, worked, and traded.
Pi Dan (M), Pay Daan (C): “Thousand-year” or “hundred-year” eggs, preserved by curing for several weeks or months in an alkaline mixture.
Pinyin (M): The official transliteration system for putonghua, adopted by the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s.
Putonghua (M): Literally, “common speech”; the standard spoken language of the People’s Republic, principally based on the speech of Beijing. It is roughly synonymous with the inexact older English term “Mandarin.”
Qiao (M), Kiuh (C): To sojourn or travel overseas from China; overseas sojourner.
Qing (M): Clear or pure; a term used to distinguish cooking methods that result in especially light, transparent effects. It is also the name of the last imperial dynasty to rule China.
San He Hui (M), Saam Hahp Wuih (C): Triads; secret societies derived from underground leagues seeking the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in nineteenth-century Guangdong.
San Yi (M), Sam Yup (C): The comparatively wealthy Cantonese “Three Counties” or “Three Districts” of Nanhai, Panyu, and Shunde, lying close to Guangzhou; see Si Yi.
Shang Tang (M), Seung Tong (C): “Superior” or “first-class broth,” soup stock prepared with particular care and refinement.
Shao (M), Siu (C): Cooking technique generally corresponding to braising, though in a few specialized cases it may refer to oven-roasting or other methods.
Si Yi (M), Sze Yup (C): The relatively poor rural Cantonese “Four Counties” or “Four Districts” of Xinhui, Enping, Kaiping, and Xinning (this last later renamed Taishan or Toisan), some distance west of Guangzhou on the opposite side of the Pearl River; see San Yi. Bitter Sze Yup–Sam Yup rivalries were a shaping force of the Chinese American community for several generations.
Suan Mei Jiang (M), Syun Mui Jeung (C): A jam-like condiment made from a Far Eastern relative of the apricot, the original of the sweeter and blander “duck sauce” or “plum sauce” that became ubiquitous in many Cantonese American restaurants.
Sung (C): Vegetable or meat dishes meant to be served at a meal with cooked rice, roughly corresponding to Mandarin cai.
Tang (M), Tong (C): Derived from a word for “hall”; originally, any sort of association. In American cities the term came to be applied to secret societies involved in organized crime, overlapping with the activities of the san he hui or triads.
Tong Yan (C): Chinese person or people. “Tong” here refers to the Tang dynasty, under which the southern provinces were lastingly absorbed into a unified China. The more usual Mandarin term is “han ren.”
Tong Yan Gai (C): Literally, “street of Chinese people”; the most common Cantonese name for any overseas Chinatown.
Wei Jing (M), Mei Jing (C): Monosodium glutamate.
Wo Mian (M), Wor Min (C): “Nested noodles,” a Cantonese soup-noodle dish.
Xia Fan (M), Hah Faan (C): An expression for the non-fan components of a meal that “make the rice go down” more palatably.
Xian (M), Sin (C): County or administrative district.
Xiang Banfa (M), Seung Bahnfat (C): To improvise a stratagem or come up with a plan of action.
Yi Ge Mian (M), Yat Goh Min (C): “One order of noodles,” popularly anglicized as “yat ca mein,” “ya gaw mein,” or “yaka mein,” together with a miscellany of abbreviated local U.S. names such as “yat,” “yok,” or “yock.” A simple Cantonese soup-noodle dish that was adopted by non-Chinese in New Orleans, Baltimore, and several other North American cities as a folk hangover remedy. The classic New Orleans name is “Old Sober.”
Yu Sheng, Yue Sang (C): An elaborate dish of raw fish tossed with seasonings, often served at Chinese New Year.
Za Sui (M), Tsap Sui (C): Mixed fragments; see chao za sui.
Zha (M), Ja (C): Deep-frying.
Zha Jiang Mian (M), Ja Jeung Min (C): “Fried sauce noodles,” originally from Beijing; noodles tossed in a ragu-like meat sauce of chopped pork and bean sauce or hoisin sauce.
Zheng (M), Jing (C): In cooking, the steaming technique.
Zhonghua (M), Chongwah (C): One of the names for China.
Zhonghua Huiguan (M), Chongwah Wuihgun (C): The San Francisco–founded organization that mounted the principal legal challenges to racist anti-Chinese laws during the Exclusion era.
Zhu Jiang (M), Jyu Gong (C): The Pearl River of southern Guangdong.
Zhu You (M), Jyu Yau (C): “Pearl sauce,” a thick, dark, sweetish sauce much used in making the brown gravies that Americans liked in chop suey–era restaurant cooking.
Zhu Zi Juan (M): Literally, “pigsties,” a common name for the prison barracks in which forcibly impressed Chinese were confined while waiting to be transferred to ships bound for New World guano mines or sugar plantations.