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The Dilemma: You find yourself at a Chinese restaurant craving cylindrical food. But of which variety?
Who You Can Impress: All the folks down at Hunan Garden. No longer do you need to hang your head in shame!
The Quick Trick: If it’s got a shell like a deep fried tortilla, it’s probably an egg roll. And if you’re thinking that deep frying tortillas is awfully American for Chinese food, you’re onto something.
The Reason: The main gustatory difference between a spring roll and its egg cousin is that spring rolls have thin, often translucent flour wrappers and usually aren’t fried, while egg rolls have thicker, deep-fried wrappings. Also, spring rolls in America are often filled with carrots and bamboo, while egg rolls are more likely to be filled with meat and bean shoots. Oh, and one other difference: Spring rolls are Chinese; egg rolls probably aren’t.
In fact, Chinese cuisine in America is so vastly different from Chinese cuisine in China that many American Chinese restaurants advertise, beneath their English names, the words “Westernized Food” in Chinese.
In the 19th century, the primary audience for Chinese food was railroad workers, a group of people not widely known for their sophisticated palates. Chinese restaurateurs sought to accommodate both Chinese immigrants working the rails and their white coworkers—and in doing so created “fusion cuisine” long before it was hip. While some argue that egg rolls existed in China prior to their appearance in America, many food scholars believe that the egg roll is an American original. Besides the legendary roll, there are many staples of American Chinese food you’ll rarely if ever see in China: fried rice, crab Rangoon, chow mein, sweet and sour pork, and General Tso’s chicken. Also, fortune cookies (see sidebar). What do all these meals have in common? Frying, which is a staple of American Chinese food but somewhat less important in authentic Chinese cuisine.
As for the spring roll, though, around the late 1980s, Americans began to turn against the very Chinese food they’d helped to invent. No longer could we afford to eat deep-fried, high-sodium foods slathered in MSG. And so more authentic Chinese restaurants started popping up, and with them came the reemergence of the light and healthy spring roll. American Chinese cuisine still dominates the market in small towns, but the number of authentic restaurants grows every year.
HOW THE FORTUNE COOKIE CRUMBLES
Unlike the spring roll, the fortune cookie is not Chinese. And unlike the egg roll, fortune cookies aren’t Chinese-American, either. They’re actually Japanese-American. Makato Hagiwara, who designed (and for many years lived in) the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, invented the fortune cookie in the early 20th century. He intended the cookie to be a snack for people walking through the tea garden, but the concept became so popular that Chinese restaurants in San Francisco’s Chinatown stole the idea. Soon, the cookies were ubiquitous. Sadly, Hagiwara himself ended up suffering from bad fortune: In 1942, he and his family were evicted from the Tea Garden and sent, along with thousands of other Japanese-Americans, to live in internment camps.
Still confused? Find more answers to life’s persistent questions in What’s the Difference?, a mental_floss book edited by John Green.
Comments (15)
Comment
It’s easy to tell the difference. Egg rolls are fried and delicious. Spring rolls are healthy and taste bad.
posted by Rhea on 3-26-2007 at 12:24 pm
Don’t forget that Chop Suey is a totally made up term for a dish invented in the US.
posted by erak on 3-26-2007 at 12:46 pm
@ Rhea
I guess it depends on where you get them. I usually don’t like egg rolls (too greasy, bad dipping sauce) and have had some really good spring rolls (flavorful filling, good dipping sauce). Try the spring rolls at a GOOD Vietnamese restaurant some time. I bet you’ll change your mind. BTW I’m Chinese-American too.
posted by Michelle on 3-26-2007 at 1:06 pm
This article can be really confusing.
From my experience, egg rolls are the pseudo-Chinese deep-fried rolls that are rectangular and flattened at the ends; spring rolls are the legitimately Vietnamese deep fried rolls that are like short cigars. And both terms don’t depend on the contents of the rolls (though there are “traditional” recipes, and the like.)
Salad rolls are the common term applied to the non-fried rolls, which are Vietnamese in origin. (And also a prepared foodstuff found in that respective country.) And they are healthy AND delicious, mmmm.
posted by L on 3-26-2007 at 1:06 pm
Actually, both fried rice and sweet and sour pork are common (and authentic) foods in China. The sweet and sour pork is almost identical to the version in the States (it’s called tangsu liji, if you’re ever looking for it over in the Middle Kingdom). Fried rice usually doesn’t feature as much soy sauce as it does in the US, but it definitely makes an appearance on many menus as chaofan. The best variety, in my opinion, is Yangzhou chaofan, which, strangely enough, is most often found at Korean bbq joints in China.
posted by Ali on 3-26-2007 at 1:20 pm
“spring rolls have thin, often translucent flour wrappers and usually aren’t fried”
You are confusing spring rolls with summer rolls. Summer
Since links aren’t allowed here, I suggest looking both up on wikipedia.
posted by CB on 3-26-2007 at 5:05 pm
My Fav of all are the Vietnamese Imperial Egg Rolls that are pork,rice glass noodles, mushrooms,carrots,cabbage wrapped in a thin rice sheet,fried and served with leaves of lettuce,cilantro & fish based dipping sauce. YUMMY!
posted by CropTillDawn on 3-26-2007 at 9:41 pm
The literal meaning of “chop suey” can be loosely translated to “things chopped up together and boiled in water”
Somehow, the Chinese language (especially Cantonese) can boil down a concept that would take 8 words in English into 2 characters in Chinese)
:)
posted by Vivian on 3-27-2007 at 12:51 am
the “springroll” (non-fried) is distinctly a vietnamese dish that is “summer roll”. Not sure what the direct translation is in viet.
the food known as “eggroll” in chinese is literally translated to “spring roll”.
How this came about? Probably
If you want to know how to differentiate it, translate it from the original language. It doesn’t help that many restaurants have different names for it.
posted by Nick on 3-27-2007 at 8:32 am
I love spring rolls (the rice-paper wrapped kind, not the deep-fried kind), and so I’m delighted to see them on the menu. Until the arrive in front of me and I find out that the restaurant was confused abot the term and have put something deep-fried in front of me. Always such a sad experience :-( Maybe the restaurants will read Mental Floss, and I won’t need to be disappointed anymore!
posted by Larissa on 7-31-2007 at 4:53 pm
Bah!! Spring rolls!! Yech!!!
Give me them thick-skinned, deep fried crunchy boys any day….Yum!!
posted by Ed Hands on 8-1-2007 at 1:03 pm
We are taking cooking lessons from a wonderful Thai lady who runs an Asian market close by. She uses ‘Spring Roll’ wrappers for egg rolls and deep fries them. Her spring rolls are made with rice paper and are served fresh. Both are awesome but they are totally different, from the wrapping to the ingredients. We like both of them.
posted by Gladys on 8-19-2007 at 11:53 am
In the Pacific Northwest the fried rolls are called spring rolls and the healthier rolls are called “fresh rolls”.
posted by SpaceCowgirl on 3-26-2008 at 1:46 pm
I’m Vietnamese and I’ve always refered to the non-fried rolls as spring rolls. Never before have I heard the terms “salad roll” or “spring roll”, at least not in California anyhow.
posted by Anne on 3-26-2008 at 2:59 pm
I’m a chef, and the way I was taught in school(which is, of course, often inaccurate) is that an “egg roll” is made from an egg pasta very similar to fresh pasta, and is deep fried. A “spring roll” is wrapped in rice paper and deep fried, and a “summer roll” is wrapped in rice paper and is not deep fried. The fillings, of course, differ. My favorite is the Filipino version of a spring roll, called “lumpia.” I put steamed shrimp, shredded carrots, cucumbers, cilantro, and mint in my summer rolls, and serve them with a dipping sauce of equal parts nam pla (fish sauce) and lime juice. They’re a big hit around my house.
posted by Evan on 4-22-2008 at 12:56 pm