“Saliva chicken”

Because I couldn't get the camera's memory card to work, I'll provide another article from the Times in the meanwhile.
One of my main interests is the idea of cultural mingling through foodways (and how they clash or work together). As I mentioned before, one of my favorite projects in college was a paper on the history and cultural significance of Chinese food in America. I worked so hard on that paper. I loved it.

One thing I find problematic about what this article is talking about is that they are kind of removing the culture behind the food by trying to adapt the names of the dishes to something more palatable for outsiders. I understand the need to do so, and I also understand the difficulties of accurate translation, but something significant is taken away when you un-name it. It seems that the names of the dishes tell stories, they are almost poetic. "Three fresh things from the ground" is a lot more intriguing and lovely than “sautéed potato, green pepper and eggplant.”
Once the Olympic games are over, I wonder if this attempt at cultural communication will have any lasting implications on the menu items in Beijing and the rest of China. It would be sad to lose some of the panache because we're not down with "saliva chicken."