The Pistachio Ice Cream Industry Should Say “mmm goy sai”

Being a New Yorker, I know that every culture’s dining experience is unique. Every cuisine has its own set of outstanding attributes. Among the best is Chinese food. Take-out or dine-in, no matter which Chinese restaurant option you choose, you know you’re in for a delectable delight - as long as you don’t mind skipping dessert.

As far back as I can remember, a Chinese food dining experience was an event to behold. After sitting down in the restaurant’s dining room, I always enjoyed taking in the view. The usual decorations always were ever-present: the dragons, the red paper lights (with what was purported to be actual Chinese writing on them) and the panoramic Chinese vistas living on too-old posters hanging behind shoddy picture frames. One has to wonder if the Chinese culture really is so greasy, old and insipid – or is that just how it’s represented here in America? Having visited Mainland China myself, I can say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is the single kitschiest country on the planet.

From the beginning to three-quarters of the way through, a Chinese dining experience is terrific. Fried appetizers are the standard: egg rolls (the contents of which nobody should ever really ask about), shrimp toast and the pu pu platter – which, once you get past the ridiculous name and the fact that you could potentially use it as a weapon – is the coolest appetizer on Earth.

Speaking of fried foods, it should be noted that dragons were the first creatures to fully succumb to the effects of LDL, which electronically savvy readers will recognize as the technology which allows you to watch Iron Chef in high definition.

Eating the main course of a Chinese meal is an event in and of itself. The entrees are artful and colorful, and always floating in some kind of a salty, randomly-colored sauce. Beef with broccoli and pork lo mein are always delicious (the latter being, inexplicably, the root of a longstanding cold war between the Chinese and the Italians about who invented spaghetti and what it should be called. It’s tough to conjure up an image of what ‘lo mein and meatballs’ would look like).

When it comes time to undo the top button on your pants, however, everything in the Chinese Restaurant Play Book and Operating Manual really falls apart. The single Chinese contribution to the dessert forum is a sugary piece of cardboard wrapped around a piece of paper.

Think of the other cultural offerings for capping off your meal: Italians have cannolis; the French gave us crème brulee; America has apple pie. Even the Greeks stepped up with baklava. The Chinese? The fortune cookie, which is easily the worst invention in the history of edible food.

How can a culture so well rounded in its other gastronomic offerings concurrently be so abysmal at dessert? The most surprising part about the fortune cookie is that nobody who has ever gotten one has actually looked forward to the cookie part. The fortune inside is always the attraction. Isn’t it strange that a culture like ours, which goes out of its way to “save room for dessert” is more interested in reading a piece of paper with words of faux wisdom or vague prophecy than it is in actually eating the miserable confection? For added amusement, it helps to add the words “in bed” to the end of whatever fortune you get. So you wind up with “To move a mountain, one must begin with a single pebble – in bed,” which makes no sense at all, unless you’re about five or six zombies deep. Then it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.

The words of wisdom in the cookie are often attributed to Confucius, the esteemed Chinese thinker and social philosopher who was the first to recognize the need to do something to make the fortune cookie palatable. Coincidentally, upset by the unpleasant dessert placed in front of him, Confucius was also the first to ask, “Do you have Jello?”

Thus began the tradition of Chinese restaurants offering decidedly bland desserts in place of anything truly inspirational. If you are looking for dessert at any given Chinese restaurant today, your choices will be fortune cookies, Jello, oranges or one of three flavors of ice cream: chocolate, vanilla or PISTACHIO??

By offering these unexciting desserts, the Chinese are all but admitting to their complete failure as a people to develop an edible dessert they can call their own. They have dropped the ball and are now calling it to our attention.

In terms of the ice cream, chocolate and vanilla make total sense. But who ever eats pistachio ice cream outside of a Chinese restaurant? I’ve never seen pistachio ice cream in a supermarket freezer aisle, let alone being able to order it at a good ice cream counter. Yet, at the Chinese restaurant, you’d think it was among the more popular flavor choices. The pistachio industry is evidently guilty of selling the Chinese a bill of goods.

Perhaps the most troubling thing about the ice cream at the Chinese restaurant is the presentation. A silver dish with a single scoop of your flavor of choice - but no syrup, whipped cream, cherries or nuts. You just get the lone, boring scoop of ice cream. And what do they do with it? They stick a fortune cookie on top.

In spite of it all, I will still crave my visits to Chinese restaurants. I’m conditioned to know that, while the bulk of the meal will be second-to-none, the dessert will leave much to be desired. Which is a good thing, because when I’m hungry again in an hour, I can go to the Italian restaurant three doors down. It’s at this point that I will think back to the words of wisdom from the last fortune cookie I received:

“If you want a really good dessert, I recommend Giuseppe’s down the road. Try a fresh cannoli.”