Post #1103117
2026-04-04 04:53 UTC
I feel that halal Chinese restaurants are not doing their dishes justice by substituting pork with chicken, chicken is just… a very poor pork substitute when it comes to flavor and texture. (Lamb/mutton will be ideal but pricey, but beef is also ok.)
But I get why they do it, apart from chicken being a cheaper meat, it’s also more universally accepted compared to beef and mutton.
(Fun fact: China preferred mutton for most of its history but switched to pork after losing access to northern pastures during the southern Song dynasty)
Replies (4)
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@rakyat@hachyderm.io 2026-04-04 05:03
(So you could say that pork was a mutton substitute in the first place and it makes sense to substitute pork with mutton!) (Though mutton is way more gamey and a bit more flavorful than pork, and ironically where I live, it’s the Chinese who grew up pork who tend to find mutton too gamey for their taste.)
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@sengming@ruby.social 2026-04-04 06:08
@rakyat thanks for the fun fact!
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@ubi@ecoevo.social 2026-04-04 06:25
@rakyat I always assumed that pork to chicken was because both are white meats.
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@serlwch@blahaj.zone 2026-04-05 18:53
@rakyat@hachyderm.io In order to do real justice the only way is to make the dishes vegan 🌱 Oppression and justice are contradictory. (I know you meant something different by that word…)