Dim sum =? savory snack

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/17/2011 06:17 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
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>On Aug 17, 2011, at 2:36 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >
> > Do you consider "snacks" as always "to go"?  I
> > don't.  OED n.2, 4.b "A mere bite or morsel of
> > food, as contrasted with a regular meal; a light
> > or incidental repast".  More than 3 or 4 dim sum
> > dishes becomes a meal, so that part of the OED definition is OK  :-).
>
>Maybe it's because I haven't been a kid or been around kids for so
>long, but the word "snack" just doesn't come to mind other than as
>"snack food." If you were to run by the local burger joint and pick
>up some fries, would you say "I had a snack"? Okay, probably so.

I haven't been a kid for a while either, but "snack" to me did not
always mean take-out -- it was sometimes what I had when I came home
from school and other times what I picked up (and took out, and ate)
on my way home, so my mother didn't know.

>Nevertheless, is the food orientation (LOL) of dim sum snacky? It's
>always great when someone brings some chasiu bao or siumai to share,
>but I associate it primarily with lunch.

The real gourmets, the Jewish, eat dim sum at any time of the day on
Sundays.  :-)

>So it's like bringing French fries to the office. Yeah, people snack
>on them, but French fries don't strike me as a snacky food, per se.
>They are a food that can be eaten as a snack, but being a snack is
>not part of their definition.

P.S.  About four custards on a plate, Wiki tells me four is an
unlucky number (three is lucky).  (In Seoul, a hotel I stayed at
circa 1990 had no 4th -- and nor 13th -- floors.)

Joel


>Benjamin Barrett
>Seattle, WA
>
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