Before reading Big Chains Talk the Talk, But Can’t Walk the Wok, I didn’t realize what was special about the wok:
Shaped like a large bowl, the steel cookware withstands flames up to 700 degrees that would melt conventional skillets. It requires its own special stove, which produces heat four times as intense as that of any conventional stove. Food cooks in seconds. But even experienced Chinese chefs sometimes burn themselves when fire shoots up as they’re stirring and tossing ingredients in a motion the Chinese call “pao.”
Suddenly, the wok seems cool. (Or, rather, tremendously hot.) Anyone who’s seen a wok knows it’s oddly shaped (compared to a “normal” pan or skillet). Here’s why:
Originally, the Chinese created the wok in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) as a way to conserve fuel. The shape of the wok focuses heat in a small, defined area, cooking food quickly. Over time, wok cooking blossomed into an art form. In Hong Kong, the stir-fry capital of the world, chefs spend two to five years mastering the round-bottomed pan. These chefs strive to produce dishes with “wok hay,” which means “the essence of the wok,” says Grace Young, who is writing a cookbook titled “The Breath of a Wok.”
Impressive, but it does have its downside:
But woks are simply making it too hot in the kitchen for many newcomers. The heat from a wok stove is so intense that it draws sweat from anybody standing nearby — and warps woks so much that they need to be replaced as often as once a month. The wok stove also takes up twice as much space as a regular one and requires extensive weekly cleanings to keep burners from clogging and losing heat. Woks, says Richard Chey, owner of Atlanta’s three-chain Doc Chey’s Noodle House that uses them, “are really a pain.”
And this, according to the Wall Street Journal, is why there’s no Chinese equivalent of McDonald’s.