Asian vegetable names?
 
A world first in standardizing Asian vegetable names has come from Australian bureaucrats.
It's about time for some common sense here, where one country's Chinese broccoli is another's pak choy or choi sum. Unfortunately, this attempt ignores emerging consensus of names already established throughout the English speaking world, especially those used in international cookbooks. Bok choy, for example, is arbitrarily renamed Bukchoy, and Chinese or Napa cabbage now wombok. Various long green melons and loofah are chi qua, senq qua and sin qua.
It will take a native Cantonese speaker to master this list! Amaranth leaf is now en choy -- but didn't anybody bother to check that this vegetable is South American, and well known in European cooking?
Water spinach -- which we must admit is confusingly called morning glory in some Asian-origin English language books -- is now Kang Kong. (Film director Peter Jackson should be happy!) Nor is there any mention that there are two common varieties: thick stemmed and thin.
Conversely, Japanese daikon -- a name long established in English -- is simply renamed white radish. No mention that this is a "giant" white radish (there's also a green and white variety, overlooked here), nor that round white radishes, similar to common red radishes, exist both in Japan and Europe. ("1 white radish," called for in a recipe, can be rendered inedible by using the wrong variety because of the difference in size -- which, presumably, was the whole purpose behind standardizing names.)
In Australia the mass migration of the past 30 years has been largely from Southeast Asia, not China. But Chinese names were preferred, we've been told, because Sydney's original market- or truck- farmers were Chinese. Only problem here is Chinese dialect. These names are Cantonese, not standardized Mandarin. So we suspect this attempt will fail -- not only from consumer resistance requiring them to master another tongue, but also from non-Cantonese Asian migrants.
 
And while we're on the topic, here's a list of suggested books that have already tackled the thorny question of Asian vegetable nomenclature. We've added direct sales links to Amazon for those books available for sale.

 

Cooking with Asian Leaves by Devagi Sanmugam and Christopher Tan. Marshall Cavendish publishers, Singapore & Malaysia 2004. The emphasis here is fresh herbs more than leafy vegetables, although there is some crossover. The subject and book title had us enraptured, but less so by the recipes. More Indian subcontinental cuisine than tropical southeastern Asian recipes, although both are covered. get a copy from AMAZON

A Cook's Guide to Asian Greens. by Anita Loh-Yien Lau. Apple Press and Quintet Publishing, London 2001. One of the best guides, with id photos accompanying most, but unfortunately not all, Asian greens. While the Southeast Asian recipes tend more toward fusion, its Chinese recipes are traditional and authentic.

Beyond Bok Choi. A Cook's guide to Asian Vegetables. by Rosa Lo San Ross. Artisan publishers, New York 1996. A guide to less common Chinese vegetables -- the sorts you will likely encounter in ethnic grocers but not the supermarket. Clear photographs to easily identify the vegetables, along with established Western names, but alternate names are only Chinese. get a copy from AMAZON

A Cook's Guide to Chinese Vegetables. by Martha Dahlen. Odyssey Publishers, Hong Kong 1992, '95. Line drawings instead of photos make this volume less user-friendly than the others on the list. Recipes tend to be too cursory with insufficient advice to the novice. Nevertheless, you'll find some recipes and vegetable uses here not found in other books. get a copy from AMAZON

Oriental Vegetables. The Complete Guide for the Gardening Cook. by Joy larkcom. John Murray publishers, London 1991 An old standby, but probably too specialized unless you are a gardener. No recipes, but packed full of growing knowledge. Line drawings, but no photos, to help you identify.

Asian Herbs & Vegetables. How to identify, grow and use them in Australia. by Penny Woodward. Hyland House, Melbourne 2000. Author of several gardener books, Penny Woodward's expertise is without doubt. This book is for the reference shelf, not kitchen. Photo accompaniments are shot on location with poor lighting, but still useful to help identify plants at the market. get a copy from AMAZON

Thai Home Cooking and Vietnamese Home Cooking. by Robert Carmack. Periplus publishers, Singapore; Lansdowne, Sydney 2003, '04. Clear photo identifications of the most popular vegetables, herbs and spices used in these two cuisines makes shopping easy. Name identification is restricted to the established English name and its national equivalent in Thai and Vietnamese, respectively.

   
download the NSW Government asian-vegetable-names PDF file here
 
 
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