Authentic Chinese food--an example 西红柿炒鸡蛋 (stir-fried tomatoes and eggs)
The only food critic to win a Pulitzer, Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly, delivered a lecture last night titled "Authenticity, Culture, and the Korean Taco" as part of the Humanities Without Boundaries series of UW. During the last half, Gold used his cell phone as a miniature teleprompter to read some of his talk. The best part was in Q and A, such as when he was asked about the worst meal he'd ever eaten.

The issue of whether a dish is authentic reminds me of one of the most common dishes in Chinese homes--tomato and eggs.  In my experience, this can be a main or side dish at any meal, but I've yet to notice it at a typical Chinese restaurant in the US.

Whenever I taught oral English, one of my assignments was to ask students to describe how to cook a dish, and I think that the majority chose tomato and eggs. It basically entails cooking scrambled eggs in some vegetable oil-- sort of into an omelet but then cut into pieces with a spatula. You then cook the tomatoes--either diced (my preference) or in wedges--usually with green onion or scallion and maybe some ginger, although this could overpower the other flavors. Finish by mixing together the cooked eggs and tomatoes. Salt is almost always added at some point, and a little bit of sugar is OK, although not so common.

By the way, another common dish I've had in Chinese homes was uncooked sliced tomatoes with sugar sprinkled on top.

Many of the online recipes seem to call for too many tomatoes, even one for every egg; however, I--and most of the Chinese I've talked to about this--use one regular-size tomato with two or three eggs.

A lot of variations
1. mix with noodles or even rice
2. with garlic (I think that green onions are much more commonly used.)
http://www.beijingmadeeasy.com/chinese-recipes/egg-and-tomato-chinese-recipe

3. with some sugar
http://appetiteforchina.com/recipes/stir-fried-tomato-eggs

4. close to what I describe
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/tour/food/chinese-cooking/scrambled-eggs-tomato.htm

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Stir-Fried-Egg-and-Tomato-352835

Videos
This one has too many variations from the norm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRfLNGE2YUo [I think her tomato wedges are too big and she cooks this longer than necessary. Adding chicken flavoring is definitely not typical. I don't push the spatula so much while the tomatoes cook, and mine is not so wet or juicy. Pushing the cooked eggs to the side of the pan while cooking the tomatoes, as she does it, is fine rather than emptying them into a bowl.

At the end she mentions dipping bread into the juices. I think that this would only be good with the very dry mantou (steamed buns) that are common in northern China.]