Noun for those Asian food

In Asia, people‘s meal besides rice and soup also includes fish, chicken, vegetable etc. which are seasoned, cooked and put in different plates.

Is there a special noun for the fish, chicken, vegetable etc.? , not for individual food but for the group of food.

eg. fruit for orange, apple, etc.
bird for eagle, sparrow etc.

Not really- they're fish/chicken, etc, dishes to me.

You could say they're the protein content of the meal.

Not so much for a vegetable dish.

If I said 'non-rice dishes', what would you think?
The OP is thinking about “餸” in his/her native language, but there is no English word for it to my knowledge.

If I said 'non-rice dishes', what would you think?

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It wouldn't convey the idea to me. The problem is that we're dealing with different cuisines and different terms.

You could use proteins for fish, chicken, and meat and vegetables for vegetables.

Part of the problem is a cultural difference, I think.

Rice isn't such a staple in most native English speakers' diets. While it's of course commonly eaten, it doesn't typically constitute an entire meal, as frequently does in many Asian cultures. Westerners typically view rice more as just a side dish, rather than an entire meal. There really isn't anything I can think of that corresponds to rice in terms of importance on how we view meals - something that is viewed as the staple of life, around which most meals are built.

Since we don't have any one such major type of food comprising the bulk of any one meal, we therefore don't have a counter-term.

The closest corresponding idea I can think of in English is the concept of a vegetarian meal. Since meat is typically the focal point of Western meals, we do have a special term for meals that don't contain any meat at all.

Just for clarification, for a meal to be vegetarian, it must contain no meat (red or poultry), fish, seafood, gelatine, cochineal/carmine or animal-based rennet.

bigC said:

In Asia, people‘s meal besides rice and soup also includes fish, chicken, vegetable etc. which are seasoned, cooked and put in different plates.

Is there a special noun for the fish, chicken, vegetable etc.? , not for individual food but for the group of food.

eg. fruit for orange, apple, etc.
bird for eagle, sparrow etc.

Click to expand...

I think the closest translation would be "meat entree" or "fish entree" or "vegetable entree".

They are also called "side dishes", even though they are the main part of the meal.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/餸



--lotus

Matthew Wai said:

If I said 'non-rice dishes', what would you think?
The OP is thinking about “餸” in his/her native language, but there is no English word for it to my knowledge.

Click to expand...

"餸” in areas in Guangdong province. "菜" in other provinces.

We also have the word accompaniments, which is used for the less important parts of the meal that go with and complement the main part, but we tend to think of the meat or fish as the star (in a non-vegetarian meal).

Accompaniments sounds like there should be musicians playing violins during my meal. ;-)


--lotus

I don‘t think you can find musicians playing violins during Asian meals.

Huqin perhaps?