Shattered Illusions

My wife makes a mean Mongolian Beef dish, and it so happens that she was whipping up some of her Mongolian Beef magic when we had a pair of sister missionaries over for dinner (and I don't mean that in a cannibalistic sense).

Coincidentally, one of these sister missionaries was from the far flung land of Mongolia. I couldn't resist asking her if she was familiar with the dish.

She was very emphatic that she had never tasted anything like it in her homeland. This left two possibilities 1) either I needed to readjust my world vision to accept the idea that Mongolian Beef really has nothing to do with Mongolia or 2) That sister missionary was an imposter.

After much consideration I was about to sensibly settle on the second option, but I told this story to an acquaintance to ask her opinion and she informed me of a friend of hers who was also from Mongolia. It seems this friend was at a Chinese Restaurant and was curious enough about the Mongolian Beef to order it. After it came she immediately jumped to her feet and began chewing out the waitress for daring to malign her country by serving such a dish.

Fortunately, the sister missionary who visited our house was very polite about our slight on her country's culinary prowess. She ate every single bite and even thanked us for it. Though my illusions have been shattered and it turns out that all this time I've been eating faux Mongolian Beef...I've discovered that I don't care if it's real or fake--I still love eating it.

The next thing you know, I'll discover that French Fries aren't really French.