Asian Cooking using corn starch

My father and I was watching "America's Test Kictchen". They were having their "Low Fat" episode. During their Macaroni & Cheese portion, they used corn starch, instead of butter, as a thickener for the cheedar cheese sauce. Julia, the lead female cook, retort that corn starch was used in Asian cooking.

Is she right? And if she is correct, which foods require or sometimes use corn starch?

My dad is Chinese, first generation, and yes, he uses a corn starch slurry (corn starch dissolved in a little water, then added to the sauce) to make the sauce thicker. I think it IS used in alot of Asian dishes, I don't really think butter is used at all, as the majority of the worlds population is lactose intolerant.

Cornstarch is used in many types of cooking, not just Asian. It typically is used in place of flour, not butter when the dish is required to be some what clear. Butter is not a thickener on its own.

I asked my hubby, since he used to be professional chef and graduated from Johnson and Wales, and he said that before cornstarch was common, those in Southeast Asia used Arrow Root. As Arrow Root became more expensive and cornstarch less expensive, chefs switched to using cornstarch.

As for using cornstarch in place of butter. That's a new one as the thickener in homemade mac 'n' cheese is flour. You can make homemade mac 'n' cheese without butter. Personally, I use flour and low fat milk along with low fat cheese since my youngest daughter is on a low cholesterol diet.