Chow Chop Suey

2016-11-29 Social Science

Author : Anne Mendelson
Release : 2016-11-29
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 295/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Chow Chop Suey by : Anne Mendelson

Download or read book Chow Chop Suey written by Anne Mendelson. This book was released on 2016-11-29. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese food first became popular in America under the shadow of violence against Chinese aliens, a despised racial minority ineligible for United States citizenship. The founding of late-nineteenth-century "chop suey" restaurants that pitched an altered version of Cantonese cuisine to white patrons despite a virulently anti-Chinese climate is one of several pivotal events in Anne Mendelson's thoughtful history of American Chinese food. Chow Chop Suey uses cooking to trace different stages of the Chinese community's footing in the larger white society. Mendelson begins with the arrival of men from the poorest district of Canton Province during the Gold Rush. She describes the formation of American Chinatowns and examines the curious racial dynamic underlying the purposeful invention of hybridized Chinese American food, historically prepared by Cantonese-descended cooks for whites incapable of grasping Chinese culinary principles. Mendelson then follows the eventual abolition of anti-Chinese immigration laws and the many demographic changes that transformed the face of Chinese cooking in America during and after the Cold War. Mendelson concludes with the post-1965 arrival of Chinese immigrants from Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and many regions of mainland China. As she shows, they have immeasurably enriched Chinese cooking in America but tend to form comparatively self-sufficient enclaves in which they, unlike their predecessors, are not dependent on cooking for a white clientele.

Chop Suey, USA

2014-11-04 Social Science

Author : Yong Chen
Release : 2014-11-04
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 162/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Chop Suey, USA by : Yong Chen

Download or read book Chop Suey, USA written by Yong Chen. This book was released on 2014-11-04. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American diners began to flock to Chinese restaurants more than a century ago, making Chinese food the first mass-consumed cuisine in the United States. By 1980, it had become the country's most popular ethnic cuisine. Chop Suey, USA offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the rise of Chinese food, revealing the forces that made it ubiquitous in the American gastronomic landscape and turned the country into an empire of consumption. Engineered by a politically disenfranchised, numerically small, and economically exploited group, Chinese food's tour de America is an epic story of global cultural encounter. It reflects not only changes in taste but also a growing appetite for a more leisurely lifestyle. Americans fell in love with Chinese food not because of its gastronomic excellence but because of its affordability and convenience, which is why they preferred the quick and simple dishes of China while shunning its haute cuisine. Epitomized by chop suey, American Chinese food was a forerunner of McDonald's, democratizing the once-exclusive dining-out experience for such groups as marginalized Anglos, African Americans, and Jews. The rise of Chinese food is also a classic American story of immigrant entrepreneurship and perseverance. Barred from many occupations, Chinese Americans successfully turned Chinese food from a despised cuisine into a dominant force in the restaurant market, creating a critical lifeline for their community. Chinese American restaurant workers developed the concept of the open kitchen and popularized the practice of home delivery. They streamlined certain Chinese dishes, such as chop suey and egg foo young, turning them into nationally recognized brand names.

Chop Suey Nation

2019-02-02 Biography & Autobiography

Author : Ann Hui
Release : 2019-02-02
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 226/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Chop Suey Nation by : Ann Hui

Download or read book Chop Suey Nation written by Ann Hui. This book was released on 2019-02-02. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The surprising history and vibrant present of small-town Chinese restaurants from Victoria, BC, to Fogo Island, NL

Chop Suey

2009-07-16 Cooking

Author : Andrew Coe
Release : 2009-07-16
Genre : Cooking
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 079/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Chop Suey by : Andrew Coe

Download or read book Chop Suey written by Andrew Coe. This book was released on 2009-07-16. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China, and the first to eat Chinese food. Today, the United States is home to more Chinese restaurants than any other ethnic cuisine. In this authoritative new history, author Andrew Coe traces the fascinating story of America's centuries-long encounter with Chinese food. ChopSuey tells how we went from believing that Chinese meals contained dogs and rats to making regular pilgrimages to the neighborhood chop suey parlor. From China, the book follows the story to the American West, where both Chinese and their food struggled against racism, and then to New York and that crucial moment when Chinese cuisine first crossed over to the larger population. Along this journey, Coe shows how the peasant food of an obscure part of China came to dominate Chinese-American restaurants; unravels the truth of chop suey's origin; illuminates why American Jews fell in love with egg rolls and chow mein; and shows how Nixon's 1972 trip to China opened our palates to a new world of cuisine; and explains why we still can't get dishes like restaurants serve in China. The book also shows how larger historical forces shape our tastes--the belief in Manifest Destiny, the American assertion of military might in the Pacific, and the country's post-WWII rise to superpower status. Written for both popular and academic audiences, Chop Suey reveals this story through prose that brings to life the characters, settings and meals that helped form this crucial component of American food culture.

Chop Suey

2009-07-16 History

Author : Andrew Coe
Release : 2009-07-16
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 514/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Chop Suey by : Andrew Coe

Download or read book Chop Suey written by Andrew Coe. This book was released on 2009-07-16. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China, and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States--by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time. It's a tale that moves from curiosity to disgust and then desire. From China, Coe's story travels to the American West, where Chinese immigrants drawn by the 1848 Gold Rush struggled against racism and culinary prejudice but still established restaurants and farms and imported an array of Asian ingredients. He traces the Chinese migration to the East Coast, highlighting that crucial moment when New York "Bohemians" discovered Chinese cuisine--and for better or worse, chop suey. Along the way, Coe shows how the peasant food of an obscure part of China came to dominate Chinese-American restaurants; unravels the truth of chop suey's origins; reveals why American Jews fell in love with egg rolls and chow mein; shows how President Nixon's 1972 trip to China opened our palates to a new range of cuisine; and explains why we still can't get dishes like those served in Beijing or Shanghai. The book also explores how American tastes have been shaped by our relationship with the outside world, and how we've relentlessly changed foreign foods to adapt to them our own deep-down conservative culinary preferences. Andrew Coe's Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States is a fascinating tour of America's centuries-long appetite for Chinese food. Always illuminating, often exploding long-held culinary myths, this book opens a new window into defining what is American cuisine.

Popular eBooks

Chop Suey Nation

Chop Suey

Chop Suey

You may also like...