Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey

Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History

by Anne Mendelson

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.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, History, China, American History, Cookbooks

354 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 29, 2016

Reviews

[Alyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy a great deal of this book. But it was difficult to overlook the plethora of bold assertions that I'm not convinced are even provable, let alone true. There are too many examples to enumerate, but here's one of the first: "No immigrants have ever arrived in the United States with better skills and resources for re-creating their own cuisine that the men who set out from the Pearl River Delta for ...the American West in and after 1849." Enough said. Additionally, the book could have been enhanced with some detailed maps and a more complete glossary.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched - of course! Written with exceptional detail in an easy to read voice. Possibly too exhaustive in presentation... first half of the book was an exceptionally detailed history of the Chinese in America. It wasn't until the second half that good became the primary character. This book says more about culture than specific foods. Great for the academically inclined.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are like most Americans, you will have visited a Chinese restaurant at least one time in your life. You might have hated it (I wanted a hamburger, but then I was 3 at the time), enjoyed it, or just ate there because you needed sustenance. Chow Chop Suey attempts to tell how those restaurants came to be and why they serve the food they do.

Anne Mendelson provides a blended history in Chow Chop Suey, a history of the Chinese coming to America (or as it was called in 1800's China - Gold Mountain), their reception, and their coping which included opening food joints and laundries. She discusses what was likely served then, where and how cooking supplies arrived, who did the cooking, and why. Later chapters delve into early recipe collections, various cookbooks through the years, how the reception of Chinese immigrants changed over time and why which also includes the changes in Chinese restaurant menus and locations.

If you are looking for inspiring dishes, or a history of your favorite Chines takeout meal, you will need to keep looking. However, if you want to learn about little-known American history and an important food-way in that history, do read Chow Chop Suey!

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned quite a bit about early Chinese immigration, the industry and adaptability of those laborers and the racial violence and other barriers they faced. I had not realized in the 1800's that nearly all the immigrants from China were men sending money back home and that the few Chinese women in America were mostly prostitutes. I had never heard of an 1885 massacre and burning of an entire Chinese settlement with at least 28 dead in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I also did not know that in the American west in this time period even middle class families had domestic help, usually Irish women or Chinese men, and that the Chinese were much more sought after in spite of the acute language barrier. The development of American Chinese food, the shift in the typical cuisine from chow mein to lemon chicken was more familiar to me, as was the proliferation of regional Chinese restaurants in modern-era population centers. As with most books of this type, it would have made a great magazine article. Too much recitation of the contents of Chinese/American cookbooks towards the end.

[Jennifer Ho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it! So much truth.

[Ebot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprised no reviews I read noted the extreme euro-centrism that was hard to get past…