Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States

by Andrew Coe

2009

Status

Available

Call number

641.5951

Genres

Publication

Oxford University Press

DDC/MDS

641.5951

641.5951

Description

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.… (more)

Media reviews

Southeast Review of Asian Studies

Perhaps distracted by his focus on high-profile encounters between East and West, Coe omits to mention several lower-profile phenomena of Chinese food in America — the inevitable after-dinner fortune cookie, the appearance of packaged Chinese foods in mainstream supermarkets, the popularity of

dim sum, the decline of Cantonese cuisine as a dominant influence and point of reference, and the emergence of the omnipresent Chinese buffets that have become the public face and symbol of Chinese food over the last twenty years. The neglect of the buffet phenomenon, which has largely transformed Chinese food into a cheap and ubiquitous fast food to compete with burgers and pizza, is particularly striking. It represents a big hole in Coe's cultural history, but it also creates a pretext for a welcome second edition.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member SwitchKnitter

This was a very nice, succinct look at Americans' reactions to Chinese food and the people who brought it to the U.S. it was interesting to see how stereotypes have changed over the years. Things have gotten better, much better, but the media's reactions to the food at the Beijing Olympics show

that not all the prejudices hae been erased. I liked this book. Recommended.

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LibraryThing member freddlerabbit

I picked this up hoping for an in-depth comparison between Chinese cuisine and American Chinese cuisine over time - which isn't exactly what this book delivers. Instead, it traces the history of Chinese food in American experience, from the first traders who visited China through a resurgence in

Chinese restaurants when Nixon made his famous visit. The book explores the peaks and valleys of American Chinese eating throughout that history, and brings in parts of the Chinese immigrant experience and the reactions of other parts of American culture to it. It's pretty comprehensive, given its scope, and, in my experience especially as the book goes on, is an interesting tale. I did leave with a bit of a better understanding of how Chinese immigrants adapted their food to the American palate - and why - but I would have loved a bit more of a close look at specific dishes. That said, I think it's a great read for anyone interested in the subject and interested in the Chinese experience in America - it provides a unique look at this topic.

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LibraryThing member captainsunbeam

Tons of interesting information, presented in a somewhat underwhelming style.

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