Chop Suey, USA

July 28, 2014
Chen's decades-in-the-making sociological history of Chinese food in the U.S. is both a thoroughly researched and reported academic work and an engaging popular history. An associate professor of history at UC-Irvine, Chen vividly recounts the Western adoption of Chinese food; the Chinese "mastery of Western cooking" with dishes like gumbo (recipe also provided); the emergence of Chinese-American communities; and the arrival of Chinese food in the 1850s. "Their experience was not simply a food story but a highly political one that intersected with the cultural and socioeconomic currents in the fast changing city," he writes, using the food narrative, as he does throughout, to raise larger questions about community, identity, class, and globalization. As Chen points out:"Chinese restaurants rose to serve cheap food largely to underprivileged American consumers. Coming to China a century later, however, American fast food became an important part of the lifestyle of young and affluent consumers." His overall aim, to make the study of food an "exciting intellectual endeavor," adds up to a excellent cultural history.

October 1, 2014
Chen (History/Univ. of California, Irvine; Chinese San Francisco, 1850-1943: A Trans-Pacific Community, 2000) shows how enterprising immigrants turned Chinese food, reviled by 19th-century Americans, into one of the country's favorite ethnic meals.Although there are a few recipes included, the book is more a socioeconomic/cultural study than a culinary one. The author, who grew up in China and came to America in the mid-1980s, shows how the intersection of Chinese immigration and America's habits of consumption incubated a thriving restaurant culture. When Chinese men came without their families to seek their fortunes during the mid-19th-century gold rush, they faced racism and isolation. Driven out of mining and railroad jobs by hostile white workers, many became cooks and servants. Paradoxically, white middle-class families sought Chinese domestic workers for their work ethic, reliability and loyalty. Even low-income households could afford a Chinese servant, who learned to cook American fare, relieving the housewife of kitchen duties. Ostracized by white society, Chinese men lived in enclaves, forerunners of Chinatowns in large cities, and restaurants emerged to serve these communities and others on the margins of society. With cheap, plentiful, good food, these establishments "played a vital role in the democratization of consumption," making eating out an affordable experience for all. In one of the most arresting sections of the book, Chen explains the unique social history connecting Chinese food and African-American and Jewish cultures. The author's prose style is more slow cooking than spicy stir-fry, but his passion for the subject carries readers through the dry spots. Dipping into culinary concerns with chapters on "authentic" Chinese cuisine and cookbooks, he also delivers a perceptive view of an America built on abundance and consumption. A well-researched study of Chinese-American food, the people who brought it to our neighborhoods and how Americans grew to love it.

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December 1, 2014

Chen (A Gift) documents Chinese cuisine in American culture, considering such themes as cultural identity, entrepreneurship, adaptation, integration, and "the homeland." The author weaves his own story of immigration, including memories of food and family, and his experience of American Chinese cuisine, with a historical narrative pursuing a concept of United States as empire and the role of Chinese food as "Empire food." He explains that consumption is "a significant goal and consequence of empire building," and combined with ubiquity and economic accessibility has furthered the popularity of Chinese food in the United States. Chen further contrasts the 1800s, when Chinese cooks and domestic servants commonly prepared "American" foods, to the present, when Chinese restaurants offer an array of traditional dishes as well as consciously American adaptations--General Tso's chicken, for example. Recipes are interspersed throughout the text, which has extensive notes together with an index and bibliography. VERDICT This thoroughly researched, yet personal, volume will be of interest to food historians and anyone with a deep interest in Chinese American culture.--Courtney Greene McDonald, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington

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