Chop Suey, USA

The Story of Chinese Food in America

Yong Chen

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9780231538169
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Food Industry
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

1

WHY IS CHINESE FOOD SO POPULAR?

This is the question that unavoidably arises from the ubiquity of Chinese food in the United States, but it is not a question that can be answered purely in gastronomical terms. Rather, the reasons for the migration of Chinese food from China to Chinatown to non-Chinese neighborhoods and eventually to the suburbs are found not in the merits of Chinese food as a cuisine but in the conditions of global labor and capital markets, changes in the American economy and consumption patterns, and demographic and occupational transformation of Chinese America.

THE GROWTH OF CHINESE FOOD’S POPULARITY

The pervasiveness of Chinese food in American public consumption has been conspicuously evident since the early twentieth century, when “there is hardly an American city that had not its Chinese restaurants, to which persons of every class like to go.”¹ This phenomenon was also noticeable to visitors.

One such visitor was Sun Yat-sen. During his fourth visit to the continental United States in 1911, he traveled to numerous cities—including San Francisco, Stockton, Isleton, Courtland, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, Spokane, Walla Walla, Austin, Carson City, Boston, and Denver—on a fund-raising tour for his fellow revolutionaries back in China² He noticed that “there is no American town without a Chinese restaurant.”³ Chinese food’s extraordinary prevalence has since then become more and more apparent. But the precise extent of that prevalence remains somewhat murky, first of all because Chinese restaurants tend to be independent, small-size family operations, scattered all over the nation without significant horizontal connections. Second, many of the restaurants change hands or simply close doors quietly and often quickly in an industry characterized by a high rate of turnover. Finally, only a few people have attempted to systematically collect data on Chinese restaurants.

In 1946, a Chinese-language newspaper, Hua Qiao Nian Bao (Annals of the Overseas Chinese), estimated that there were 1,101 Chinese restaurants in eleven cities: New York (315), San Francisco (147), Chicago (142), Los Angeles (117), Washington, D.C. (82), Seattle (62), Boston (61), Philadelphia (51), Portland (42), Oakland (41), and Detroit (41).⁴ Chen Benchang (Ben John Chen) was one of the first individuals to collect systematic data on Chinese restaurants. When I met him in his office in New York on October 24, 2000, the eighty-seven-year-old man did not look his age at all as he remained an active community leader and a busy businessman. He served as an officer in the expedition army during the war against the Japanese invasion in China. After coming to the United States in 1958, he established himself as a successful businessman in the food industry and an eminent figure in politics, whom President Ronald Reagan called “a special friend.”⁵ In 1971, he published a lengthy study of the Chinese restaurant industry in the United States. He was an ideal person to undertake such a study. A diligent writer and researcher, Chen also had extensive experiences in the food industry and created a successful food wholesale business (Benjohn Trading Company). According to his detailed survey, there were 9,355 Chinese restaurants across the country.⁶ This number is consistent with that of Paul Chan and Kenneth Baker, who noted the 1970s that there were at least 10,000 such establishments.⁷

The popularity of Chinese food continued to grow. By 1980, Chinese food had clearly become the most popular ethnic cuisine in the restaurant industry, possibly constituting about 30 percent of America’s major ethnic cuisines according to the geographer Wilbur Zelinsky, who found 7,796 Chinese restaurants in 270 U.S. and Canadian metropolitan areas; and Chinese restaurants maintained their dominant presence in the ethnic dining market throughout the decade.⁸ The popularity of Chinese food continued to grow. A Chinese American named Tang Fuxiang, vice president of the committee to promote Chinese food, reported in 1988 that there were more than 21,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States and Canada, employing 240,000 people, or one-tenth of the Chinese population in these two countries.⁹ In 2008, according to Jennifer 8 Lee, “there [were] some forty thousand Chinese restaurants in the United States—more than the number of McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and KFCs combined.”¹⁰ My own survey of Chinese restaurants in 62 cities across the nation in the summer of 2007 indicates that their number exceeded 30,000.¹¹

AN UNLIKELY CUISINE TO RISE IN POPULARITY

Those who are used to its ubiquitous presence may find it hard to believe that few nineteenth-century commentators expected Chinese food to rise to popularity. Alexander Young concluded in 1872: “It is not likely that Chinese delicacies of the table will ever become popular in this country. On the contrary, John Chinaman, appreciating the dietetic conditions of our civilization, will probably conform to our customs in this as in other respects.”¹² Thirteen years later, another observer drew the same conclusion that Chinese food was not expected “to be popular in this country.”¹³ Even in the early twentieth century, when the popularity of Chinese food became quite noticeable, some remained cautious about its future, believing that “a prejudice against Chinese foods must be overcome before their delicacy and economy can be enjoyed.”¹⁴

There were ample reasons for such not-so-optimistic sentiments about Chinese food’s prospects at the time, when mainstream American society exerted enormous enmity, even contempt, for Chinese food and the immigrants who brought it to American shores. Anti-Chinese forces persistently targeted the immigrants’ food habits and invoked their eating of such items as rice as evidence of their un-Americanness.¹⁵ In addition, the Chinese also faced other unfavorable conditions. First, the Chinese population remained small and was further reduced in size by different forms of racism, ranging from street violence to anti-Chinese legislation. It stayed under 110,000 throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and then declined from 107,488 in 1890 to 89, 863 in 1900, and 61,639 in 1920.¹⁶ It would not return to the 1890 level until after World War II. Second, the small, shrinking community remained a predominantly immigrant population and was politically disfranchised.¹⁷ Almost 90 percent of the Chinese in 1900 were immigrants and could not become citizens until 1943.¹⁸ Third, facing discrimination in America, they received little help or protection from the Chinese government, which was initially hostile to overseas Chinese emigration. When the Qing court (1644–1911) adjusted its attitude and policies toward overseas Chinese immigrants around the turn of the twentieth century, it was too weak to offer meaningful assistance. And fourth, largely a laborer population, the Chinese had very limited economic resources.

“THE BEST IN THE WORLD”: THE GASTRONOMICAL INTERPRETATION

Under such circumstances, the rise of Chinese restaurants in cities across the nation at the turn of the twentieth century was unexpected and “surprising” in the eyes of many people.¹⁹ Why all the Chinese restaurants? they wondered. Some even surmised that they were backed by millionaires.²⁰ A more widespread and seemingly more conceivable interpretation emphasized the gastronomical excellence of Chinese food: Chinese food prevailed in the United States because it was the best cuisine in the world, and this has remained a conviction among many Chinese.

Hailed as the founding father of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen articulated this belief in The Treatises of Sun Yat-sen (Sun Wen Xueshuo, 1918). It is interesting that his purpose was not to make a purely gastronomical argument but to develop his thoughts on how to build a modern nation, which the republican revolution had failed to bring about. He began not with an action plan but with an epistemological deliberation, attributing the failure of the revolution to the influence of the ancient Chinese maxim that “knowledge is easy, but action is difficult.” He employed several examples to prove its fallacy, and the first came from food, which the Chinese consumed daily but did not understand well. His deliberations conveyed a profound sense of the superiority of Chinese cooking:

In the modern evolution of civilization, our China has lagged behind others in every aspect except the development of food and drinks, where it remains ahead of the civilized countries. Not only is the cuisine invented by China far more extensive and grand than that in Europe and America, but the exquisite quality of Chinese cooking has no equal in Europe and America. … Before commerce opened up between China and the West, Westerners only knew French food as the best in the world. After tasting Chinese food, however, everyone considers China as the best in the world [in cooking].

He also urged the Chinese to maintain their preeminence in cooking so that they could be a “mentor to the world” in this regard.²¹

China’s culinary supremacy was a belief shared by many other Chinese. At a time when Western powers repeatedly defeated and humiliated China and looked down on Chinese culture, gastronomy was one of the few areas where the Chinese could find some solace and a source of pride. For Chinese Americans, defending their foodways was to defend their community and culture. Highlighting the use of chopsticks as a sign of backwardness and weakness, the New York–based weekly newspaper Spirit of the Times wrote: “The celestials, though claiming such a high descent, are not renowned for their chivalric spirit, or their skill in using a more warlike weapon than a chop stick.”²² The Chinese countered by mocking the Westerners’ use of knife and fork at mealtime, saying that “the Englishman does the chief work of the slaughter house on his dinner table, and remits the principal work of the kitchen to his stomach.”²³

In 1910, Cui Tongyue compiled Chinese America’s first known cookbook; it contained a collection of Western-food recipes intended for Chinese cooks and servants working for Anglo employers. In the preface, Cui expressed similar pride about Chinese food: “The finest food is found in China. Among all nations under the heaven, only France is nearly as good as China in terms of culinary development and cooking skills. The other countries lag far behind.”²⁴ Early Chinese American cookbook writers harbored similar sentiments. Shiu Wong Chan wrote of Chinese cooking in 1919: “When you have eaten the food you will soon be convinced not only of its merits but, in fact, of its superiority over other kinds of food and ways of cooking.”²⁵

Such sentiments have persisted among the Chinese for decades. In explaining the attraction of Chinese food, Chen Benchang remarked in 1971 that the major reason for this is that Chinese cuisine possesses “better cooking skills and tastes better than foreign cuisines.”²⁶ Gregory C. Chow, a noted economist and expert on China, offered a similar gastronomical interpretation of the rise of Chinese food by arguing that the Chinese “became cooks in the United States simply because they had the basic culinary skills that the Chinese had. Their home cooking skills were good enough to make their way to a Chinese restaurant to make money.”²⁷

The merit of Chinese food as a centuries-old tradition was certainly a factor in its appeal to non-Chinese consumers, and the culinary excellence of the Chinese also received praise from Western commentators. “Few people understand the popularity of Chinese cooking,” wrote the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1906. This ...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents 
• Preface: The Genesis of the Book
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Chop Suey, the Big Mac of the Pre-McDonald’s Era
• 1. Why Is Chinese Food So Popular?
• 2. The Empire and Empire Food
• 3. Chinese Cooks as Stewards of Empire
• 4. The Cradle of Chinese Food
• 5. The Rise of Chinese Restaurants
• 6. The Makers of American Chinese Food
• 7. “Chinese-American Cuisine” and the Authenticity of Chop Suey
• 8. The Chinese Brillat-Savarin
• Conclusion: The Home of No Return
• Afterword: Why Study Food?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Photo Inserts