Journal of Chinese Overseas Chop Suey, USA was meticulously researched with a very extensive bibliography, the content is well organized with linking points and arguments, and the text is written with clarity and purpose. ambitious and important work a crucial contribution not only to the historical understanding of Chinese cuisine in the United States but also to the study of food in general. Especially significant in examining the transmission of food habits across cultures and considering how the processes of empire building and globalization influence culinary traditions around the world. Significantly contribute to our understanding of the global history and importance of Chinese foodways. KirkusĪ compelling and provocative contribution to the burgeoning field of American food studies. Chang, Stanford UniversityĪ perceptive view of an America built on abundance and consumption. Chop Suey, USA is a wonderful American story, and a tasty one at that! Gordon H. This is made abundantly clear in this fascinating account of the history of Chinese food in America. It is also about culture, economics, race, and identity. Jeffrey Pilcher, University of Torontoįood is not just about sustenance and taste. Hasia Diner, New York UniversityĪ thoroughly researched, highly readable account of the development of Chinese American food, this book fills important gaps in the literature of ethnic and food studies, while incorporating an appealing personal memoir into the narrative. Well organized and breathtakingly broad in its geographic scope, Chop Suey, USA is an utterly original and significant contribution to the field. They streamlined certain Chinese dishes, such as chop suey and egg foo young, turning them into nationally recognized brand names.
Chinese American restaurant workers developed the concept of the open kitchen and popularized the practice of home delivery. 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. The rise of Chinese food is also a classic American story of immigrant entrepreneurship and perseverance. 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. 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. It reflects not only changes in taste but also a growing appetite for a more leisurely lifestyle. 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. 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. By 1980, it had become the country's most popular ethnic cuisine. While simultaneously updating and relocating them in modern America.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. Here, Hopper explicitly refers to the cafe scenes of both Van Gogh and Manet,
Hopper's work was highly influenced by nineteenth-century French painting. Yet, for all its specifically American detail, View and the cropping of both the 'Chop Suey' sign, seem through the window, and the female customer on the left, all add a sense of strangeness and alienation to the scene. Despite this company, however, each woman seems alone, lost in her own thoughts in a world of silence, while the couple in the background seem similarly uncommunicative. Give the impression of a momentary glance - a voyeuristic gaze into the private space and emotions of an anonymous stranger - constitute a unique record of the changing society of modern America. His paintings, carefully constructed and composed to
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