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

I love Chinese food...North American Chinese food that is. Growing up in Winnipeg, I inherited my Father's enjoyment of it and one ritual we had was a Saturday lunch at the Shangri La or the Shanghai followed by a matinee. The latter restaurant is now gone after 70 years but I still contend they offered the best sliced lean barbecue pork and the most generous wonton soup. Having dined in Chinese restaurants all across North America and in the rest of the world (from Lisbon to Joburg to Santiago) and experienced the real thing on trips to China, I could not wait to devour Coe's book.It is well researched and covers seminal events but it was a bit too clinical and detached. I was hoping for a style similar to Mark Kurlansky who has penned the respective histories of Salt and Cod. Coe does take us back to early American visits to China through to the first accounts of the food being served on American soil in 1819. He covers the early xenophobia related to the cuisine attributed to the fiction of domestic animals as ingredients, overall hygiene, eating style, and the strangeness of chopsticks. The author tackles the previously spread fiction that Chop Suey was invented in America by explaining that there are so many variations through the years that the now commonly eaten one is but an adaptation for the Western palate (it's name may mean "odds and ends").The most interesting parts for me were the explosion of Chinese restaurants in the 1950's through 1970's with their hideous decor, the Tiki Bar trend, Cantonese sprawling banquet halls with their lunch carts of dim sum, and the arrival of Sichuan and Hunan dishes. One disturbing trend for me is the mixed Asian 'one-stop shops' of dubious quality where at once you can order sushi, pad Thai, dim sum, egg drop soup, and Korean beef. I remain amazed at the ubiquity of Chinese restaurants in North American and that regardless of the size of tiny town or village in Canada you will find one with their own slightly different version of Chop Suey.

I saw this book while perusing the 100 books under $3.99 special Amazon does every month. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't buy this book when I first saw it because the title "Chop Suey" sounded like some racial taunt and it just turned me off.I later came to my senses and bought the book and it was much richer and more rewarding than I thought it was going to be.It's important to point out that this is not a breezy read, it is a very dense, detail filled book and it sometimes drifts quite far from the topic of food. In fact a lot of the time it reads more like a book about Chinese history or the history of Chinese immigration to America. The author goes to great lengths to inform us about these various historical details before delving in to the main topic of the book: the food.Not to imply that cuisine is an afterthought, it's ever present but like me you may be a little frustrated when you start the book and it talks about an American ship sailing to China and diplomacy and all that and it doesn't get straight to food. But believe me the wait is worth it.One thing that bothered me were the stories of racism towards the Chinese. As a Asian-American I am very sensitive to those types of stories and I really didn't want to read a book that would depress. Fortunately that was not the case. While there is definitely some awful stories about how white Europeans and Americans viewed the Chinese and their food in the end it's a kind of redemptive arc where America finally does accept Chinese food in the end.One thing I would've liked is if the author had added one more chapter towards the end of the book where he wrote about present day Chinese Food, takeout culture, maybe a anecdote about Chinese food in American pop culture, such as the infamous Chinese restaurant episode on Seinfeld.I could not recommend the book any higher it's definitely a treasured addition to my Kindle library. I'll end my review with one of my favorite quotes from the book.""I'm surprised to find this prejudice in you," he exclaimed, rather petulantly. "A Chinese dinner is as clean as an American dinner, only far better.""

Although I purchased the book to understand the history of Chinese-American cooking, it arrived shortly after the killings of Korean workers in Georgia. It’s important in that it starts out by showing how far back American prejudices go against the Chinese to the first American trade mission to China in the late 18th century. It complements William Wei’s Asians in Colorado: Persecution and Survival. Unfortunately, as a work on the history of Chinese cooking in this country, it isn’t as good as the author’s other book Square meal which includes recipes from cookbooks written during the depression.

I really enjoy books that have a larger perspective than the title implies.Chop Suey is about Chinese-American culture clash, racism, national change, and the mutability of cultures.It's about a new country (USA) reaching out to an ancient culture and cuisine.It's a book about migrants to the US, and the cultures that we adopt, modify, and co-opt.But after all this awesome set up, the book just stops.There is this saga, this wealth of historical perspective and drama, but when the book hits the 20th century, the stories peter out, the adventure ceases - it struck me as if the author just got tired of the subject beyond the historical aspect.I would have liked to have heard more about the effect of Chinese food and culture on today's menus and in today's markets, and the concessions the cuisine and culture have accommodated in the US. There is some of this in the book, but it seems like it was ultimately the lesser part of the author's intent.Still, it is a fascinating history, full of American naiveté; one can easily imagine the novelty and trepidation the 18th century American military and diplomats had at facing China's diverse culinary offerings.