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

Worse yet, white Californians found Chinese peopleand the economic competition they representedintolerable. [...]the anti-Chinese sentiment that had long simmered nally exploded. First appearing in New Yorks Chinatown, then spreading up and down the Eastern seaboard, then arriving in the Midwest, an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Gastronomica 2010, Vol.10 (4), p.93-94
Main Author: Ji-Song Ku, Robert
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
Asian Americans
Backlash
Chinese Americans
Chinese languages
Cultural change
Dairy products
Diplomatic & consular services
Docks
Flavin-adenine dinucleotide
Food
Genetic transformation
Ice cream
Icebergs
Refrigeration
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Summary:Worse yet, white Californians found Chinese peopleand the economic competition they representedintolerable. [...]the anti-Chinese sentiment that had long simmered nally exploded. First appearing in New Yorks Chinatown, then spreading up and down the Eastern seaboard, then arriving in the Midwest, and eventually returning to California, chop suey led the transformation of Chinese food from an object of disgust to a touristic curiosity to a national fad to a target of backlash. Freidberg goes back to the origins of the technology and infrastructure that make these assumptions possible: the rise of refrigeration, changes in transportation, and the advertising campaigns that convinced New York consumers to purchase iceberg lettuce from California. Freidberg lls the book with interesting anecdotes, like the story of entrepreneur Frederic Tudor, whose rst shipment of ice to Martinique was so spectacular a failure that he used itto make ice cream on the docks while the rest of his cargo melted.
ISSN:1529-3262
1533-8622
DOI:10.1525/gfc.2010.10.4.93