Showing Tag: "food" (Show all posts)

Selling The American Public On Eating in Chinese Restaurants

Posted by John Jung on Friday, April 20, 2018, In : Chinese restaurants 

Today, with the popularity and ubiquity of Chinese restaurants of many types, it is hard to realize that America initially was not attracted to eating in Chinese restaurants.  The dishes were markedly different from Western foods and Chinatowns were often dangerous places in run down parts of town so it was mainly Chinese who patronized Chinese restaurants. Besides, there were rumors that Chinese ate dogs as well as strange things.

             

In 1878 Benjamin Taylor was unimpressed with his ...

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Chinese Food For The Uninitiated Masses

Posted by John Jung on Wednesday, November 19, 2014, In : Chinese food 
In the early 20th century when there was a growing popularity of chop suey and chow mein among Americans, two enterprising University of Michigan students,Wally Smith and Ilhan New, neither of whom were Chinese, hit upon the idea of creating and mass marketing a line of prepackaged Chinese foods.  Thus,  La Choy, a coined name to generate the feeling that the foods were ‘oriental’ was born in 1922.   Wally Smith, owner of a  grocery store in Detroit  wanted to sell fresh bean sprou...

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Chinese in Italy

Posted by John Jung on Tuesday, October 7, 2014, In : Chinese food 
Chinese immigration to Italy has increased dramatically over the past decade or two.  As in other places, culture clashes sometimes occur and Chinese and Italians experience similar problems.  Award winning journalist Suzanne Ma, a Chinese Canadian, who has a novel "Meet Me in Venice" coming out in February 2015, presents a charming and insightful talk about the negative feelings toward the influx of Chinese, and their food, in Italy.

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What Chinese Restaurant Families Ate But Left Off Their Menus

Posted by John Jung on Wednesday, August 8, 2012, In : Chinese food 
Chinese families in the restaurant business had their favorite dishes that they didn't dare put on the menu if most of their patrons were not Chinese.  Think of it as Chinese 'soul food,' delicious but unassuming dishes that were popular back in the Guangdong villages from where most of the early Chinese immigrants came from.

Ralph Young grew up working in his family restaurant in California and recalls:

My dad liked to cook pig stomachs.  He would take out the thick portions first; tho...


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1908 Satire of Chinese Food...in New Zealand

Posted by John Jung on Wednesday, July 18, 2012,
          Chinese left their Guangdong villages for many parts of the world in the late 19th century, but no matter where they went, they were ridiculed as people in their host countries made fun of their speech, clothing, customs, and of course, food.  In the article below, mistitled "Chop Suey," perhaps because the name of that dish was stereotypical of Chinese food, the Chinese cook gets the last word in response to the white customer's joke. 

 


  (From New Zealand National Library)


 


 

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Chinese Food And Korea

Posted by John Jung on Thursday, February 9, 2012, In : Chinese food 

       Young-Kyun Yang, a Korean anthropologist, has studied the place of Chinese food in Korea.  In one paper published in the Korea Journal, he noted that "Chinese restaurants opened in Korea from the late 19th century to provide mostly male Chinese-Koreans with very simple food. Chinese foods were cooked, sold, and consumed exclusively by Chinese-Koreans until the 1940's. In the 1950's and 1960's, although the Chinese dominated the business, the food became a representative food for dini...


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"Authenticity" ... applied to Vietnamese Food

Posted by John Jung on Friday, June 24, 2011, In : Culture and cuisine 
Aliette de Bodard, a Vietnamese-French award winning sci-fi and fantasy author, made some valid points on the question of what constitutes 'authentic' food on her blog. These excerpts give you the flavor, pun intended, of her observations:

"What makes an authentic recipe? What is and is not an acceptable variant? [1] How should a cuisine as a whole be judged? Because truth is, like cultures, cuisines merge and adapt, and evolve. Sometimes, they adapt because they don’t have basic ingredi...
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Is the Food in Chinese American Cookbooks "Authentic"?

Posted by John Jung on Tuesday, June 21, 2011, In : Culture and cuisine 
       The issue of 'authenticity' inevitably surfaces when ethnic foods of any type, Chinese or other, are evaluated. I have often wondered to what extent "foodie snobbism" is at work.  Food dishes, like language, evolve over time and differ over space. Can there be a single recipe that is the authentic version for a dish? Who 'decides,' and using what yardstick, whether a dish is 'authentic'? And, is authenticity the end all which trumps even 'great taste'?
      I recently stumbled upon an ...
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About Me


John Jung After retiring from a 40-year career as a psychology professor, I published 4 books about Chinese immigrants that detail the history of their laundries, grocery stores, and family restaurants in the U. S. and Canada.

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