Showing Tag: "la" (Show all posts)

Life Working in Chinese Restaurants

Posted by John Jung on Tuesday, October 15, 2019, In : restaurant workers 
When people dine in restaurants, however elegant or humble, Chinese or other cuisine, they rarely think about the kitchen and the conditions under which the restaurant staff toil to serve the orders from the patrons.  It is hot, especially for the cooks, crowded with wait staff and kitchen help rushing around in tight quarters to serve meals in a timely manner.

In Chinese, and probably in other ethnic restaurants, many of the workers are immigrants who find short-term employment through an un...

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Chinese Used Food to Offset White Xenophobia in Chicago in 1893

Posted by John Jung on Saturday, May 25, 2019, In : Culture and cuisine 

The World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893 helped expand recognition of Chicago as a major city. Many nations, including China, had pavilions to showcase their culture to Chicagoans. One important part of the Chinese Village was its  Cafe, which although it did not serve authentic Chinese food, functioned to promote more positive feelings and contact between the growing Chinese population and Chicagoans.


"While no definitive record exists, the Chinese Café is widely believed by scholars of Chin...

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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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Cleveland Chinese Restaurants of the First Half of the 20th Century

Posted by John Jung on Wednesday, February 6, 2013, In : Chinese restaurants 


Cleveland, Ohio never had a large Chinese immigrant population.  The 1920 U. S. Census records show there were about 240 Chinese there, the highest number in the early 20th century.  That total includes children, so the number of adults was even smaller.  Yet, there were many Chinese restaurants, as shown in the montage above, that operated there from around the 1920s to 1960s for the most part. The 12 restaurants shown above from picture postcards were rather large and nicely decorated.  Man...
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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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Memories of Chinese Canadian Restaurant Food 1940s-50s

Posted by John Jung on Monday, July 2, 2012, In : Chinese restaurants 

       Chinese Canadian historian Larry Wong reminisced about favorite Chinatown restaurant dishes he had while growing up in Vancouver in his blog, "Ask Larry."

Cho San

As can be expected, in the 40s and 50s, no matter where you go in Chinatown, the cuisine was Cantonese. And the meals were cheap. My older brother used to tell me lunch was twenty-five cents when he was growing up. Lunch was a bowl of rice, soup and some meat and vegetable.

In a 1950s issue of the Chinatown News, there was an ad...


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Chop Suey in Samoa!

Posted by John Jung on Wednesday, April 4, 2012, In : Chinese food 
            Helen Wong, of Auckland, New Zealand, has been one of my faithful correspondents for several years. Since she is a dedicated poster of information from all over the world about the Overseas Chinese, about a year ago I asked her whether chop suey was as popular down under as it used to be in North America. She observed:
           Up to the 1960s most people ate at home... In the early 70s, some Chinese men arrived here, and started Hong Kong Style takeaways. There were some restaur...

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In Honor of Ngalan Tam Lee - Chef opened Chinese restaurants in Georgia

Posted by John Jung on Tuesday, April 3, 2012, In : Restaurateurs 
Excerpt from Atlanta Journal-Constitution,  March 5, 2011 Obit.

There's a line in an old Chinese poem, the gist of which is that if one wants the best in Chinese cooking, one should eat Cantonese cuisine. That was Ngalan Tam Lee's specialty.

Mrs. Lee and her husband, James Soon Lee, came to Georgia from San Francisco in 1975 at the invitation of relatives already here who said there were very few Chinese restaurants in metro Atlanta and saw that as an opportunity to start one.

The Lees' first p...
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Joy Young Restaurant, Birmingham

Posted by John Jung on Thursday, January 6, 2011, In : Chinese restaurants 
There were few Chinese in the Deep South during most of the last century so it is not surprising that there were few Chinese restaurants there, and those that did exist did not serve the same Chinese dishes found in New York or San Francisco Chinese restaurants.  Perhaps the Joy Young Restaurant, in Birmingham, Ala. was the best known and largest Chinese restaurant in the South until it closed sometime in the 1970s.  Its fried chicken (this was the South) was one of its most popular items alo...
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The high cost of Anglo humor re: a Chinese restaurant name

Posted by John Jung on Thursday, January 6, 2011, In : Chinese restaurants 
Red flowers such as peonies are popular among Chinese so it is not surprising that some Chinese used it for their restaurant name, which when transliterated becomes "Hung (red) Far (flower) Low" (building) or HUNG FAR LOW.  The Anglo perception, however, is that the name has sexual connotations related to the male sexual anatomy.  When the neon sign that proclaimed this restaurant name in Portland for almost a century was removed a few years ago, Portlanders felt a deep sense of loss and camp...
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Association of Chinese Cooking Teachers Potluck, Alameda, Ca.

Posted by John Jung on Saturday, November 6, 2010, In : Book talks 

What a wonderful and unique venue for speaking about "Sweet and Sour" in July! After socializing with a vibrant group of Chinese foodies, munching on the cornucopia of delicious and attractively presented dishes prepared by members, and watching some amazing cooking and watermelon 'carving' demonstrations, I got to talk about my book, with the aid of a contributor to the book, the noted artist, Flo Oy Wong, who grew up in her family's restaurant in nearby Oakland Chinatown. We also ha...
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A Personal Discovery

Posted by John Jung on Friday, June 4, 2010, In : family 
During the research process for Sweet and Sour, I suddenly realized that I had relatives on my mother's side living in Saskatchewan that I had never met.  As I was learning that virtually every small town across Canada, especially in the prairies, had a small Chinese-run cafe, I wondered if my cousins had also had a Chinese restaurant.  After some effort, a bit of luck, and half a dozen phone calls, I was able to locate a second cousin by phone who confirmed that one cousin had in fact run a ...
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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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