Abstract: The history of Chinese food in America is a history that adapts to American society. While adapting to American modern kitchen standards, it also lost the original flavor of "fly restaurant".

Nowadays, China restaurants can be found everywhere on the streets of American cities. However, just like the difficult entrepreneurial history of Chinese in the United States, the development of Chinese food in the United States is not smooth sailing. /kloc-After Chinese workers entered the United States in the 1940s, various China ingredients and cooking methods came to the United States. From being sneered at by white people at the beginning, it is now all over the streets, and how many tests Chinese food and Chinese restaurants have experienced has long been unknown.

In recent years, with the development of the study of Chinese American history, China's diet history has gradually attracted the interest of professional scholars. Chen Yong and Liu Haiming, Chinese-American historians from Chinese mainland, published their monographs on China's food history, American Fried Chopsticks and From Cantonese Restaurant to panda express, on 20 14 and 20 15 respectively. The two books have their own emphases, but together they show the history of the rise and prosperity of Chinese food in the United States.

A cartoon satirizing China people eating rats.

Prehistory of American Chinese food: rice and mice

/kloc-In the United States in the second half of the 20th century, compared with white workers, workers in China are more hardworking, with lower wages. They can also do heavy manual labor while being vegetarian. For white workers, rice without eggs, meat and milk is really tasteless and difficult to swallow. Therefore, in the job market, the influx of China workers has impacted the salary level of white workers, which makes them extremely dissatisfied.

How to explain this difference? Or, how to vilify the frugality of China people? The habit of Chinese workers from Guangdong eating rice has also become the target of their attack. In their view, the habit of eating meat represents strength, courage and masculinity. Eating rice represents the opposite personality characteristics. From a biological point of view, carnivores are upstream in the food chain. By analogy to human society, the difference of recipes has become the evidence of China people's innate low status. This thought even lasted until the beginning of the 20th century. Samuel, leader of the American AFL? The subtitle of Gompers Chinese Exclusion Brochure is "Meat vs Rice, American Masculinity Against Asian coolies" (Meat vs Rice; American masculinity opposes Asian coolies.

At the same time, the rumor that China workers eat rats is widely circulated. As Professor Liu Haiming said, eating rats, as a misunderstanding of China's diet, lasted for a century. /kloc-miners in China in the 1950s were considered to eat rats. In later anti-China posters, it is not uncommon to see Chinese workers eating mice. There is no denying that voles are a delicacy on the table in some areas of southern China. It is understandable to enjoy high-temperature sterilized mouse meat, but after the Civil War, it was the era when modern health concepts rose in the United States. Hygiene and health have become a part of the American way of life and a dividing line between civilization and barbarism. Therefore, it is symbolic that workers in China eat mice-eating mice means a dirty and unclean lifestyle, which means the opposite of the American lifestyle.

The earliest American Chinese food: fried chop suey and chop suey restaurant

/kloc-at the end of 0/9, the United States entered a period of social transformation. With the acceleration of urbanization, the integration of immigrants, the rapid development of economy and society. In the history of American food, the main characteristics of this period are the increase of people eating out and the rise of restaurants. At first, Chinese restaurants mainly served China people themselves, but with the development of social economy, Chinese restaurants gradually stepped out of the life circle of China people. The chop suey, the first signature dish of American Chinese food, was also born at this time.

/kloc-In the 20th century, China social activist Huang Qianfu listed the classic fried chop suey menu including bean sprouts, chicken gizzards, chicken liver, tripe and other cheap ingredients. But why is the English translation of fried chop suey so strange? "chop suey" comes from Cantonese, because most of the North American Chinese workers at that time came from Guangdong. There are different opinions about the origin of recipes. Some people think that it originated from Cantonese cuisine, while others attribute its invention right to Li Hongzhang.

The sudden emergence of "car dismantling shops" is closely related to the economic development of the United States.

With the increase of white-collar jobs in cities, a large number of women leave home and enter the office. Housework mainly done by women, such as cooking, began to be replaced by social services. At that time, the Chinese community, whose social status was still very low, filled two gaps left by middle-class women going out to work in washing and cooking. It is in this context that chowder restaurants have sprung up. According to the statistics of Liu Haiming, there were 78 grocery stores in San Francisco alone in 1925.

chop suey

Zuoji: Hunan cuisine on both sides of the Taiwan Strait

1949, the Kuomintang's rule in the mainland came to an end. The defeat was like a mountain, and a large number of Kuomintang officers and soldiers and their families moved to a corner of the island. In this process, they also brought the local food customs to Taiwan Province Province. On the one hand, "counterattacking the mainland" has gradually become a fantasy, and only a little taste is enough to solve homesickness; On the other hand, a large number of soldiers have returned to the fields, and foreigners have neither wealth nor skills, so they can only make a living by hard work. Therefore, Xiaobao Island has become a "melting pot" of local cuisines, and the Taipei Shilin Night Market, which is still famous on both sides of the strait today, is the best evidence of this integration process.

A Hunan chef named Peng Changgui is one of the best. It is said that his master is Cao, the personal chef of Tan, a politician of the Republic of China. In Taiwan Province Province, he served as Chiang Kai-shek's personal chef and was responsible for cooking official banquets. But more importantly, he invented the "Left Tang Zong Chicken".

Why is fried chicken, which looks like a famous dish in Northeast China, named after Zuo, the leader of Xiang Army? One is that Zuo is a famous Hunan dish, following the tradition of China people naming dishes after celebrities; Secondly, he expressed his deep yearning for the homeland of Master Peng Changgui and his comrades.

Under the Cold War, Taiwan Province Province lived in the capitalist camp, and its economic and trade ties with the United States became increasingly close. With the reform of immigration law in the United States from 65438 to 0965, the quota restrictions on Asian countries were abolished, and residents flocked to the United States to seek development and livelihood. Most of the owners and chefs of these Chinese restaurants are from Sanxiang, under the banner of "Hunan cuisine". Master Peng Changgui also brought his "Pengyuan" in Taipei to new york, and "Zuoji" also traveled across the ocean. In the 1980s, Hunan cuisine and Cantonese cuisine were equally divided in the world of American Chinese food.

Left Tang Zong chicken.

China cookbooks and panda express: Chinese food enters thousands of households.

Most China people who study and work in the United States have this experience: driving to panda express, ordering diced tangerine peel chicken to comfort their "China stomach". Panda express is a chain of Chinese fast food restaurants all over the United States. Besides, I can't eat the "Chenpi Chicken" with the taste of Chenpi in China's mouth, which is their specialty.

In the history of American food after World War II, the rise of various fast food restaurants is an important picture. China's common American fast food, such as KFC and McDonald's, appeared at this time. "panda express" was also born in this period, catering to the faster pace of life and eating habits of Americans.

Panda express was founded in 1983, and has developed into the largest Chinese fast food restaurant in the United States in just 20 years. By the end of 20 14, it has become a multinational catering giant with more than 1500 stores. Panda express has sprung up like mushrooms after rain, which makes more and more Americans try and like Chinese food. As Professor Liu Haiming said, "panda express's main customers are non-Chinese Americans. Like chop suey in the 20th century, he changed the tastes of contemporary Americans. "

Panda Express.

However, if we eat "panda express" after work at noon because it is cheap, and go to Chinese restaurants for a change at weekends, Chinese food has not fundamentally changed the taste of Americans. Because the former is expedient and the latter is curiosity. The real change only happens in the kitchen, in daily home cooking.

In the second half of the 20th century, Chinese food entered the hearts of American housewives, and its medium was China recipes. According to Professor Chen Yong's statistics, only before 1985, there were 85 kinds of China cookbooks published in the American market. But among so many recipes, the most influential one is Yang Buwei, the wife of linguist Zhao Yuanren. If Julia Child, played by Riemel Streep in the gourmet movie Julie and Julia, taught American housewives who can only cook hamburgers and fried steaks how to make rice into art, then Yang Buwei's How to Cook and Eat in China made them taste the profoundness of China cooking for the first time.

First, Yang Buwei introduced China's cooking technology to the United States. China's cooking techniques are complex and varied, with various names. In addition to the commonly used frying and frying techniques, I'm afraid the technology in many places is not as good as the name of China, especially the Americans. For example, the "fried" home cooking is in western food, so it is difficult to find the corresponding item. Of course, we now know that its English equivalent is "stir-fry", but few people know that this word was coined by Yang Buwei in China Cookbook. Before that, Americans always knew chop suey but didn't know the meaning of chop suey.

In addition, Yang Buwei also let Americans know about the rich food in China. Everyone knows the eight major Chinese cuisines, but American Chinese food has always been Americanized, not authentic Cantonese food. Yang Buwei's "China Recipe" specifically mentions the differences of China cuisine.

Yang Buwei's works.

China Tour of California Beef Noodles

A few years ago, there was a popular joke on the Internet that studying abroad was from California Beef Noodle University. California beef noodles are actually American dishes exported to the domestic market.

From 1972 to 1974, Li Beiqi, a native of Chongqing and an overseas Chinese in California, opened three "beef noodle king" restaurants in Chinatown, Monterey Park and Hamburg in Los Angeles, and expanded to seven by 1979. Then he opened a franchise store in China under the name of "California Beef Noodle King". From 65438 to 0985, Wu Jinghong, an overseas Chinese engaged in the catering industry in the United States, returned to China and founded the "California Beef Noodle King". Now these California beef noodles can be seen at major airports in China.

But in the vast land of China, it is obvious that Lamian Noodles in Lanzhou is much better than Lamian Noodles in California. Why is American Chinese food not sought after in my hometown? Because it has been successfully Americanized, but it is difficult to China.

The history of Chinese food in the United States is a history that adapts to American society. It is not only Chinese who are trying to integrate into the United States, but also Chinese food. While adapting to American modern kitchen standards, it also lost the original flavor of "fly restaurant". The same kind of fried chop suey and left-handed chicken is not roast goose or fish head with chopped pepper, but California roll (an American sushi), an equally American Japanese food. In fact, isn't this the relationship between Chinese and their home country? (Text/Wan Shu)