If you think McDonald's is the most ubiquitous restaurant experience in America, consider that there are more Chinese restaurants in America than McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Wendys combined. New York Times reporter and Chinese-American (or American-born Chinese). In her search, Jennifer 8 Lee traces the history of Chinese-American experience through the lens of the food. In a compelling blend of sociology and history, Jenny Lee exposes the indentured servitude Chinese restaurants expect from illegal immigrant chefs, investigates the relationship between Jews and Chinese food, and weaves a personal narrative about her own relationship with Chinese food.
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles speaks to the immigrant experience as a whole, and the way it has shaped our country.
Jennifer 8 Lee, the daughter of Chinese immigrants and a fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese herself, grew up eating her mother's authentic Chinese food in her family's New York City kitchen before graduating from Harvard in 1999 with a degree in Applied Mathematics and economics and studying at Beijing University. At the age of 24, she was hired by the New York Times, where she is a metro repoter and has written a variety of stories on culture, poverty, and technology.
Table of Contents
Prologue: March 30, 2005 1 American-Born Chinese 9 The Menu Wars 27 A Cookie Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma 38 The Biggest Culinary Joke Played by One Culture on Another 49 The Long March of General Tso 66 The Bean Sprout People Are in the Same Boat We Are 84 Why Chow Mein Is the Chosen Food of the Chosen People-or, The Kosher Duck Scandal of 1989 89 The Golden Venture: Restaurant Workers to Go 107 Take-out Takeaways 139 The Oldest Surviving Fortune Cookies in the World? 143 The Mystery of the Missing Chinese Deliveryman 151 The Soy Sauce Trade Dispute 165 Waizhou, U.S.A. 179 The Greatest Chinese Restaurant in the World 209 American Stir-fry 250 Tsujiura Senbei 260 Open-Source Chinese Restaurants 266 So What Did Confucius Really Say? 273 Acknowledgments 292 Notes 296 Bibliography 303
Lee travels wide and digs deep to unearth the answers to several burning questions...
From all-you-can-eat buffets in Kansas to the small southern Chinese village of Jietoupu, where she tracks down descendants of General Tso (who, natch, have never heard of, seen or tasted their forefather's infamous chicken dish), the author takes readers by the hand and brings them on her adventure.
