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

by Andrew Coe

In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China, and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States—by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time.

It's a tale that moves from curiosity to disgust and then desire. From China, Coe's story travels to the American West, where Chinese immigrants drawn by the 1848 Gold Rush struggled against racism and culinary prejudice but still established restaurants and farms and imported an array of Asian ingredients. He traces the Chinese migration to the East Coast, highlighting that crucial moment when New York Bohemians discovered Chinese cuisine—and for better or worse, chop suey. Along the way, Coe shows how the peasant food of an obscure part of China came to dominate Chinese-American restaurants; unravels the truth of chop suey's origins; reveals why American Jews fell in love with egg rolls and chow mein; shows how President Nixon's 1972 trip to China opened our palates to a new range of cuisine; and explains why we still can't get dishes like those served in Beijing or Shanghai. The book also explores how American tastes have been shaped by our relationship with the outside world, and how we've relentlessly changed foreign foods to adapt to them our own deep-down conservative culinary preferences.

Andrew Coe's Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States is a fascinating tour of America's centuries-long appetite for Chinese food. Always illuminating, often exploding long-held culinary myths, this book opens a new window into defining what is American cuisine.

Genres: Food, History, Nonfiction, China, Food History, Audiobook, Food and Drink

303 pages, Hardcover

First published July 2, 2009

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a novel idea! Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States examines Chinese-American relationships from the point of view of what our people thought of Chinese food during the 200-odd year history of Sino-American relations. At first, it was thought that Chinese food was filthy and consisted of such undesirable ingredients as dogs, cats, and rats. Little by little, especially from the 1890s on, the prevailing opinion changed; and Americans flocked to the new Chinese restaurants that were popping up all over the country.

Author Andrew Coe is the son of Mayan archeologist Michael Coe, several of whose works I have read: He is certainly a chip off the old block. Below is a quote from a New York newspapers about how Chinese food was adopted by urban U.S. hipsters:

There is also a free and easy atmosphere about the Chinese eating house, which attracts many would be "Bohemians," as well as a goodly share of the class below the lowest grades of the city's many graded Bohemia. Visitors loll about and talk and laugh loudly. When the waiter is wanted someone emits a shrill yell which brings an answering whoop from the kitchen, followed sooner or later by a little Chinese at a dog trot. Anyone who feels like it may stroll into the kitchen and try a little pidgin English on the cook. The proprietor will teach anyone to use the chopsticks and roar with laughter over the failures of the novice. Everybody does as he or she pleases within certain very elastic bounds.

Coe's identification of fascinating newspaper and magazine articles detailing how Chinese food in the U.S. fared from the very beginnings to today. The more we thought of China, the better we thought of the food. Today, it is a major cuisine throughout much of America, from small desert towns of the Southwest like Page, Arizona as well as the major coastal cities. And we never think about dogs, cats, and rats being served to us any more.

[Carl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is more a history of the American perception of China and Chinese foods. I was disappointed by the long diversions into the historical incidents. I book does not really deal with the explosion of interest in Chinese and all kinds of asian food in the 1980's and how that has changed American's feelings about ingredients, methods and techniques of Chinese cooking.

[Jonathan Hiskes · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a great book to be written about the immigration experience and "authentic" food, what Americans want Chinese food to be and how American Chinese restaurants respond, and the differences between English menu and off-the-menu items in Chinese restaurants. Coe's book tries to shed light on these things but relies too heavily on historical documents barely related to food. It shows little evidence the author got to know actual Chinese-American people, and suffers for it.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned so much about the history of Chinese food and about immigration history more generally.

This book is especially important right now when Chinese restaurants are struggling. Read this book, eat Chinese food, by Chinese ingredients, learn to cook authentic Chinese food.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Coe, Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in America (Oxford, 2009)

As someone who both was born in 1968 and is a lover of Chinese food, I actually lived through much of the last chapter of Andrew Coe's book, and I was somehow entirely unaware of it all. So as he was writing about the way Chinese restaurants in America have changed over the past twenty or so years, I kept saying “yeah, just like that” in my head, but I had somehow not noticed what really are major changes in the way American perceive, and eat, Chinese food. But what I've lived through was nothing compared to what happened in the two hundred years before that, and that's what the bulk of this book focuses on. That doesn't stop me from having said “yeah, just like that” in my head many, many times while reading it.

Coe starts his book off in the late eighteenth century, with the first Americans coming to China, sharing the revulsion for Chinese food that was held by the European countries who were already trading with the Chinese. (Considering that much of what the French, English, and Americans, among others, found distasteful about the food was the pervasive presence of onions and garlic, no wonder that Coe does not report on what the Italians thought.) He then, after a brief diversion about the various parts of China and the differences in the cuisine to be found among them, heads for America, where the Chinese started heading during the nineteenth-century gold rush. From there, it's your basic story of cultural assimilation, American flavor.

I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who loves to try new things, and it did cross my mind more than once that those who don't have the same mindset (which is basically everyone else in my family, and most of my wife's family, for starters) would not have the same reaction to this book that I did. I read about bird's nest soup and shark's fin and sea cucumbers and think “man, this sounds great.” Others may find the squick factor too much to overcome; those are some of the less alien things Coe writes about in the Chinese diet. What no one will be able to argue with, however, is that Coe is one heck of a storyteller. My rating does reflect some personal preference in that I'd have liked to see a bit more about the food, but if you're interested in food, history, or combinations of the two, this is one to check out. *** ½

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the first U.S. ship landing in Guangzhou in the 18th century to Nixon's dexterity with chopsticks, Andrew Cole traces the history of America's growing love of Chinese food. With a remarkable amount of research, Coe records how Chinese food was approached with fear, with prejudice, with acceptance, and finally with adoration. This short book is rich in anecdotes, most from the white man's perspective, about the strange smells and textures of the Celestial diet. The mythology of rat eating is dispelled with but strangely still persists (see Morgan Spurlock's excellent documentary RATS). If the book has a flaw, it is its brevity. Despite Coe's thoroughness, parts feel abbreviated -- the role of the Chinese during the California Gold Rush would probably fill a book or two on its own. He writes about the Jewish love/hate relationship with Chinese food, but his comprehensive reading list omitted Philip Roth's great line from PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT -- that Jews sneak out to Chinese restaurants to indulge in pork and shellfish and secretly hate the Chinese for getting the goods on them. Still, we read the book that is and not the book we want it to be. I cannot recall reading a book that made me want to go in search of food more than this. Editor's Note: my wife doesn't like Chinese food, so I will be a bachelor haunting Chinatown for the next few weeks.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Coe sets out to describe the history of Chinese food in the US, which sounded like a really interesting topic. However, he seems a lot more interested in Chinese food in China. There are entire chapters devoted to that, while the cultural phenomenon of Chinese take-out gets less than a paragraph.

The parts about Chinese food in the US were interesting, I just wish there was more of that and less about European and American dignitaries visiting China.

[Aaron Fung · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I expected - but still a solid read

Expected it to be more of a fact book on Chinese American food but this surprised me with a rich history of how Chinese cuisine has evolved throughout history. Well researched and informative!

[Jana Perskie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Chop Suey" is a gem of a book which gives the reader a fascinating glimpse of the history, politics, and cuisine of two widely disparate countries, China, (The Middle Kingdom), and the U.S. This volume just came out in bookstores today, July 16, and I really hope it receives the consideration it deserves.

American trade with the Middle Kingdom began in February 1784, when the ship, "Empress of China," captained by John Green, set sail from New York on a previously uncharted course - the only guide being a British pilot's manual. On August 23 of the same year, the ship arrived in Guangdong Province, at the mouth of the Pearl River in southeast China. In her hold were barrels which carried almost "$20,000 in Spanish silver and thirty tons of dried ginseng root from the mountains of Pennsylvania and Virginia." (Who knew that the U.S. originally sold ginseng to the Chinese)? The ship, after passing customs, sailed for the city of Guangzhou, also known as Canton, and finally docked at Whampoa, where French, Danish and English boats were also in port. I was intrigued that Captain Green carried copies of the articles of peace and the treaties between Great Britain and various other European powers for those ashore who were not informed of the end of the U.S. War of Independence.

Samuel Shaw, a ship's officer, was the "Empress's" business agent and the second most important passenger after the captain. The periwigged Americans met with the silk-robed Chinese at "factories," buildings on the wharf where business and trade were conducted. A "pidgin" language was developed to communicate. Not surprisingly, the Chinese had difficulty distinguishing between the British and the Americans. The foreigners were never allowed to enter the city, even after their four months stay. When the "Empress of China" returned to the United Stated, "Shaw reported about the venture to John Jay, U.S. Secretary of Foreign Affairs." Shaw appeared, from his reports, to have little interest in Chinese culture - but then the Americans never saw more of that country than the dockside factories. And Shaw's primary concern was selling ginseng and turning a profit.

When the Americans dined with the Chinese trading representatives, European food was usually served, although prepared by Chinese cooks. When the evening's menu was Chinese, banquet style, the Americans found the new cuisine to be odd and almost unpalatable. "They not only use the same kind of flesh, fish and fowl that we do, but even horse flesh is esteemed proper food." The use of chopsticks proved unwieldy and the prevalence of rice in the diet seemed curious. "Nor do they reckon dogs, cats, snakes, frogs, or indeed any kind of vermin unwholesome diet." The food was described as "insipid and stinking of garlic, onion and rancid oil."

On the other hand, the Chinese were disgusted by the American diet. They thought the fish dishes had a taste which had "no resemblance to the living fish at all." They were revolted that meat was served "half raw, or floating in a liquid gravy." One Chinese merchant wrote, "Really, it was not until I beheld this sight that I became convinced of what I had often heard, that the ferocious disposition of these demons arises from their indulgence in such gross food." The meticulous Chinese were also horrified at the American's habit of tossing table scraps to snappish dogs who were allowed to "roam amongst one's legs!!"

And so the era of trade with China was inaugurated. Before the Revolutionary War, Americans were dependent upon the British to supply their highly taxed tea. Now, they could buy tea directly from the Chinese along with delicate porcelain cups to drink it from.

Almost two centuries later, Chinese dishes, like chop suey - which consists of small pieces of meat, chicken or shrimp stir-fried with celery, onions, bean sprouts, water chestnuts, mushrooms, and vegetables, served over rice, usually with soy sauce - became a real treat in the U.S. I remember eating at Chinese restaurants as a child and ordering chop suey. I would like to think my palate has developed considerably since then. Chop suey is thought to be of Chinese-American origin - a dish designed to suit the Western palate. It was created, supposedly, in the mid to late 19th century by Chinese laborers working on the U.S. transcontinental railroad, and Chinese immigrants in San Francisco. Lem Sen, a Chinese cook who came to New York from California, claimed to have invented the recipe himself in San Francisco. More recent information suggests that the chop suey originated in Taishan, a district of Guangdong Province which was the home of most of the early Chinese immigrants. The author also explains what birds' nest soup is, a real Chinese delicacy which I have never wanted to try. Mr. Coes description makes the soup sound so delicious that perhaps I will order it on my next trip to Chinatown.

Another interesting historical tidbit, which illustrates where the people of the Middle Kingdom thought the Americans, English, etc., stood in the human pecking order was the Chinese division of the world into a "series of five concentric circles, based on an ancient plan ascribed to the legendary Yu Emperor." "First came the royal domains, meaning all the lands within the borders of China directly ruled by the emperor. All Chinese, by definition, were civilized. The core of these domains was what Westerners called China Proper"...."Just beyond China's borders lay the lands of the tributary royal princes; the kingdoms of Korea, Laos, Vietnam, Tibet, Mongolia, etc." These principalities, intimidated by the Chinese behemoth next door, accepted Chinese supremacy and regularly paid costly tributes to the emperor. "Beyond these tributary kingdoms lay the zone of pacification, where the peoples were in the process of adopting Chinese civilization." "The rest of the world was encompassed by the outer two circles of the Yu Emperor's map, called the zone of 'allied barbarians,' and the zone of 'cultureless savagery.'" So, I guess we were the "allied barbarians!"

This relatively small book, (251 pages), is chock full of information, not only about food, but about the Chinese immigration history, the Boxer Rebellion, various Chinese dynasties, and the Nixon and Kissenger visits, (imagine the wonderous foods they were served)! One would think that a history which covers so much territory would be weighty and slow to read and digest. On the contrary, I found "Chop Suey to be a fast-paced well written narrative - a most unusual book. Although many different cultures have come together in this melting pot of a nation, and many books have been written about similar cultural and culinary interchanges, (Italian, Jewish, Irish, Japanese, etc.), what makes "Chop Suey' stand out is the way the author highlights so much more than cuisine. He sprinkles unusual historical information and little known lore throughout.

Andrew Coe has written for Saveur, Gastronomica, and the New York Times, is a coauthor of "Foie Gras: A Passion," and has contributed to the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink. He has dined at Chinese restaurants around the world and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

I highly recommend "Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States."

[JS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book over the history of US and exposure to Chinese food over the centuries. One piece from the book was about Nixon. I wish they would make a movie or miniseries about Nixon learning to use chopsticks and eating Chinese food prior to and during his trip to China. That would be much better than another watergate iteration

[szymborskalyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. It’s not to feel aggrieved when you stepped into history though — racism is just fucking god damn repugnant.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really disappointed with this book, though in retrospect, I was probably expecting more than I should have.

This isn't really an exploration of "American Chinese food" so much as it is pages of:

1. Lists of ingredients
2. Lists of eras and places
3. Lists of quotes from people who don't describe the food
4. Lists of cultural injustices and prejudices
5. Lists of pop culture references to China or Chinese foods
6. Lists of restaurants

To be fair to the book, there is a large section in the middle devoted to chop suey itself. So the title is justified in a literal sense; the narrative itself is a "chop suey" of facts, so the title is justified in that sense as well.

This is certainly a cultural history, and it's definitely a history of Chinese food, and it does follow Chinese food in the United States. No part of the title is a lie.

What this book is not, unfortunately, is interesting.

[Trey Malone · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. The topic is extremely interesting, but the topic's treatment felt a lot like a bait-and-switch. Quite a bit of the book is actually about how Americans experienced Chinese food in CHINA. This is quite disappointing because the story of Chinese food in the United States should be a wonderful framing about the immigrant experience - with all the cultural appropriation you could imagine. Instead, the book focuses on high-profile events of famous world leaders. This is not at all - in my mind - what should qualify as a cultural history of Chinese food in the United States as the book almost entirely overlooks Chinese culture in the United States.

Moral of the story: Great idea, rough landing.

[Tri Le · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives an overview of the American experience with Chinese food, starting with the establishment of American-Chinese relations back in the late 1700s. Andrew Coe provides a deeper dive into the relationships between the two people while providing information on the origins of Chinese cuisine. However, I was expecting a bit more attention on the food rather than a lesson on American-Chinese relationships. Still, Chop Suey is a digestible and informative read. Would recommend for those interested in culinary history or Chinese-American race relations. 3.5/5 stars

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

- Late Qing Dynasty, China locked itself out as it sees Western culture "uncivilized". Western countries, in order to trade with China, waged warfare forced China to open up

- While the Chinese semi-tolerated trade, it forced the Western world to stay within a specific corridor (or factories). This works both ways: Western traders also didn't have the desire to go into Mainland as they see China as mostly uncivilized and unsanitized anyways (they couldn't - and still - can't fathom how the Chinese uses the same utensils that touches their mouth to share food with their guests)

- 18th and 19th centuries, a person's character is tied up based on his manners. Thus for the Americans, sometimes they feel out of placed in many high-manner societies

- After Cushing signed the first Sino-American trade treaty, a mini Chinese crazed occured where people wanted to see anything China related

- Chinese food was mostly enjoyable to most Westerners. However, the Americanization of the Chinese food (started with Chop Suey) makes the Chinese food more palatable to the American audience. However, such food is mostly associated with cheap, lower-class and adventurous affairs

- What the Chinese carved in the 1800s are still mostly the same today: sea-cucumber, bird's nests, shark fin soup etc

- Chinese American food is largely stale and not as innovative as its Asian counterpart. A big part has to do with the strict immigration law that forbids restaurateurs to hire Asia's best chef. This means that the Chinese chef today are mostly of older descendant that are used to doing things the old way

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

After living in New York City for 20 years, my then husband and I set out to find an alternate location and temporarily landed in Virginia Beach. This was 1976. As a way to earn money, I taught Chinese cooking at an adult education program in Norfolk. My students loved learning this beginner class. Certainly, I was no expert at technique, but in NYC I had lived only blocks away from Chinatown and had cooked Chinese food for many years and eaten expertly prepared Chinese food for my whole time there.

I thought CHOP SUEY provided a very superficial introduction to Chinese food as experienced in America. Most big cities in the United States had great Chinatowns. In Norfolk at the time I was there, there were 2 good size Asian markets available to buy ingredients.

And I don't think that P.J. Chang or Panda Express are very good examples of acceptable Chinese food.

[Carlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are a few different histories being told in this book. Coe starts with the history of American commercial contact with China in the 18th century. He then switches to the evolution of food culture in China, from the earliest times up to Qing dynasty. Finally, he arrives at the ostensible subject of the book, the history of Chinese food in the US starting with the first Chinese immigrants in the 19th century. While he certainly ends up telling the story he promises in the title, the writing feels pulled from different directions and distracts from the ostensible subject of the book.

[Roberta Westwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Get out your chopsticks!

An entertaining listen. Begins with the early history of the Chinese in the USA, including the Exclusion Act, then moves to the growth of Chinatowns in San Francisco and NYC. From there the book traces how Chop Suey, Chow Mein, eggrolls and Peking Duck became staples of North American Chinese food restaurants, rather unlike authentic meals you would find in China. While the history here in Canada is somewhat different, the menus of Chinese restaurants in towns across the country are very much alike.

[Ali C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book about history of relationship of Americans to Chinese food.

I felt that the book could have focused more on the past 100 years when Americans started to embrace Chinese cuisine (or what they thought to be Chinese cuisine) rather than the time period before that where Americans were repulsed by it. It seems like the last chapters were rushed even though they contained more interesting content than the first chapters.

[Bryn]

I ended up reading the first chapter of this (about the late 18th century) and the last (about recent decades) and skipped the rest. What I read was good, it's just that this is not the book I was looking for -- I am not even sure exactly what I am looking for, really, except I think I am mostly interested in Chinese-American food post-WW2 and want to read a book that has lots and lots of detail about that and not so much about the 19th century.

[DW Rowlands · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting history of Chinese food in the US, though it should be warned that the first three-quarters are pretty painful to read, since they focus so much on the scale of anti-Asian racism in 19th and early 20th Century California. (That said, it was also useful as a better history of that period than I'd really read, since much of my familiarity with it comes from Laurence Yep's young-adult novels

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light, entertaining read that felt quick. Did the best he could with the limited sources available. Did tend to say the same things over and over again - but the same issues kept coming up (such as Chinese stereotypes about eating dogs and rats, "Chop Suey" vs. a broader palate of Chinese food, the need to make money vs. the need to be authentic, etc.)

[David Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This had a lot of good information, but I don't love when books mislead with the title. While food played an important part, the book felt more like a deep historical look at Chinese culture and adaption of that culture by its people into the United States. There were times when the details became a bit boring, but most of it was interesting enough.

[Mark Zodda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting survey of Chinese food and how it has gone from unimaginably exotic to just another part of American cuisine. The book covered the subject more broadly than I expected, but it did so while adding to my knowledge and keeping me engaged. I'm not sure why I picked this up, but I'm glad to have read it.

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

More honest subtitle is “a white colonizer’s horrified account of Chinese food in the west”. Very racism and white supremacy neutral. But excellent examples of the history of white Americans’ othering of and implicit bias on Chinese (and Asians in general)

[Emilie Bishop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone’s reviews are absolutely hilarious. When you read a book everything in that book may not be true, it’s written by one person. The reviewers seem to forget that they can think for themselves. So much whining. You all are making me laugh. Keep reading.

[Ryan Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a unique book. It shows the history of Chinese food coming to America and the changing American perception of Chinese food. A little bland but overall I enjoyed it. The seemingly random section on Jewish immigrants in New York was unnecessary and should have been edited out.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now to find a good Chinese restaurant. Still not easy.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good for a pop history.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5