FROM C ANTON RESTAUR ANT TO PANDA EXPRESS Asian American Studies Today This series publishes scholarship on cutting-edge themes and issues, including broadly based histories of both long-standing and more recent immigrant populations; focused investigations of ethnic enclaves and understudied subgroups; and examinations of relationships among various cultural, regional, and socioeconomic communities Of particular interest are subject areas in need of further critical inquiry, including transnationalism, globalization, homeland polity, and other pertinent topics Series Editor: Huping Ling, Truman State University Stephanie Hinnershitz, Race, Religion, and Civil Rights: Asian Students on the West Coast, 1900–1968 Jennifer Ho, Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture Haiming Liu, From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express: A History of Chinese Food in the United States Jun Okada, Making Asian American Film and Video: History, Institutions, Movements David S Roh, Betsy Huang, and Greta A Niu, Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media FROM C ANTON RESTAUR ANT TO PANDA EXPRESS A History of Chinese Food in the United States H a iming Liu Rutger s Uni v er sit y Press New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Liu, Haiming, 1953– From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express : a history of Chinese food in the United States / Haiming Liu pages cm — (Asian American studies today) Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978–0–8135–7475–2 (hardcover : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7474–5 (paperback : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7476–9 (ePub) — ISBN (invalid) 978–0–8135–7477–6 (Web PDF) Chinese restaurants—United States—History Chinese Americans—Food— United States—History Chinese—Food—United States—History Food habits—United States—History Cooking, Chinese—History United States— Ethnic relations United States—Social life and customs I Title TX945.4.L58 2015 641.5951—dc23 2014049319 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Haiming Liu All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S copyright law Visit our website: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America To Aiping, Jeff, and my late father CONTENTS Acknowledgments Note on Romanization ix xi Introduction 1 Canton Restaurant and Chinese Forty-niners Flags of Yellow Silk 18 “Chinamen Live on Rice” 29 Chop Suey and Racial America 49 Kung Pao Kosher: American Jews and Chinese Food 71 General Tso’s Chicken Made in Taiwan 86 The San Gabriel Valley as a Capital of Chinese Food 107 Who Owns Culture? 128 Din Tai Fung as a Global Dumpling House 146 Conclusion 157 Notes Selected Bibliography Index 159 181 193 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to many people and organizations that provided assistance, advice, and encouragement at various stages of this book I published my first article on Chinese food in America in the Journal of Asian American Studies in 2009 I want to thank the journal and the two anonymous readers for their valuable comments I published “Chop Suey as an Imagined Authentic Chinese Food” in the Journal of Transnational American Studies the same year I want to thank the journal, the anonymous readers, Gordon Chang of the Advisory Board, and Shelley Fisher Fishkin of the Editorial Team of the journal I published “Kung Pao Kosher” in the Journal of Chinese Overseas (JCO) in 2010 I must thank Tan Chee Beng, former editor of JCO, and an anonymous reader for his or her harsh but insightful comments, from which I benefited tremendously I published “Flexible Authenticity: Din Tai Fung as a Global Shanghai Dumpling House Made in Taiwan” in Chinese America: History and Perspectives in 2011 and received valuable comments from the journal’s committee members Several chapters in this book are revised versions of the above articles I want to acknowledge that E. N Anderson’s The Food of China (1988) has significantly impacted my understanding of Chinese food history Joanna WaleyCohen’s The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History (1999) has deepened my knowledge of Chinese history Donna R Gabaccia’s We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans (1998) has shaped my conception of American food culture and history Elizabeth Sinn’s Pacific Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong (2013) has greatly enriched my comprehension of Hong Kong and California in the nineteenth century My special thanks also go to John M Liu of the University of California, Irvine, who was my mentor when I was a Ph.D student at UC Irvine I am indebted to Gilbert Hom of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, who has shared with me valuable information on Chinese Americans, including Chinese pioneers in manufacturing frozen foods in the 1940s I want to express my deep gratitude to California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, which provided me with two course releases and two minigrants at various stages of my writing My dean M. G (Peggy) Kelly, chair S Terri Gomez, and other colleagues are extremely understanding and supportive in my research Friendship with Wei Li, Zong Li, Jinqi Ling, Yuan Shu, Fenggang Yang, Philip Yang, and Min Zhou in the field of Asian American studies is a great asset in my professional life Xiao-huang Yin of the Occidental College has read the ix ... and Greta A Niu, Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media FROM C ANTON RESTAUR ANT TO PANDA EXPRESS A History of Chinese Food in the United States H a iming... Jersey, and London Library of Congress Cataloging -in- Publication Data Liu, Haiming, 1953– From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express : a history of Chinese food in the United States / Haiming Liu pages... the 1960s, reflects more Chinese adaptation to America than what Chinese eat in China The Chinese restaurant business has a long history in the United States, and its food, cooking, and operation