A golden age for chinese food taiwanese

At the Tredwells’ tableRestoring the 19th-century kitchen at New York’s Merchant’s House Museum By Chunghao Pio Kuo Until the 1970s, most of the Chinese restaurants in New York City s

At the Tredwells’ table

Restoring the 19th-century

kitchen at New York’s

Merchant’s House Museum

By Chunghao Pio Kuo

Until the 1970s, most of the

Chinese restaurants in New York

City served Cantonese food.

Starting in the ’70s, however, New

York’s Chinese restaurants began

serv-ing more diverse regional cuisines

This study illustrates that Taiwanese

immigrant restaurateurs were largely

responsible for this change In the

1950s, Taiwanese began immigrating

to the United States Some of the

immigrants were of high

socioeco-nomic status and worked in white- continued on page nine 䊳

collar professions, but many, like the Cantonese immigrants that preceded them, worked in lower-status jobs or opened small businesses, like gro-ceries, tailor shops and restaurants

These Taiwanese restaurateurs changed New York’s Chinese food landscape They opened restaurants throughout the city, broadened our knowledge of Chinese regional cui-sine and made important innovations

in New York’s restaurant business, pioneering photographic menus and food delivery

A Golden age for Chinese food

Letter from the CHNY Chair . 2

Letter from the Editor . 2

Deborah Prinz dips into Colonial New York’s chocolate . 3

In Memoriam: Lynne Olver . 4

Ari Ariel interviews food writer Mimi Sheraton . 5

Jacqueline Newman and Karen Berman on Chinese Food in the US . 9

Members’ Books in 2015 . 21

Andrew F Smith on savoring Gotham . 23

The Merchant’s House Museum is one of New York City’s greatest treasures and an extraordinary historical docu-ment of home life in the antebellum metropolis In fact, the 19th-century row house, intact from the exterior as well as the interior, was Manhattan’s

very first landmarked property upon the passing of the revolutionary landmark law in 1965 Built in 1832 in the afflu-ent Bond Street area at what was then

the northernmost part of the city, the elegant five-story Greek revival building was home to retired hardware merchant Seabury Tredwell, his wife Eliza, their eight children and a staff of Irish ser-vants The family moved into the house

in 1835 and lived there until the youngest surviving daughter, Gertrude, died in the house at the age of 93 in 1933

Miraculously, despite dramatic changes

in the neighborhood over the nearly

100 years since the Tredwells took up residence, Gertrude had maintained the house as it was last redecorated in the mid-1850s, “as Papa would have wanted it.” Upon her death, the house was pur-chased by a distant cousin, New York attorney George Chapman, who, realizing that the house and its contents were rare treasures, made necessary repairs and opened it as a museum in 1936 Today, visitors see the home much as the Tredwell family would have known

it, with much of their furniture intact and sitting where it always has

Exhibi-The cast-iron stove and beehive bread oven at the Merchant’s House Museum on East Fourth Street in New York,

once home to the Tredwell family.

By Carl Raymond

Walking into the period kitchen

at the Merchant’s House Museum,

one has the distinct feeling of

some-how having just missed the cook or a

servant darting past you bringing a

platter of roasted meat and vegetables

to the table Stepping through the

door, it’s easy to sense the ceaseless

activity that once must have filled this

room The cast-iron stove seems ready

for another shovel of coal, the beehive

bread oven stands waiting for the next

batch of risen loaves, and the family

pie safe stands solemnly in the corner

seemingly protecting its contents from

small hands and ever-present pests

The Story of Lin Jiongguan’s Cottage Grill Restaurant in Manhattan

Mr Lin Jiongguan was born in Taichung, in central Taiwan.1 During the 1960s, he

served as a manager of supplies at the Ambassador Hotel (Guobinfandian, 國賓飯店)

in Taipei At that time, Taiwan’s restaurant industry was in its early stages and,

through his work at the hotel, Lin familiarized himself with a variety of Chinese

cuisines.2 In the early 1970s, Lin immigrated to New York City with his family

His prime motivation was his hope that

America’s higher education would benefit

his children

In 1975, Lin opened a Chinese

restau-rant called Cottage Grill (Wufu, 五福)

on 46th Street and Broadway, which

remained opened until 2000 According

to Lin, before the 1970s, New Yorkers

knew little about Chinese cuisine

because, aside from the Cantonese

restau-rants in Chinatown, only a few Chinese

restaurants dotted the city landscape

Lin regarded his restaurant as a fast-food establishment and marketed it

accord-ingly In fact, he characterized it as a cafeteria that served only “one main food staple

(either rice or noodle) and three dishes” (Sancaiifan, 三菜⼀飯).3 Most meals cost

just $2.99; shrimp dishes were $3.99 Cottage Grill’s menu included Japanese-style

curry chicken, shelled fresh shrimp, beef with green peppers, fried chicken and

mixed vegetables Because New Yorkers at that time were still largely unfamiliar

with Chinese food, he took photos of all of the dishes and included them on both an

outdoor signboard and interior displays According to Lin, photographing and

dis-playing images of Chinese dishes was rarely done at the time and proved to be

extremely expensive He emphasized this point and expressed pride in his

pioneer-ing work

As Cottage Grill’s business grew steadily year after year, Lin hired numerous chefs

who had moved to Taiwan from China’s Dachen Archipelago (Dachendao, ⼤陳島),

off the coast of Zhejiang Province, and then to the United States In 1955, the United

States Seventeenth Fleet, in cooperation with Taiwan’s Kuomintang party, had

evacu-ated the Dachen Archipelago before the territory was taken by the Communist Party of China’s People’s Liberation Army Some of these Dachen migrants, lacking sufficient social networks in Taiwan, had difficulty resettling on the island and decided to immigrate to the United States; New York was one of their major destinations Ultimately, many of them found work in the city’s restaurant industry, principally as chefs at Chinese restaurants run by Taiwanese immigrants from an earlier wave of migration.4

Lin’s Cottage Grill restaurant remained in operation from 1975 to

2000 for three major reasons First, prior

to the opening of his restaurant, very few cafeteria-style Chinese fast-food restau-rants were in business outside of Man-hattan’s Chinatown Second, the innova-tively displayed photos of dishes,

p a g e n i n e

Chunghao Pio Kuo received his PhD

from New York University in 2013 and

is currently an Andrew Mellon

post-doctoral scholar at the University of

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Kuo is a

historian of early modern China,

special-izing in food, medical, animal and

envi-ronmental histories He has published

numerous academic articles and chapters

in English and Chinese A book version

of his dissertation, which explores the

practice of pig-feeding and the

consump-tion of pork in early modern China, will

be published by the University of

Hawai’i Press as Pigs, Pork, and Ham:

From Farm to Table in Early Modern

China He is currently working on a

second project titled Animal Matters:

Epidemic Diseases, Public Hygiene, and

Food Safety in China (1700-1900).

Because New Yorkers

at that time were still largely unfamiliar with Chinese food, Lin took photos of all of the dishes and included them on both an outdoor signboard and interior displays.

A Brief History of Chinese Food in the United States

By Jacqueline Newman and Karen Berman

4th Century CE

No one really knows when the first Chinese migrants arrived in what is now North America Some scholars, both American and Chinese, believe they arrived as early as the 4th century CE.

1785

Three Chinese sailors arrive in what is now the US, and are stranded, penniless, in Baltimore for a year, after their ship sails home to Guangdong without them They waited a year before returning home.

1840s

Chinese émigrés, largely from the area then known to the West as Canton (now Guangdong) come to the US, lured by news of the California Gold Rush Once here, they take dangerous and dirty jobs such as building the railroads, digging tunnels and working as farm laborers.

1849

The first Chinese restaurant in the United States, Canton, opens in San Francisco

1850

The first all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet

in the US, the Macao and Woosung, opens

in San Francisco territory In this period, most Chinese restaurants are frequented by Chinese emigrés; many non-Chinese disparage Chinese food.

1882

Xenophobia and fears of immigrants taking jobs and depressing wages leads to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which bars entry of Chinese migrants into the US It follows decades of discriminatory taxes and rules restricting the freedoms of Chinese immigrants The law affects the Chinese restaurant busi-ness, as well (See cartoon on following page.)

whether inside or outside the establishment, created a customer-friendly atmosphere, helping patrons recognize what type of dish they would be ordering and eating Third, the restaurant benefited from President Richard M Nixon’s visit to China in

1972 and the United States’ establishment of diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China in 1979 These shifts in American diplomacy fueled people’s interest in Chinese food and benefited Lin’s restaurant in particular

The Story of Morris Lee’s Foliage Restaurant in Flushing

Morris Lee (呂明森) didn’t always want to be a restaurateur.5 After what he described

as a carefree childhood growing up in a doctor’s family in southern Taiwan’s Jiayi County, he attended Tamkang University in Taiwan, and then moved to Tokyo to study interior design He then relocated to New York City, where he established an architectural business called the Pan-Beauty Company in Flushing, Queens Obsessed with the idea of promoting Taiwanese cuisine in the Unites States, Lee opened

Foliage Restaurant (Hongyue, 紅葉) in Flushing in 1982 His previous academic and vocational experiences in Taiwan, Japan and the United States gave him a rare set of talents and abilities, and his restaurant attracted considerable attention from members of New York’s Taiwanese community, as well as from the local news media, with much of the focus on the restaurant’s unique design and delicate Taiwanese cuisine

Lee incorporated Japanese elements into his restaurant liberally Japan had occu-pied Taiwan from 1895 through 1945, and the island was greatly influenced by Japanese culture Lee had become even more familiar with Japanese culture during his time as a student in Tokyo Foliage Restaurant’s decor highlighted a dining atmosphere in a Japanese style, while emphasizing the visual appeal of the establish-ment, and of course, the visual delicacy and refined character of its foods Lee worked tirelessly to achieve these features For example, he applied natural Japanese elements to his restaurant’s design, using decorative wood and stone for the main entrance, dining tables and floor In fact, the restaurant had a distinctly Japanese visual appeal to it Lee also combined Japanese and Taiwanese cuisines, going so far

as to create a sushi bar serving both Taiwanese dishes and Japanese sashimi The purpose of this bar was to help customers relax before they were seated at tables Lee hired chefs from Taiwan to prepare Taiwanese cuisine ranging from steamed fresh

abalone, steamed lobster and mullet roles (wuyuzhi, 烏⿂⼦) to high-end dishes

p a g e t e n

Restaurateur Morris Lee receives an award for business excellence from the Borough of Queens in recognition

of his contributions to the Taiwanese community

1893

A Chinese cafe opens at the Chicago World’s

Fair in an exhibit depicting a Chinese village.

1894

In China: after centuries of on-again-off-again

rule by European powers, Taiwan falls under

Japanese control

1909

American painter John Sloan paints “Chinese

Restaurant.”

1911

In China: Revolutionaries overthrow the

Qing dynasty, ending nearly 4,000 years of

dynastic rule The Republic of China is

estab-lished the following year, with Sun Yat Sen as

president

Dr Jacqueline M Newman is professor

emerita, Queens College, the City

University of New York She is author

of more than a dozen books, hundreds of

articles – many research-based, and

almost all about Chinese food on one

of three continents As editor-in-chief of

Flavor and Fortunefor 23 years, she

started and is still leading the first and

only English-language Chinese food

magazine published in the U.S

For the past several years she has given a

keynote address at the annual Asian

Food Studies Conference.

Karen Berman is a writer and editor

who loves Chinese food She is the author

of five cookbooks, including

Friday Night Bites: Kick Off the

Weekend with Recipes and Crafts for the

Whole Family (Running Press, 2009)

and an illustrated history book,

North American Indian Traditions and

Ceremonies (World Publications, 1998).

A Golden Age for Chinese food con tinued from previous page

to perform Taiwanese, Japanese and English songs on weekends The restaurant’s

piano bar operated daily and livened up the dining atmosphere with karaoke

per-formances Rarely seen in New York City in the 1980s, karaoke was prominent in

Japanese culture Lee had learned about this form of cabaret in Japan and introduced

it to his customers To market his restaurant, he placed advertisements in many

influential Chinese-language newspapers printed in New York In large part because

of the time and effort that he devoted to both designing and running Foliage

Restaurant, it soon attracted a reverent following in Flushing’s Taiwanese

commu-nity In fact, Foliage Restaurant received a prestigious business award from the

bor-ough of Queens for promoting Taiwanese cuisine in Flushing Unfortunately, Lee

closed his restaurant in 1986, after a shootout involving rival gangs took place

dur-ing a late-night meal His career as a restaurateur over, Mr Lee devoted himself to

the promotion of commercial development in the U.S Taiwanese communities and

used his expertise in interior design to help many owners of Taiwanese restaurants

in the greater New York City area design their restaurants

The Story of Empire Szechuan Gourmet Franchise (Shuxianyuanjituan, 蜀湘園集團) 6

From 1976 to the 1990s, Empire Szechuan Gourmet Franchise, run by Taiwanese immigrants, played a pivotal role

in the Chinese restaurant scene These immi-grants ushered in a golden age of Chinese cuisine

in greater New York, simultaneously running

up to 14 restaurants in the 1980s and

the 1990s Moreover, the chain was a

pioneer of restaurant food delivery in

New York City

The first restaurant in this chain opened its doors to the public on the southwest

corner of 97th Street and Broadway in 1976 The restaurant’s establishment was a

collaborative effort undertaken by three people: Mr Hsiao Chungchen (蕭忠正),

Mrs Chang Yafeng, (張亞鳳), and Mr Wong Yinjun (翁英俊, also known by the

nickname “Handsome Wong”) Wong was Chang’s younger adopted brother

p a g e e l e v e n

The interior of Foliage restaurant was greatly admired for its

spare, modern Japanese aesthetic, a quality that was unusual in

Chinese restaurants at the time

Pekin Noodle Parlor opens in Butte, Montana Still in existence today, it is reported to be the oldest operational Chinese restaurant in the United States It still serves chop suey, chicken chow mein and egg foo yung.

1916

Fortune cookies are introduced at David Jung’s noodle shop in Los Angeles.

1922

Sinclair Lewis mentions chop suey in his

novel, Babbit

1922

The La Choy brand of Chinese ingredients for the home cook is founded

1926

Louis Armstrong debuts the song “Cornet Chop Suey.”

1943

The Chinese Exclusion Act is repealed and replaced with an annual quota that restricts entry into the US by immigrants from China to 105 per year Chinese people now have the right to become naturalized citizens

1945

In China: Taiwan is returned to Chinese

control, ending half a century of Japanese rule

1948-49

In China: Chiang Kai-Shek and his

Nationalist forces, along with some 2 million Chinese, flee the mainland to the island of Taiwan to escape Communist rule under Mao Zedong’s People’s Republic of China

1957

Madame Cecelia Chang opens a restaurant

in San Francisco that serves Mandarin-style cuisine, marking the first time Northern Chinese food is served in the United States.

According to Hsiao, his wife came up with the name “Empire Szechuan” in reference to New York State’s nickname, the Empire State Furthermore, President Nixon’s aforementioned visit to China in

1972 had spurred Americans’ interest, not just in Chinese food generally, but particularly Szechuan and Hunan cuisines Thus, the decision was made to name the chain “Empire Szechuan Gourmet

Fran-chise” (Shuxianyuanjituan, 蜀湘園集團), which in Chinese literally means “The Garden of Szechuan-Hunan Cuisine.” During the initial operation of the chain’s first restaurant, Empire Szechuan Gourmet Franchise sold both Taiwanese and Szechuan dishes

The former specifically attracted the attention of Taiwanese students attending nearby Columbia University Hsiao and Chang were responsible for the front-of-the-house work, such as taking orders, managing food-delivery services and training and hiring employees; Wong was responsible for the kitchen, owing to his previous experience doing prep work and line cooking in Taiwan

At a time when delivery from New York City restaurants was rare, Hsiao hired Taiwanese students from Columbia University to do this work In fact, Empire Szechuan was one of the city’s first eateries to popularize home delivery Within a short time, this market strategy quickly expanded the first Empire Szechuan branch’s reputation throughout upper Manhattan

In 1980, Empire Szechuan opened its second and third restaurants at the same time, one located at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and 68th Street and another on Third Avenue and 29th Street As the chain expanded, the number of owners increased from three to six In addition to Hsiao and Chang (and not includ-ing Mr Wong, who left the chain because of differences over management styles), Empire Szechuan had four new co-owners: Mr Ma, Chef Chen, Chef Jiang, and Chef

Wu, the last three of whom came from the Dachen Archipelago As noted above, many former residents of the Dachen Archipelago immigrated to New York in search of employment opportunities, and many of these immigrants, after learning how to cook, became highly competent chefs

Hsiao and Chang had worked with Chef Chen, Chef Jiang and Chef Wu for several years, and had come to regard them as amiable and responsible Thus, dur-ing the expansion of the chain, they decided to invite the three chefs to join the list

of co-owners According to Hsiao, the golden age of Empire Szechuan Gourmet Franchise stretched from the 1980s into the 1990s, during which time there were,

at the chain’s peak, a total of 14 restaurants simultaneously oper-ating in greater New York City, including locations from Man-hattan to Long Island.7 In order

to ensure sufficient daily food supplies to all of the franchises

in greater New York, the com-pany even established a supply center near Lincoln Center The number of Empire Szechuan franchises ebbed and flowed as a result of organiza-tional factors, economic climate and personal conflicts between

A menu from Empire Szechuan Gourmet Franchise restaurant.

1958

Joyce Chen opens a restaurant in Cam-bridge, Massachusetts, serving Northern Chinese food In 1967, she hosts a television show on Chinese cooking that airs on public television.

1961

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s film,

Flower Drum Song, features a song titled

“Chop Suey.”

1963

Cashew chicken is invented at Leong’s Tea

House in Springfield, Missouri.

1965

The Immigration and Naturalization Act

abolishes entry quotas based on race and

nationality As a result, the Chinese American

population nearly doubles, 1960-1970 Many

early émigrés are from the islands of Taiwan

and Hong Kong.

1972

New York Times food writer Craig Claiborne

collaborates with Virginia Lee on The Chinese

Cookbook (J.B Lippincott)

1972

President Richard M Nixon visits the

People’s Republic of China Americans become

fascinated with all things Chinese, including

the cuisine

1973

General Tso’s chicken is invented at Peng’s

Restaurant in New York City.

p a g e t w e l v e

President Nixon’s visit

to China in 1972 had spurred Americans’ interest, not just

in Chinese food generally, but particularly Szechuan and Hunan cuisines

Empire Szechuan Gourmet Franchise sold both Taiwanese and Szechuan dishes.

A Golden Age for Chinese food con tinued from previous page

company had helped to create greatly increased both demand and competition By

the 1990s, Chinese immigrants were flooding into greater New York, and many of

them opened their own restaurants specializing in Chinese food, thus creating fierce

competition for the chain

When I interviewed Hsiao, he had been retired from the company for almost two

decades In retrospect, he was very proud of the contributions that the chain had

made, promoting Americans’ awareness of Chinese food in general and of

Szechuan-Hunan cuisines in particular Hsiao enthusiastically praised the chain’s Szechuan

offerings, including fish-flavored eggplant in garlic sauce, a series of dry-fried dishes

and sesame-paste noodles

The stories of the these three Chinese restaurants run by Taiwanese immigrants

in New York from the 1970s to the 1990s illustrate that Taiwanese immigrants,

due to their commercial competence and ingenuity, played a pivotal role in

promot-ing and sellpromot-ing Chinese cuisine, broadly defined, before the huge flood of mainland

Chinese immigrants began in the 1980s Nowadays, restaurant-goers enjoy various

Chinese cuisines in New York, including American-Chinese food, regional Chinese

cuisine and even authentic Taiwanese cuisine Back in the early 1970s, however,

before US-China diplomatic relations were officially established in 1979, and even

before President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, Americans in general – even

New Yorkers – knew little about Chinese food except for what they ate at the early

Cantonese restaurants

The first case examined in this study reveals that Lin invented, or at least

pioneered, a specific market strategy both by running a Chinese fast-food restaurant,

which was rare in the 1970s, and by offering signboards with photos of the menu’s

Chinese dishes, which served as visual guideposts for Americans untutored in the

world of Chinese food The case of Lee’s Foliage Restaurant illustrates a high-end

restaurant’s blending of Japanese and Taiwanese elements, including sophisticated

decor inside and outside the restaurant, karaoke entertainment and exquisite

Japan-ese and TaiwanJapan-ese cuisines The last case – that of the Empire Szechuan Gourmet

Franchise – concerns a restaurant that remains a legend among owners and operators

of Chinese restaurants in New York City The story of the company demonstrates

how Taiwanese immigrants successfully ran a Chinese restaurant chain, serving food

that went beyond the traditional Cantonese-inspired dishes (chiefly Szechuan-Hunan

cuisines) The franchises offered boldly flavored Chinese dishes to an American

dining public, which, in the 1970s, became increasingly interested in Chinese

cui-sine, in part because of political developments

The golden age of restaurants initiated by Taiwanese immigrants faded with the

dramatic influx of Chinese immigrants that led to the establishment of “authentic”

Chinese restaurants in greater New York City These three stories reveal an

often-overlooked aspect of the history of Chinese cuisine in the United States

p a g e t h i r t e e n

Another innovation at Foliage Restaurant was the combination of Japanese and Taiwanese cuisines,

complete with a sushi bar that served both Taiwanese favorites and Japanese sashimi.

1978

Martin Yan debuts Yan Can Cook, his TV

cooking show (mostly) about Chinese food,

on public television

1983

Chinese food continues to go upscale Celebrity Chef Wolfgang Puck opens his Asian fusion restaurant Chinois on Main in Santa Monica

1992

The Chinese Restaurant News estimates that

there are 30,000 purveyors of Chinese food in the US.

1993

Upscale chain P.F Chang’s opens its first branch in Scottsdale, Arizona.

1997

In a series of reports on unhealthy foods, the Center for Science in the Public Interest deems Chinese restaurant food greasy and unhealthy

1998

Ming Tsi’s TV cooking show, East Meets West,

debuts on Public Television.

2002

The Chinese Restaurant News estimates that

there are 36,000 purveyors of Chinese food in the US.

2007

The Chinese Restaurant News estimates that

there are 43,139 purveyors of Chinese food in the US

2008

In China: The Beijng Olympics captures the

world’s attention and puts the focus on Chinese food once again.

2011

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History mounts “Sweet and Sour:

A Look at the History of Chinese Food in the United States.”

p a g e n i n e t e e n

ingredients in Chinese food are generally

chopped, non-kosher items are less

iden-tifiable or intimidating Do you find that

convincing?

MS: Well, I think I know why Jews

liked Chinese food when they got here

What they liked was Cantonese There

was no other kind of Chinese food then

My parents went to Chinatown a lot, and

there were Chinese restaurants in our

neighborhood, but it was all Cantonese

It was made with onions and celery,

sautéed soft, crisp noodles, a lot of

chicken, chicken soup with wontons that

were like kreplach, and the beverage was

tea, and it was cheap, and you shared

You could take a big family out to dinner

and everybody shared Really kosher

people wouldn’t go Semi-kosher people

would go and not order shrimp or pork

While I was reviewing for the Times we

began to get a crop of kosher Chines e

restaurants They were generally horrible

They would use corned beef for ham, and

made all kinds of weird substitutions

But in general, I think Chinese food was cheap, it was soft and mild flavored and oniony We only ordered about 10 dishes from the menu: subgum, chow mein, chop suey, sometimes egg foo young; my mother liked beef and peppers The same dishes kept coming up and every time I went to a Chinese restaurant I wanted

to order something new I thought, “There are other things on the menu Why do we keep [ordering the same things] .” Now Jewish people go

to all the different kinds of Chinese restaurants, but it was Cantonese that really got them in the beginning

We weren’t kosher My mother cooked ham and bacon at home and once in a while she made a pork chop, but she hated the word “pork.” If you said ham

is smoked pork, she’d say, “Who asked you?” But if we went to a Chinese restau-rant we always ordered the roast pork

appetizer It was different there; all bets were off Anyway, that’s a particular kind of history I remember seeing a documentary film seven or eight years ago about Jews who were rescued from the Germans and settled in China, in Shanghai in particularly After the film, the director took questions and I asked,

“Were the Jews in Shanghai happy to be eating Chinese food?” But that’s not where the connection began I had been eating Chinese food long before that That’s certainly history

sources

Chan, David R “How American Chinese

Food Came To Be.” The Huffington Post: HuffPost

Taste: The Blog: Menuism September 26, 2012.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Menuism/how-american-chinese-food-came-to-be_b_1902395.html.

Chen, Stephen “Savoring the Legacy of Joyce

Chen: Chef Restaurateur Entrepreneur.” Joyce Chen

Foods (website) http://joycechenfoods.com/legacy/

(accessed August 24, 2015)

Li, David K “Chinese Food a Main Chow.”

The New York Post May 5, 2008.

http://nypost.com/2008/05/05/chinese-food-a-main-chow/ (accessed August 13, 2015).

Museum of Chinese in America (website)

http://www.mocanyc.org/learn/timeline/first_chinese_

in_the_united_states (accessed July 28, 2015).

“National Museum of American History

Show-cases ‘Sweet & Sour.’” The National Museum of

American History (website) http://americanhistory.si.

edu/press/releases/national-museum-american-history-showcases-sweet-sour (accessed August 25, 2015).

Newman, Jacqueline M “Chinese Cuisine:

1900-1999.” Flavor & Fortune Winter 2013 36-37.

Newman “First Fifty Years of Chinese Cuisine

in the USA.” Flavor & Fortune Fall 2013 37.

Newman “Letters to the Editor.” Flavor &

Fortune Spring 2014 7.

Newman “Taiwan and Its Food.” Flavor &

Fortune Winter 2014 28-30.

“Timeline of Chinese History and Dynasties.”

Asia for Educators (website) http://afe.easia.columbia.

edu/timelines/china_timeline.htm (accessed

August 9, 2015).

notes

1 Interview with Mr Lin Jiongguan via telephone on April 20, 2015.

2 By 1950, forces affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party had expelled supporters of the Chinese National Party (Kuomintang, KMT) to Taiwan Many KMT soldiers in Taiwan ran restaurants serving hometown cuisines The KMT’s high officials came chiefly from central China’s Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces, and many restaurants serving Jiangsu-Zhejiang cuisine established themselves in Taipei Other Chinese regional cuisines emerged in Taipei after 1950.

3 By “staple food,” Mr Lin was referring to white rice, fried rice or fried noodles (i.e., the starchy basis for dishes containing more flavorful, richer ingredients)

4 The Retreat from the Dachen Archipelago was a notable event in the Chinese Civil War between the National-ist forces and the Chinese CommunNational-ists Approximately 28,000 people took part in the retreat, and of them, a majority settled in Taiwan while a small minority made their way to the United States.

5 Interview with Morris Lee via telephone on April 20, 2015.

6 During my interview with Hsiao, he specifically used the name ‘Empire Szechuan Gourmet Franchise’ to refer

to the chain.

7 For example, during this period, Empire Szechuan Gourmet Franchise opened two branches in downtown Manhattan near New York University, one at south Washington Square and another one at LaGuardia Place.

Another franchise opened at the corner of First Avenue and 84th Street In midtown Manhattan, Mrs Chang was in charge of yet another franchise, this one at the corner of Broadway and 68th Street From 1993 to 1999, Hsiao was

in charge of a franchise on Long Island in Nassau County Apart from the above-mentioned franchises, several were run by the co-owners in Manhattan.

***

sources

Hsiao Chungchen, interview, April 23, 2015

Morris Lee, interview, April 20, 2015.

Lin Jiongguan, interview April 20, 2015.

timeline photo credits

John Chinaman on the Railroad (1875) The Miriam and Ira D Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, the New York Public Library;

“The Chinese Question Again,” The Wasp, July 23, 1889, UC Berkeley Bancroft Library; Joyce Chen Forever Stamp, USPS and Stephen Chen via Wikimedia Commons; President Lyndon B Johnson at Ellis Island for signing of the Immigration Act, 1965, LBJ Presidential Library; President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai toast, Feb 25, 1972, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum via Wikimedia Commons; Martin Yan, May 29, 2009 by San Jose Library via Wikimedia Commons; Olympic torch, Alex Needham via Wikimedia Commons.

A Golden Age for Chinese food con tinued from page fifteen

A Brief History of Chinese Food in the

United States con tinued from page fifteen

We weren’t kosher My mother cooked ham and bacon at home and once in a while she made a pork chop, but she hated the word “pork.” If you said ham is smoked pork, she’d say, “Who asked you?”