Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food
Author: Jennifer 8 Le
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.
The New York Times - Jane and Michael Stern -
Lee is a city-beat reporter for The New York Times. Her inclination as a journalist is to trace a story all the way to its genesis, but not without taking some fascinating detours…It's fun to read about the Jewish passion for "safe treyf" (Yiddish for nonkosher food) and to accompany Lee on an exhaustive hunt for "The Greatest Chinese Restaurant in the World" outside China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. But amusing as such diversions are, Lee's book is more serious than its jolly subtitle suggests, exposing some very ugly sides of the business.
The Washington Post - Christine Y. Chen
Reading Lee's book is almost like watching a documentary travelogue. 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…Where Lee really shines, though, is in describing the people who have cooked, served and delivered America's favorite cuisine. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles isn't just about the popularization of Chinese food; it's also a story of Chinese immigrants in America.
Publishers Weekly
Readers will take an unexpected and entertaining journey-through culinary, social and cultural history-in this delightful first book on the origins of the customary after-Chinese-dinner treat by New York Timesreporter Lee. When a large number of Powerball winners in a 2005 drawing revealed that mass-printed paper fortunes were to blame, the author (whose middle initial is Chinese for "prosperity") went in search of the backstory. She tracked the winners down to Chinese restaurants all over America, and the paper slips the fortunes are written on back to a Brooklyn company. This travellike narrative serves as the spine of her cultural history-not a book on Chinese cuisine, but the Chinese food of take-out-and-delivery-and permits her to frequently but safely wander off into various tangents related to the cookie. There are satisfying minihistories on the relationship between Jews and Chinese food and a biography of the real General Tso, but Lee also pries open factoids and tidbits of American culture that eventually touch on large social and cultural subjects such as identity, immigration and nutrition. Copious research backs her many lively anecdotes, and being American-born Chinese yet willing to scrutinize herself as much as her objectives, she wins the reader over. Like the numbers on those lottery fortunes, the book's a winner. (Mar.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationSchool Library Journal
Adult/High School- Lee takes readers on a delightful journey through the origins and mysteries of the popular, yet often overlooked, world of the American Chinese food industry. Crossing dozens of states and multiple countries, the author sought answers to the mysteries surrounding the shocking origins of the fortune cookie, the inventor of popular dishes such as chop suey and General Tso's chicken, and more. What she uncovers are the fascinating connections and historical details that give faces and names to the restaurants and products that have become part of a universal American experience. While searching for the "greatest Chinese restaurant," readers are taken on a culinary tour as Lee discovers the characteristics that define an exceptional and unique Chinese dining experience. Readers will learn about the cultural contributions and sacrifices made by the Chinese immigrants who comprise the labor force and infrastructure that supports Chinese restaurants all over the world. This title will appeal to teens who are interested in history, Chinese culture, and, of course, cuisine. Recommend it to sophisticated readers who revel in the details and history that help explain our current global culture, including fans of Thomas L. Friedman's The World Is Flat (Farrar, 2006) and Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's Freakonomics (Morrow, 2006).-Lynn Rashid, Marriots Ridge High School, Marriotsville, MD
Kirkus Reviews
A quest. With eggrolls. Debut author Lee, a New York Times metro reporter, has been fascinated by the culturally mixed nature of Chinese restaurants ever since she discovered from reading The Joy Luck Club in middle school that fortune cookies are not Chinese. "It was like learning I was adopted while being told there was no Santa Claus," writes this ABC (American-born Chinese), who never thought to wonder why the food in those white takeout cartons tasted nothing like Mom's home cooking. But she didn't become really obsessed until March 30, 2005, when a surprisingly large batch of lottery-ticket buyers across the country scored some big money in a Powerball drawing with numbers they got from fortune cookies. Lee drew up a list of the restaurants that had served the Powerball winners and used that as a jumping-off point for a trip that covered 42 states and included stops at eateries ranging from no-frills chow mein joints to upscale dim sum parlors. As she explored this vast sector of the food-service world-there are more Chinese restaurants in the United States than McDonald's, Burger Kings and KFCs combined-she learned about the science of soy sauce, the manufacture of takeout containers and the connection between Jewish culture and Chinese food. Lee's charming book combines the attitude and tone of two successful food industry-themed titles from 2007. Like Trevor Corson (The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket), she embeds her subject's history in an entertaining personal narrative, eschewing cookie-cutter interviews and dry lists of facts and figures. Like Phoebe Damrosch (Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter), she has a breezy,likable literary demeanor that makes the first-person material engaging. Thanks to Lee's journalistic chops, the text moves along energetically even in its more expository sections. Tasty morsels delivered quickly and reliably.
Table of Contents:
Prologue: March 30, 2005 1American-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
Book review: Global Insitutions and Development or Cost Estimating
Food in the Social Order: Studies of Food and Festivities in Three American Communities, Vol. 9
Author: Mary Douglas
This title is available as part of the 10-volume set, Mary Douglas: Collected Works, or as an individual volume.
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