The saucier the dish, the more popular it is, Lau says.Īmerican-Chinese dishes have evolutionarily similarities with Chinese staples. General Tso is the most popular dish at Suzie’s, followed by orange chicken and kung pao chicken. Lau says all of her chefs come from China. Her family opened Suzie’s in 1973 and has been operating it ever since. “We take different flavors from Chinese cuisine, combine them and create an original flavor.”ĭaughter of restaurant founder, Susie Ying, Lau was born in Taiwan and came to the United States at age 13. (The locally beloved Suzie’s has closed since this story originally appeared on CNN.) “American-Chinese food is Chinese food,” says Julie Lau, owner of Suzie’s on Bleecker Street in New York City. Not real? Tell that to a Chinese chef in New York No matter how they end up in the States, however, food is the totem of their culture. Many come to the United States from China, and almost always for economic reasons. Some 165 years on from the Gold Rush, not much has changed.Ĭhinese restaurant owners and chefs are still primarily Chinese. When railroad work was no longer available, many Chinese laborers resorted to opening restaurants.īut it wasn’t until after World War II in 1945 that mainstream Americans began eating and appreciating Chinese food in large numbers.īy that time, the extensive American-Chinese menu was well established. They were made to satisfy the cravings of “real” Chinese people. Chop suey and many of the other American-Chinese basics that we know today weren’t created to satisfy the supposedly inferior palates of white Americans. It sure wasn’t white Americans, who at the time, with few exceptions, wanted almost nothing to do with the social and culinary customs of Chinese immigrants. So they used what they could find in their new homes to create then-contemporary Chinese dishes, such as the now much-derided chop suey, one of the first Chinese dishes invented in the United States.Īnd who was eating this “fake” Chinese food? These Chinese people just happened to be living outside of the mother country.Īccording to the “Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America,” during the 1840s Gold Rush in California, early Chinese immigrants (most were railroad builders) had no or extremely limited access to traditional Chinese ingredients. The bulk of them were created by Chinese people for Chinese people. There’s nothing inauthentic about American-Chinese dishes. The Chinese dishes Chinese people love mostĪmerican-Chinese food. Those who unapologetically enjoy orange chicken – and many other American-Chinese dishes – and who actually know a little bit about the history of Chinese people outside of China are left to ponder a simple question: What is authenticity? Orange chicken, egg foo young and General Tso’s chicken have fallen victim to a lot of hatemongers since their introduction to the U.S. Superior foodies love nothing more than bashing the chefs and restaurant owners for their alleged perversion of the sacred culinary genre – as if only they know what real Chinese food is, as if someone died and made them arbiter of all Chinese cuisine. Yes, I’m actually going to defend orange chicken.įundamentally fried chicken with sauce – the perfect late-night snack – orange chicken is beloved by millions of people of all ethnic groups (including many Chinese) in the United States.Īs with most American-Chinese food, however, there’s a stigma attached to orange chicken.Ĭhinese food snobs call the dish, as well as the restaurants that serve it, “fake” or “not authentic.” That’s a topic CNN staff and readers have debated – with a lot of heat – in the past.Īs American-Chinese restaurant Fortune Cookie closes shop in Shanghai this week, after successfully selling U.S.-style Chinese food to locals since opening in 2013 (despite a good run its American owners have said they want to return to the United States), we’ve decided to revisit journalist Clarissa Wei’s previously published impassioned defense of orange chicken and all-American Chinese food. Is American-Chinese food “real” Chinese food?
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