White American Culture is General Tso’s Chicken and Chop Suey
by Guest Contributor Restructure, originally published at Restructure!
Finally, somebody summarized the myths that non-Chinese Americans have about Chinese food. Most of what White Americans consider “Chinese food” is mostly eaten by white people, and would be more accurately described as “American food” (and perhaps even “white people food”).
Jennifer 8. Lee has a great video on TED Talks titled, Who was General Tso? and other mysteries of American Chinese food.
Here are some important points from the video:
Fortune cookies are almost ubiquitous in “Chinese” American restaurants, but they are of Japanese origin. Most people in China have never seen fortune cookies. Fortune cookies were “invented by the Japanese, popularized by the Chinese, and ultimately consumed by Americans.” Fortune cookies are more American than anything else.
- General Tso’s chicken is unrecognizable to people in China. It is the quintessential American dish, because it is sweet, it is fried, and it is chicken.
- Beef with broccoli is of American origin. Broccoli is not a Chinese vegetable; it is of Italian origin.
- Chop suey was introduced at the turn of the 20th century (1900). It took thirty years for non-Chinese Americans to figure out that chop suey is not known in China. “Back then”, non-Chinese Americans showed that they were sophisticated and cosmopolitan by eating chop suey.
- “Chinese” take-out containers are American.
- There is Chinese French food (salt-and-pepper frog legs), Chinese Italian food (fried gelato), Chinese British food (crispy shredded beef), Chinese West Indian food, Chinese Jamaican food, Chinese Middle Eastern food, Chinese Indian food, Chinese Korean food, Chinese Japanese food, Chinese Peruvian food, Chinese Mexican food (which look like fajitas), Chinese Brazilian food, etc.
- If McDonald’s is Microsoft, then Chinese food is Linux.
These myths that most White Americans have about “Chinese food” are not trivial. Generally, false assumptions beget false conclusions and distorted worldviews. When most White Americans believe that American foods like chop suey, General Tso’s chicken, and fortune cookies are “foreign” and “Chinese”, some effects include:
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