Andrew Coe, “Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States” (Oxford UP, 2009)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Jun 13, 2014 · 56m

Through some quirk of fate, the Hobbesian tag “filling, cheap, and familiar” is probably the defining phrase used when Americans think of Chinese food. Yet what could be less accurate a description of this cuisine, born halfway around the world, which had been evolving for well over a millennium before it was brought to California in the 1840s? The events that brought the Chinese and their food to our shores, to become so important a strand in the fabric of American eating, is the story Andrew Coe tells in his fascinating book, Chop Suey: The Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United…