Fortune Cookie Chronicles : Adventures in the World of Chinese Food

by Lee, Jennifer 8

• ISBN13: 9780446580076
• ISBN10: 0446580074
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-03-03
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Summary

Readers 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 Times" reporter Lee.

Author Biography

Jennifer 8 Lee, the daughter of Chinese immigrants and a fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese herself, grew up eating her mother's authentic Chinese food in her family's New York City kitchen before graduating from Harvard in 1999 with a degree in Applied Mathematics and economics and studying at Beijing University. At the age of 24, she was hired by the New York Times, where she is a metro repoter and has written a variety of stories on culture, poverty, and technology.

Table of Contents

Prologue: March 30, 2005	p. 1
American-Born Chinese	p. 9
The Menu Wars	p. 27
A Cookie Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma	p. 38
The Biggest Culinary Joke Played by One Culture on Another	p. 49
The Long March of General Tso	p. 66
The Bean Sprout People Are in the Same Boat We Are	p. 84
Why Chow Mein Is the Chosen Food of the Chosen People-or, The Kosher Duck Scandal of 1989	p. 89
The Golden Venture: Restaurant Workers to Go	p. 107
Take-out Takeaways	p. 139
The Oldest Surviving Fortune Cookies in the World?	p. 143
The Mystery of the Missing Chinese Deliveryman	p. 151
The Soy Sauce Trade Dispute	p. 165
Waizhou, U.S.A.	p. 179
The Greatest Chinese Restaurant in the World	p. 209
American Stir-fry	p. 250
Tsujiura Senbei	p. 260
Open-Source Chinese Restaurants	p. 266
So What Did Confucius Really Say?	p. 273
Acknowledgments	p. 292
Notes	p. 296
Bibliography	p. 303
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