I Believe in the Power of Dumplings
By Jennifer 8. Lee | June 29, 2009
This is from a retreat that I went to, where we were asked to write essays based on the This I Believe format. It’s a very popular writing exercise. I really do believe in the power of dumplings.
I believe in the power of dumplings
Who doesn’t love dumplings? Steamed, boiled, or fried, they are universal.
I once made 888 dumplings for a party, my personal record. A man came up to me while I was folding and said he had heard the legend of the girl who made a thousand dumplings and wandered off. You might have crudites, warm cheese, stale hummus, left over at the end of the party. You will never have left over dumplings– unless you burned them.
Dumplings were my savior. In elementary school, we were puzzled by the teacher’s call for a bake sale. Chinese people don’t bake. They don’t have ovens in even the fanciest yuppie apartments in Shanghai and Beijing. Instead we made fried dumplings. They were always among the first to sell out.
But pause and reflect nearly every culture has some version of a meat and vegetable bundle in a carbohydrate casing — and if they don’t, they borrowed it from somewhere else. In China they had potstickers, which became gyoza in Japan, manduk in Korea and momos in Tibet. In Brazil, land of meat, gyoza were brought over by Japanese immigrants and morphed into gargantuan things the size of a man’s first. There are also the dumpling cousins: Italian raviolis, Jewish Kreplach, Indian samosas, Jamaican patties, Polish perogis, and Ukranian varenikt. Humans, much like we’re genetically programmed to think babies are cute and protection-worthy, are designed to love dumplings.
While many foreign foods that have appeared in America are unrecognizable to their “native countries” — burritos, chicken tikka masala, General Tso’s chicken, spaghetti and meatballs – dumplings, in contrast, have stayed true to form. That speak to their cultural transcendence.
Dumplings span not only cultures, but diet and class as well. If you are vegan, you can eat vegetable dumplings. If you are kosher or halal you can eat lamb dumplings. If you like white meat, you can eat chicken dumplings. If you have celiac diseases you can get wrappers made of rice flour. But, alas, if you are on an Atkins diet, the best you can do is just eat the insides. And dumplings can range from crude basic peasant-style pork and cabbage to delicately constructed gourmet shark-fun foie gras dumplings.
And they are friendly to cooking-phobic single men. I cannot tell you how many echo-ey fridges and freezers i have opened to find a bag of Costco dumplings as a form of quick sustenance.
And lastly, they transcend generations. My mom taught me to me how to make dumplings by hand for those elementary school bakesales. I do not know if my children will speak Chinese with any great competence (cross fingers!) but I know they will know how to make dumplings. Because I will teach them how to make them by hand, maybe for their bake sales.
I believe in the power of dumplings.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Dim Sum Recommendations in New York City
By Jennifer 8. Lee | June 24, 2009
Today, a write-up that I did on dim sum places in New York went live on the Time Out New York Web site.
I’m putting the text here below, though I’m not sure if there are IP issues. I’m sure there are others. Email me if you think there should be other stuff I should add.
Jing Fong
Cheap but decent dim sum served on a football field-sized dining floor lit by a neon chandelier that looks like it landed from outer space. If you go in a group (who doesn’t?) and you divide up the check, you can eat your fill with egg tarts, roast pork buns, shrimp dumplings and end up only paying ~$15 a head. 20 Elizabeth St. 2nd FloorSouth of Canal, (212-964-5256)
Dim sum 10 a.m. - ~3 p.m. (stragglers get slim pickings)Dim Sum Go Go
The two-story restaurant is more sedate than the bustling and larger cart-trafficked establishments. It offers a creative and vegetarian-friendly menu, including dumplings innovatively stuffed with mushroom, spinach, snow-pea leaf or bamboo hearts, which sell for $2.90 during lunch and under $4 for dinner. For those without a large group who still crave variety, Dim Sum Go Go is smart to offer individual sampler platters, vegetarian and otherwise, for $9.95 during lunch and $10.95 at dinner. 5 East Broadway between Bowery and Doyers St (212-732-0796). Daily 10am–10:30pm.Chinatown Brasserie
When Chinatown Brasserie opened in 2006, it recruited Joe Ng, one of the best dim sum chefs west of the Mississippi, from Brooklyn’s World Tong. Ng offers a number of whimsical creations (like the shrimp and snow-pea leaf dumplings for $9) that are fashioned as cute creatures, complete with eyeballs. The lamb dumplings, $8, a nice twist on an old favorite, are hard to find elsewhere on the East Coast. If you need an evening fix of crispy mango and shrimp rolls, this restaurant serves its elegant dim sum all day. But you’re paying a hefty premium for the sleek surroundings, the exquisite care that goes into making each piece and high-end ingredients like lobster. The prices run between $8 to $12, and go as high as $18. 380 Lafayette St between Great Jones and E 4th Sts (212-533-7000, chinatownbrasserie.com). Mon–Wed, Sat, Sun 11:30am–11:30pm; Thu 11am–midnight; Fri 11am–10pm.Vegetarian Dim Sum House
This cash-only, no-frills, Buddhist-influenced restaurant offers vegetarians a chance to experience what they’ve been missing in mainstream dim sum. The menu utilizes the versatility of soy and gluten to create substitute-meat versions like mock-pork steamed buns, while also offering wholly vegetation-centered creations like treasure balls (crispy fried mashed potato). 24 Pell St between Doyers and Mott Sts (212-577-7176). Daily 10:30am–10:30pm.World Tong Seafood Restaurant
Generally, only hard-core dim sum aficionados take the N train all the way out to Bensonhurst for World Tong, former home of Chinatown Brasserie’s Joe Ng. But Ng’s legacy and creativity persist. Those who make the trip and brave the mob are rewarded with a wide variety of selections that are hard to find elsewhere in the city—both savory (pork pies, pork with crackling skin) and sweet (durian pastries, mochi filled with green-tea cream). On weekdays, dim sum plates are a bargain at $2.25. On weekends, even the fanciest dishes cost only $6.95. 6202 18th Ave at 62nd St, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (718-236-8118). Daily 8am–4pm.
Topics: Chinese Restaurants | No Comments »
Where are the Chinese Restaurants in Israel?
By Jennifer 8. Lee | June 14, 2009
I have been in Israel for a few days now (mostly in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Jaffa) and I’ve barely seen any Chinese restaurants. I’ve seen two actually — one while driving and one while walking. I knew it wasn’t a big thing here, from queries on the Internet, but I was surprised by how few Chinese restaurants there are (lots of sushi though). Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places.
This further emphasizes that the Jewish love of Chinese food is mostly an American phenomenon.
Labor is not all good here. Last year Asian chefs went on a one-day egg roll strike.
Topics: Global Chinese, Jews & Chinese Food | No Comments »
I got a Kindle and made a NYT lolcat pic
By Jennifer 8. Lee | June 7, 2009
Courtesy of my friend Tomoko, I now have a Kindle. I’m still trying to figure out what I think of it. But it inspired me to make this lolcat photo, based on an image from Flickr and suggestions from my friend Sugi. The cat is named Moses.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Renqiu Yu’s From Chinese Food to Chinese American Food
By Jennifer 8. Lee | June 1, 2009
I’m putting a digital copy of Renqiu Yu’s “Chop Suey: From Chinese Food to Chinese American Food” [pdf] in Chinese America: History and Perspectives (1987) online for people who need it. Permission from the Chinese Historical Society of America in San Francisco and Ren himself.
I noticed it cited in a bunch of places, but it’s pretty hard to get a copy of, since the journal has not been digitized. This copy comes to me courtesy of Trey McArver. I noticed it was cited on Wikipedia unseen, which surprised me.
This provides one of the most comprehensive accounts of the early history of chop suey in America. Mr. Yu, whom I interviewed for my book, spent months and months flipping through microfiche looking for early mentions of chop suey.
Basically, there is a dish called chow chop suey, which is giblets and entrails, that is traditionally Chinese. Along the way, chop suey became veggies and “safer” meats, like chicken, meat and pork.
Luckily, my research was accelerated with Proquest’s historical newspapers.
Proquest led me to this New York Times article from 1904, has an interesting account of how chop suey may have been inveented main stream. A Chinese man named Lem Sen claimed to have invented it at the request of an American restaurant owner who wanted some “weird dish that would pass as Chinese and gratify the public craze” at the time for things Chinese.
It is, as I’d like to believe, one of the earlier instances of celebrity marketing at the time.
Topics: Chop Suey, Documents | No Comments »
Ronald Takaki, Pioneer in Ethnic Studies, Dies at 70
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 31, 2009
As you might be aware, Ronald Takaki — a UCBerkeley professor, scholar and pioneer in ethnic studies — died last week. He committed suicide, his son said. Takaki has suffered from multiple sclerosis for 20 years.
The Los Angeles Times has a detailed obituary by Elaine Woo. NPR has a remembrance by a colleague, Larry Hajime Shinagawa, a professor at the University of Maryland. The New York Times also has a piece this morning by Williams Grimes (former food critic!).
His death is particularly important to me, because his history about Asian Americans, Strangers from a Different Shore, came out when I was in 7th grade (maybe 8th). And it was profoundly influential at my young age. I think I found it in the Jamaica library in Queens (best library for borrowing books when I was growing up), and read through it within two days. It showed me a parallel history of a group that was (largely) left out of our chunky American history textbooks in junior high. And it showed me there was even a world of ethnic studies.
It really was the first time I ever noted a scholar’s name because his work was so distinctive. Before that, books were just books. I didn’t even really pay attention to authors. This was the first time I realized that people could push boundaries of scholarship by assembling information in a new way.
So in a way, that work influenced The Fortune Cookie Chronicles.
I also love the fact he was the first professor at Afro-Am studies at UCLA. As his students put it in a good humored way: only a white university would get a yellow man to teach black history.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
The Rubber Bands Are Heading in the Right Direction.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 24, 2009
This is a fortune that was sent to me by a reader:
I’m sending you a picture of a fortune I got out of a cookie about five or so years ago. It’s the strangest fortune I’ve ever received and I thought you might like to see it. I’ve kept it pinned on my bulletin board all these years because I get a kick out of it and recently I started playing the lucky numbers in the lottery! I think it’s a positive fortune, just a bit out of the norm.
I can tell that this fortune is from Wonton Food, which makes half of all the fortune cookies in America, 4.5 million or so per day. Wonton must have had a quirky writer.
Does anyone have any idea what it means?
Topics: Fortune Cookies, Funny Fortunes, Quirky, Reader Feedback | No Comments »
Song Lyrics Exclusively From Fortune Cookie Fortunes
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 18, 2009
This is an amusing stop animation video on YouTube where all the song lyrics are derived from fortune cookies. The funny thing is I’ve seen some of these fortunes before, like “The first and only love is self-love.”
At 7 minutes, it looks like it took a long time to put together!
Topics: Fortune Cookies, Funny Fortunes, Video | No Comments »
Chinese-Mexican Food: The Chimale
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 16, 2009
This Associated Press article on the Korean taco trucks in Los Angeles mentioned something in passing that caught my eye: “Chimales,” Chinese-Mexican tamales stuffed with kung pao chicken or Chinese barbecue pork. They are topped off with a side of pico de gallo and sour cream.
The chimales are made by DonChowTacos.com, whose motto is “Mexican and Chinese food get together.”
Of course, zhongzi, the bamboo leaf-wrapped rice things are sometimes called “Chinese tamales.”
Of course, the other place to get Mexican Chinese food is Mexicali, which is like the Chinese food capital of Mexico (with >100 Chinese restaurants in a fairly midsized city). Mexicali is across the border from Calexico, Calif. It’s about a four-hour drive from Los Angeles and two hours from San Diego.
They serve essentially fajita-cized Chinese food. And instead of those crispy chow mein noodles with duck sauce, you get…tortilla chips.
Another thing they have: a lot of chop suey, egg foo yung (or “foo yung huevo”) and chow mein. Chinese food in Mexico is like American Chinese food from the 1950s that never got updated, but with a south of the border twist.
Topics: Chinese Food, Chop Suey, Global Chinese | No Comments »
This Paper is Not Edible
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 9, 2009
My friend Tomoko, who lives in Tokyo, went to an upscale Chinese restaurant called Si Chuan Do Hua and had fortune cookies served to her. It was the first time it had happened to her. The fortune was in Japanese and English.
The more amusing thing is that on the back it warned, in small writing, in Japanese “This paper is not edible.”
Topics: Chinese Food, Fortune Cookies, Funny Fortunes, Global Chinese | No Comments »
Asian Foodprints at University of Toronto, cheesy shawarma pasta, and dan ta
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 3, 2009
In case you were wondering: it is possible to wake up in New York City at 4:30 am and be in downtown Toronto by 9 for the beginning of a conference. Of course then you are not the most alert for the rest of the day.
I attended the Asian Foodprints conference at University of Toronto’s Munk Centre. It was my first academic-ish conference and many of the other speakers were people whose research I drew upon for my book, so that was a great honor.
And a very added bonus, the food was provided by Lai Wah Heen, considered one of (if not) the best Chinese restaurants in Toronto. They had an amazing dim sum demo. Did you know there is gluten-less wheat flour? I wonder if that would help celiac disease folk.
Stray thoughts: Canada is the land of the ketchup-flavored (or is it flavoured if it is Canadian?) potato chipp. My goal was to get through a trip to Canada without using any Canadian cash (success!). And I tried some cheesy shwarma pasta, which seemed like a good idea at the time (oy, misfire).
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Fortune Cookie Chronicles Appears on NYTBR Paperback Row
By Jennifer 8. Lee | May 2, 2009
In The New York Times this Sunday.
THE FORTUNE COOKIE CHRONICLES: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, by Jennifer 8. Lee. (Twelve, $13.) An American-born Chinese (and a New York Times reporter), Lee investigates the Chinese restaurant business — the origin of fortune cookies (Japan), the beginning of door-to-door delivery in New York, the relationship of General Tso to the dish that bears his name. She also looks at the difficult lives of Chinese restaurant workers.
Other books that are in paperback now: Bonk by Mary Roach, and “BUSH’S LAW: The Remaking of American Justice” by Eric Lichtblau.
Topics: Book Musings | No Comments »
Speaking at Boston College tonight at 7 p.m.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 25, 2009
Speaking tonight at 7 p.m at the Eagle’s Nest at Boston College. I’ve been Photoshopped! (They left out te 8. oddly)
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Twitter, Wikipedia and Ted.Com are My Largest Referrers
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 22, 2009
I just checked my Wordpress logs. Twitter, Wikipedia and TED.Com are by far my most reliable single page referrers to fortunecookiechronicles.com– no Facebook. Google in a way has more refers, but it turns up differently in the logs because the searches are all over the map.
I’ve actually been surprised how much mileage the TED.com video has gotten me. I actually didn’t speak at TED. I spoke at a related event called Taste3 in July, but TED folks recorded my speech and were kind enough to put it up (Jason Wishnow, thank you). I’ve had people who have shown up at book events simply because they saw me on TED. One girl told me she shows TED videos to her dinner guests while she is cooking and has shown mine several times. Another girl at NYU this past weekend called me a “celebrity” because I had been on TED.com
I will say that the TED.com video has given me more pop cultural “street cred” than anything except for The Colbert Report.
So advice to writers: see if you can show up at on TED.com!
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Chinese Food for Passover (Please Hold the Soy Sauce)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 14, 2009
So I co-hosted a seder this year and I was informed that I would be making the brisket. My reaction: “I’m Chinese. I cook small pieces of meat. I have no idea how to cook large pieces of meat.”
Then I was like, well, I’ll just marinate it in soy sauce. And he told me that soy sauce isn’t kosher for passover because of the wheat and the soy. And I was like, “How do you cook meat without soy sauce?”
The answer. One part ketchup to one part wine. Anyway that inspired me to write this piece for City Room:
For Jews who are tired of eating Seder leftovers during Passover, there is little respite. Most kosher restaurants have chosen to remain shuttered during the observance, since there are only two full days and two half-days of business during the eight days of Passover this year — hardly worth the effort to “re-kasher,” or clean, the kitchen to religious standards.
But there is one oasis: a glatt kosher Chinese restaurant in Forest Hills, Queens, called Cho-Sen Garden. (The only other kosher Chinese restaurant in New York that could rival it for kitschy title is Shang-Chai, in Brooklyn.)
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Talk at Boston College on April 25 at 7 p.m.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 10, 2009
The Chinese Student Association will be hosting an event on Saturday, April 25 at 7ish for students and pre-frosh.
Here is what they wrote in the email: “Our group as a whole has expressed interest in your literature and works. We strongly feel that your approach to Chinese heritage within the US in the context of food is a very educational topic that could greatly benefit the Chinese community here at Boston College.”
More details to come.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
St. Paul Sandwiches (in St. Louis), Made with Egg Foo Young Patties
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 8, 2009
A reader, Josh West, sent me photos of a St. Paul sandwich, which is a local sandwich specialty in St. Louis American Chinese restaurants. It is made up of a egg foo young sandwich, lettuce, tomatoes etc. on two pieces of white bread + mayo.
According to local legend, the St. Paul Sandwich was named by Steven Yuen at Park Chop Suey in St. Louis for his home town of St. Paul. It’s considered a fast food snack that is really cheap < $2.
The patties are made of egg, beansprouts, sometimes shrimp!
As Josh writes:
When you eat your first Saint Paul sandwich it’s different, but somehow familiar. It’s the best fried egg sandwich you ever had and the white bread reminds you of every sandwich you ate as a kid. You can get the egg foo yong patty with shrimp, chicken, beef, pork or all of the above topped with lettuce and mayo. Sometimes, they include tomato, pickles and even cheese. The sandwich is outstanding for something so simple and it makes you crave it from time to time. I’ve eaten Saint Paul sandwiches since I was young and it never fails to surprise me with how good it tastes.
It’s not as crunchy as a chow mein sandwich.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
A Woman Calls 911 Over the Lack of Shrimp in Her Fried Rice
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 7, 2009
The Associated Press ran a story about a 911 call from a woman who complained about her fried rice at a local Chinese restaurant. (This came to me via @weirdnews on Twitter)
I’m sure there are fair use issues, but I can’t help but quote it in full.
A woman called 911 to report she didn’t get as much shrimp as she wanted in her fried rice at a Texas restaurant.
Haltom City police on Tuesday released the taped emergency call, in which the customer is heard telling the dispatcher, “to get a police officer up here, what has to happen?”
The customer also says: “He didn’t even put extra shrimp in there.”
The upset customer had left the Fort Worth-area restaurant when an officer arrived Monday afternoon.
Restaurant workers say the woman had been denied a refund after leaving with her order, then returning to complain.
Cook June Lee says nothing was wrong with the meal, and that “some customers are happy. Some are not.”
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Speaking to Pennsylvania Librarians on Oct. 18 in Harrisburg
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 7, 2009
Speaking at Pennsylvania Library Association’s 2009 Conference at the President’s Program. The program is tied into the One Conference One Book and would be the featured title for the one book one dinner.
It’s in Harrisburg.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
How is The Fortune Cookie Chronicles Related to Richard Price’s Lush Life?
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 6, 2009
So someone emailed me today to let me know that Richard Price’s Lush Life had been recommended to them because they had purchased The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. Here is the screen shot
I read Lush Life in part because it is loosely related to the murder of Nicole DuFresne, which is a story I was a reporter on. So I was particularly intrigued by the book because there were definitely scenes that I had witnessed firsthand (like the funeral scene).
My guess about why it was recommended (though I’m sure it is wrong). He has bunch of Chinese restaurant workers in his book, as do I.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Chinesefoodmap.com, now in English!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 6, 2009
Chinesefoodmap.com, which provides Yelp style reviewed for Chinese in Chinese, now has an English interface thanks to Google translate. The translations are remarkably good. They are not perfect, but given that Yelp-type reviews tend not to be too literary (pretty simple declarative sentences), you can get the gist.
Topics: Chinese Restaurants | No Comments »
A Different Shade of Fortune
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 3, 2009
Paperback vs. Hardcover Fortune Cookie Chronicles
It’s interesting to see how the paperback and the hardcover are different shades of orange.
Topics: Book Musings | No Comments »
Random Cute Baby Picture of My Brother
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 2, 2009
Another random baby picture as my family digitizes our photos. This is Kenny, the ‘K’ in JFK.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Today is a Day of Chinese Food and Sex (and Journalism)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | April 2, 2009
I’m at University of Indiana in Bloomington tonight giving a Yay! Asian Americans talk as part of the Yay! Asian Americans month (it gets moved around in schools because May — the normal month — is exam time).
They’ve done a great job pushing and publicizing it, I must say). So after lunch today with journalism school folks, they offered to give me a tour of the Kinsey Institute (which I have to admit, I wasn’t aware was at UIBloomington).
And the lady on the phone thought it would appeal to me, she brightened up when she began d, “They have an exhibit on Asian and Asian American — ” [pause] ” — stuff.”
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »
Interviewing Martin Yan Today @ The Asia Society
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 26, 2009
Tonight, I’m doing an event at the Asia Society where I interview Martin Yan. Deails below.
Asian Food Series: An Evening with Star Chef Martin Yan, Ambassador of Chinese Food and Culture
Co-presented by New Asian Cuisine; sponsored by Tsing Tao Beer
March 26th 6-8 p.m.
Asia Society, 725 Park Ave, New York
Cost: $15 members; $30 nonmembers; $15 students (w/ID)
212-517-ASIAAlthough the Chinese restaurant industry represents 45,000 Chinese restaurants across the US, which generate over $20 billion in annual sales, most American diners still think of Chinese food as a cheap take-out of chow mein, spring rolls, and fortune cookies. While Chinese food has reinvented itself many times over on the Asian culinary scene —whose amazing growth was fueled by the recent economic boom— its counterpart in the US has not yet achieved the same stature.
Join New York Times reporter and author of “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles” Jennifer 8 Lee in a conversation with world-renowned chef Martin Yan, a celebrated host of over 3000 cooking shows broadcast worldwide, author of over 30 cookbooks, and, most recently, founder and Chairman of Martin Yan’s Culinary Arts Center in Shenzhen, China. Chef Yan has launched his center to promote the Chinese culinary arts in response to the world’s fascination with Chinese heritage and cuisine. There will be a live food demonstration.
Topics: Appearances | No Comments »