Hi I'm Jenny Zhou! I am a fourth year majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology and minoring in Sociocultural Anthropology. 

I was raised in Shanghai, China - people in other provinces in China usually think Shanghainese food is too sweet, but I am always unaware of that. 

Development of American Chinese Cuisine
and Its Authenticity

Chinese food has become popular and integral part of the culinary landscape in the U.S. since the last century. At the beginning of 21st century, there were more than 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S. – this figure even surpassed the combined number of McDonald’s (13,774), Burger King (7,482), and Wendy’s (6,300) in this country at that time (Liu, 145). Meanwhile, these Chinese restaurants differ in the dishes they served. Some restaurants specialize in a particular Chinese regional cuisine like Cantonese, Sichuan (Szechuan), or Xinjiang dishes, while some others served American Chinese food, a product of Chinese cuisine adapting to American palate since Chinese immigration in the U.S. In the case of Chinese food in the U.S., the diners familiar with Chinese culture might criticize this American Chinese food as inauthentic, but some culturally inexperienced Americans might recognize the American Chinese food as the real Chinese food without acknowledging what Chinese eat in China (Ebster and Guist 41). 

Here, I argued that both these opinions are abrupt because they disregard the complicated history of Chinese immigration and American Chinese cuisine. Pursuit on authentic ethnic food is significant for maintaining cultural traditions and constructing connection to homeland, but American Chinese food should not be condemned for being in-authentic as well. The Americanization of Chinese food represents the innovation of immigrant chefs in response to customers’ preference of exoticism, in which an intermediate form between ‘Americanization’ and ‘Authenticity’ is desired in the racial environment in the U.S. In this sense, American Chinese food is specifically authentic to the Chinese food experience in the U.S. 

I. Background – Chinese Immigration to the U.S.

The development of Chinese restaurants in the U.S. is profoundly intertwined with the history of Chinese immigration in the 19th and 20th century.

The first wave of Chinese immigration to the U.S. began during the California Gold Rush commenced in 1849; this year also marked the establishment of the first Chinese restaurant in the U.S., Canton Restaurant, in San Francisco (Liu 9). According to From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express written by Haiming Liu, pioneer Chinese immigrants, mostly Cantonese from Guangdong province, actually came here not to seek for gold, but to engage in trade and initiate “a transnational flow of people, commodities, and cultural traditions” (Liu 8, 9). For them, operating food importation and restaurant management were the earliest economic activities. By 1850, there were only five Chinese restaurants in San Francisco, but they were known as “the best eating houses during the gold rush” (Smith 47, Liu 1). Providing meals with reasonable prices and excellent service, these restaurants attracted and conferred gold rush miners delightful culinary experiences (Liu 8).  Later, more Cantonese were encouraged to migrate to the U.S., to participate into the gold rush and to provide labor force in the construction of Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s (Liu 1). By 1880, Chinese population in California has risen to more than 100,000 people (Smith 47).

As the numbers of Chinese laborers increased, there is also an increasing strength of anti-Chinese sentiment and hostility among other workers in the U.S; labor activists and organizations collectively rallied against "coolie”, the cheap Chinese labor, in San Francisco (Liu 45). In 1882, the Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which suspended the entry of Chinese labor immigrants and their family (Liu 1, 2). By this year, there were only 14 Chinese restaurant in San Fransisco; Chinese food business failed to create a market niche in the U.S. (Liu 72). Meanwhile, Chinese food became a tool for stigmatization in racial rhetoric: the rumor that the Chinese ate dogs, cats, and rats was keeping circulated (Coe 24). Chinese restaurants were also described by some media as nasty and filthy spaces serving suspicious food, making middle-class white family feel awkward when dining in Chinese restaurants (Liu 2; Peters 10). This racist sentiment has led to a stagnant growth in the Chinese restaurant in the late 19th century (Liu 157). 

After China-America relationship improved during World War II, the Magnuson Act was signed into law in 1943, which repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and resumed Chinese immigration and naturalization in the U.S., terminating 61 years of official racial discrimination against Chinese (Coe 216, 217). Then, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 eliminated the discriminatory quota system based on nationalities, leading to a substantial influx of Chinese immigrants from provinces besides from Guangdong (Liu 4). This new wave of immigration brought more sophisticated and authentic regional Chinese food into the U.S., which in turn diminished the popularity of chop suey houses (Liu 4). At the meantime, owners of Chinese restaurants sought to follow Americans and adapt their business to some newly developed suburbs, expanding their eateries beyond urban confines to locations such as “Levittown, New York, and Park Forest, Illinois” (Coe, 211). According to the statistics recorded by Min Zhou, Chinese-owned restaurants increased from 304 in 1958 to almost 800 by 1988, providing employment for at least 15,000 immigrant workers and thereby becoming a cornerstone of Chinese American business (Liu 106).

II. Why Americanization?

The history of Chinese restaurants prior to the 1960s is more a story of Chinese adaptation to American palate than a transportation of traditional eating habits in China (Liu 2). To adapt to local tastes is a general marketing strategy for foreign ethnic restaurants or international restaurant chains – even the KFC in China was serving “Chicken Roll of Old Beijing”, a dish that imitated Beijing duck wrap but replaced duck with KFC’s signature fried chicken (Anthony). Nonetheless, Americanization of Chinese cuisine is rather a survival strategy to create a niche for themselves during the Chinese exclusion era (Liu 3). 

Prior to the popularization of chop suey, the Chinese restaurants in San Francisco in 1800s have applied multiple strategies except from Americanization to eliminate the stigma and appeal to more American customers. The restaurant would usually have a two- or three-floor structure with fancy, exotic external decoration to attract curious American customers; while Chinese could take their meals in the ordinary dining room on the ground floor by paying fifteen or twenty dollars a month, higher price patrons could enjoy their delicate Cantonese cuisine and western cuisine in the grand banqueting room upstairs (Peters 9; Coe 131). For marketing and advertising purpose, restaurants would also invite reporters from newspapers to enjoy free food and the elegant atmosphere of an upscale Chinese restaurant. For example, the 1864 Ningyang Huiguan banquet invited editors of the Daily Alta California and many other city officials, serving not only authentic Cantonese food including “roast pig, roast duck, shark fins, and bird’s nest soup, but also ham and slices of German bread” (Peters 11).

However, during the Chinese Exclusion Era and in the decades following, the restaurateurs had to compromise with Americanization to adapt to local customers and survive in this competitive free market. Authenticity is therefore constrained or undermined in several following ways. First, the authentic ingredients for cooking mainland Chinese food, such as “bamboo shoots, hotbed chives, garlic bolt, and wax gourd,” were sometimes inaccessible in the U.S., so the owners had to replace them with “American vegetables,” including “carrots, snow peas, green peppers, broccoli, and mushrooms” (Lu and Fine 541). Secondly, the authentic Chinese food themselves might be disregarded by local Americans. A dish esteemed in one culture could not be welcomed in another due to “due to different habits and beliefs and different degrees of culinary adventurousness or appreciation of sensory domains” (Lu and Fine 540). This is also related to the symbolic connotation of food and the essential notion of ‘we are what we eat’. Here the symbolic power of food become a means of group identification, alienation, and stratification (Colás 60). For example, Chinese considered animals’ inner organs and extremities, such as duck blood, pig intestine, and chicken feet, as nutrition, but Americans generally considered these ingredients to be “dirty, of unpleasant texture, and unhealthy”, implying that Chinese food is more inferior and primitive (Lu and Fine 541). As the result, as Shun Lu and Garry Alan Fine stated in their journal “The Presentation of Ethnic Authenticity: Chinese Food as a Social Accomplishment”, although American diners were in search for an authentic foreign experience for the purpose of identity exploration, they ended up with seeking for exoticism or “illusion of authenticity” (541). Therefore, Chinese restaurants owners had to negotiate between authenticity and Americanization: “Ideally, it should be authentic; practically, it should be Americanized” (539). They in turn endeavored to reinforce diner’s exotic experience and the sense of “exotic hyperreality” through their food, menus, and architecture décor (Lu and Fine 539).

One of the results of this negotiation is chop suey, an American Chinese dish that is not commonly found in China. Haiming Liu argues that “chop suey was a result of Chinese adaptation to the racial environment of American society”, meaning that this is an invention compromising with Americanization (52). Chow Mein, literally means stir-fried noddle, is another example. In China, chow mein is first boiled then stir-fried. In some American Chinese restaurants, noodles are first dry-fried because Americans preferred fried foods. The noodles also become much shorter into an inch long to adapt to forks.

III. What is Authenticity of an Ethnic Cuisine?

In the journal “The Role of Authenticity in Ethnic Theme Restaurants”, the authors Claus Ebster and Irene Guist provided three approaches to conceptualize and understand authenticity in the context of ethnic cuisine/restaurant.

Objective authenticity is generally defined as a quality of being “genuine or real: true to itself”; when applied to cuisine, it means that the food is prepared with the same recipes used in its ethnic or national origins (Lu and Fine 538; Ebster and Guist 43). According to objectivism, the most authentic Shanghainese restaurant should be a Shanghainese restaurant located in Shanghai and decorated with furniture produce in Shanghai.

Opposed to objectivism, constructivism argues that authenticity should be “negotiated and dependent on the context” or “derived from social construction” instead of being determined objectively (Ebster and Guist 44). For example, two identical Shanghainese restaurants in different locations – one located in Shanghai, the other located in the U.S. – might be perceived to be “authentic in its own way” because they embody two different aspects of Shanghai culture.

Postmodern view point takes a step further on its stance on authenticity, essentially questions and rejects its significance. Postmodernist and semiotic scholar Umberto Eco contend that what postmodern tourists pursued is “enjoyable illusion” rather than authenticity; he exemplifies this with trip to Disneyland, in which postmodern tourists are more fascinated by the fake animatronic alligators than by the real alligators in Mississippi (Ebster and Guist 44). In this sense, from a postmodernist point of view, a dish does not need to adhere to the traditional recipe or ingredients to be considered valid or enjoyable. Whether a cuisine is authentic or not is a question that can be neglected.

To conceptualize authenticity of an ethnic cuisine is also related to our perception of ethnicity or culture: is an ethnicity or a cultural model static or dynamic? 

To view ethnicity as statistic might emphasize on the preservation of tradition and heritages, but then some artifacts or other materialized aspects of a culture will be become commodity “that can be present or absent, ‘nurtured and sustained’ or stolen or abandoned, hidden or invested in objects – possessed” (Upton 2, 4). It implies that some materials are essentially “more authentic signs of ethnic culture than others”, and it undermines the historical processes of cultural exchange and conflict (Upton 2). 

In contrast, perceiving ethnicity as dynamic implies viewing it as “a synthesis of imposed and adopted characteristics that is forged through contact and conflict” (Upton 4). This conceptualization also brings us what historians Eric Hobsbawna and Terence Ranger defined as “invented tradition” – the practices, symbols, or social norms that are recently and deliberately constructed to serve political or cultural purposes (Upton 5). In his article “Ethnicity, Authenticity, and Invented Traditions”, Architectural historian Dell Upton exemplifies invented tradition using Chinatown architecture: “They are distilled, highly stylized, commodified images of a mythical ‘heritage’ that respond to the outsider's imposition of difference and to the insider's adoption of ethnicity as a distinguishing identity… Consequently, they are not ‘authentic’ signs of ‘true’ identities in any conventional sense. Yet these fragments of an idealized high culture serve very effectively in a multiethnic society as metonyms of identity” (5). Here, we can see that Chinatown architecture and American Chinese food are homologous in some ways. Neither Chinatown architecture or American Chinese food are objectively authentic, but since these symbols are constructed to satisfy the external audiences’ expectation for exoticism and the internal community's need to express a unique identity, they effectively represent the Chinese-American identity within the broader context of American society. 

In short, several approaches can be taken to conceptualize authenticity in ethnic food. Objectivism or essentialism might perceive ethnicity to be static and only acknowledge the ultimately authentic ethnic food. Constructivism consider authenticity as a contingent product of continuing cultural changes, social construction, and expectation; adapted ethnic cuisine can thereby be perceived as an invented tradition. Postmodernism agree with constructivism that authenticity is a fluid and evolving concept, but it embraces diversity and questions the validity of ‘authenticity’.

IV. Who Decides What's Real? – Authenticity and Identity

The culinary landscape of Chinese restaurants underwent another transformation with the arrival of new immigrants in 1960s. In 1962, Cecilia Chiang, born in Beijing and raised in Shanghai, opened her Chinese restaurant Mandarin in San Francisco (Liu 128). As the first restaurant in this city to offer authentic Chinese cuisines, it serves “sizzling rice soup, smoked tea duck, beggar’s chicken, … Mongolian lamb” among a total of over 300 regional Chinese dishes (Liu 128). However, these dishes were unfamiliar to the local and tourist diners, who have been used to Americanized Chinese dishes like chop suey and chow mein for decades. It was after the restaurant was assured and promoted by food critics that middle- and upper-class Americans were willing to consume authentic Chinese dishes (Liu 129). Additionally, since the American Chinese food was considered cheap and low-end in early 1900s, most of the customers did not want to pay more than $10 dollars on this real Chinese food (Liu 130).

Later in 1990s, the success of P.F. Chang significantly enhanced American exposure to and acceptance of authentic Chinese cuisine (Liu 135). Entering the 21st century, Din Tai Fung also opened its first North American store in Arcadia, Southern California in 2000 (Liu 150). Despite its Taiwanese origin, Din Tai Fung offers a variety of regional dishes, such as “xiao long bao” (steamed dumplings) from Shanghai and “hot & sour soup” from Henan/Shanxi provinces (Liu 146). The rising popularity of these upscale chain restaurants among non-Chinese clientele indicates a growing global receptiveness to authentic and high-end Chinese cuisine, challenging previous stereotypes and occupy its market niche in the culinary landscape across the nation.

On the other hand, Panda Express represents a substantial breakthrough into mainstream American fast-food business. Although its menu drew inspirations from Chinese regional cuisines, the dishes were still Americanized to a certain degree; this also includes the provision of free fortune cookie, which was a custom in the chop suey houses in 1900s (Liu 138). A hallmark of Panda Express’s menu, the “orange chicken”, earned substantial popularity – according to NBC News, Panda Express sold more than 115 million pounds of orange Chicken in 2021 (Wang). This dish, prepared with boneless chicken bites and sweet and spicy seasoning, was inspired by the Hunan cuisine in southern China, but it was modified with a sweeter and sourer orange sauce to align with American tastes (Liu 139).

In the Chinese social media discussion about American Chinese food, some users took a constructivist perspective and express their understanding that this is an adaption that has to be made for business needs, while other users might consider issue from an objectivist point of view, criticizing American Chinese food as unacceptable and analogizing ‘Chinese eating American Chinese food’ as ‘Italians eating pizza with pineapple topping’. Regarding this criticism, the answer from Panda Express’ head chef of culinary innovation Jimmy Wang’s gave his answer: “American Chinese cuisine is a separate cuisine from traditional Chinese food, but it is authentic to the immigrant experience, Asian American experience and the Chinese food experience in the U.S.” (Wang). In other words, condemning American Chinese food to be inauthentic undermines the history of this cuisine and the effort made by Chinese restauranteurs in the U.S. In my opinion, Chinese rejection against American Chinese food can be explained to some extent by their unfamiliarity with the experience and feeling of Chinese Americans – indeed, Chinese and Chinese Americans are two distinct group identities. Chinese in China might be informed about the racial dynamics in the U.S., but they often lack comprehensive access to the information regarding the challenges faced by Chinese immigrants in U.S. restaurant business. Additionally, there is a significant gap in understanding the sentiments of some Chinese Americans who harbor feelings of inferiority concerning own their ethnic cuisine (Chang, episode 7, 25:50 - 26:05).

Moreover, not all non-Chinese diners would acknowledge what Chinese eat in China as the real Chinese food. In the Netflix documentary Ugly Delicious season 1 episode 7 “Fried Rice”, the producer David Chang described such a scenario: “Speaking of rice though, one of my big pet peeves when people talked about Chinese food is like ‘I love Panda Epxress, but I won’t eat this (authentic Chinese food)’ or ‘I love P.F. Chang – that’s Chinese food’. I am like ‘No…It’s not’.” (Chang, episode 7, 02:33 – 02:48). This rejection of authentic Chinese food reflects the symbolic implication of food, pointing out the ‘strange’, ‘alien’, or ‘scary’ impression of Chinese food for some Americans. In this way, this stance disacknowledges the authentic Chinese food through a biased, racial lens. Therefore, from my perspective, none of the objectivist, constructivist, or postmodernist view can be applied to this conceptualization of authenticity.

In this episode of Ugly Delicious, another interesting issue is also discussed: to what extent can non-Chinese Americans recognize authentic Chinese regional food in the future? Is it Chinese’s turn to determine what is the real Chinese food? The answer is quite pessimistic. The population of Chinese American has reached 5.2 million in 2021, but a large portion of them lived in California and New York, so the racial demographic in other regions in the U.S. does not have a high racial variety or Chinese American population – “I lived in the suburban Knoxville, the truth is that I only have maybe one/two Chinese restaurants that are available for me to even try,” said Serena Dai, an editor of Eater NY ("Chinese Americans"; Chang, episode 7, 12:40 – 13:17). The limited availability of Chinese restaurants hinders non-Chinese Americans from becoming familiar with or recognizing Chinese cuisine, regardless if the restaurant serves traditional or adapted dishes. Meanwhile, the racial prejudice is also influencing the reputation and acceptance of Chinese cuisine, reflecting broader issues of immigration history and racial identity in this multicultural society.

From my perspective, given that everyone has their unique culinary habits and preferences, it is not reasonable for everyone to fully embrace an ethnic cuisine. However, it is crucial to increase awareness about 'what constitutes authenticity' and to dismantle the racial stereotypes that unfairly categorize Chinese food as low-end and unhygienic. Expanding the marketing niche of Chinese restaurants and breaking down cultural barriers are both necessary steps for the growth of both traditional Chinese and American Chinese cuisine in the U.S. 

V. Conclusion

The development of Chinese cuisine and American Chinese cuisine represents a narrative of cultural adaption and social acceptance. In spite of the economic and racial challenges, Chinese cuisine successfully became an integral part of American culinary landscape. This process involves a bidirectional transformation wherein Chinese food has been Americanized, while concurrently altering American food preferences. Chinese regional cuisine and American Chinese food was criticized differentially in different populations, but the history has informed us that neither of these should be labeled with ‘inauthentic’. In conclusion, adopting a postmodern, inclusive approach towards the concept of authenticity allows for a broader appreciation in ethnic cuisine. With this view point, both traditional and adapted forms of Chinese cuisines would be acknowledged as authentic expression of cultural identity and history.