40,000 eggrolls to go
Luddite me made a surprisingly funny joke to two techies after reading Jennifer 8. Lee鈥檚 delightful The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food.
鈥淢cDonald鈥檚 is to Microsoft as Chinese restaurants are to Linux,鈥� I chirped confidently. My friends at first couldn鈥檛 believe what had just come out of my mouth 鈥� technology and I do not get along 鈥� and then they couldn鈥檛 stop laughing.
For those of you still scratching your head, here鈥檚 Lee鈥檚 more thorough explanation: 鈥淚f McDonald鈥檚 is the Windows of the dining world (where one company controls the standards), then Chinese restaurants are akin to the Linux operating system, where a decentralized network of programmers contributes to the underlying source code. The code is available for anyone to use, modify, or redistribute freely.鈥�
Indeed, in Chinese restaurants across the United States and beyond, regardless of size, location, or ownership, you can count on recognizing the same reliable fare: fried rice, chow mein, General Tso鈥檚 chicken, and, of course, a fortune cookie at meal鈥檚 end.
Is this why there are more Chinese restaurants in the US than all the McDonald鈥檚, Burger Kings, and Kentucky Fried Chickens combined? Is there a real-life General Tso and why did his chicken cross the ocean? And just where did that crispy little cookie really come from?
Armed with her wunderkind background as a New York Times reporter since the age of 24 鈥� not to mention her Harvard degree in both applied mathematics and economics 鈥� Lee begins her quest following the improbable story of more than 100 (yes, 100) Powerball lottery winners in the US who in March 2005 had all chosen their winning numbers from fortune cookies.
One thing led to another and Lee鈥檚 nationwide search for a hundred-plus small slips of paper grew and grew, until suddenly she was on a globetrotting mission to discover the truth about fortune cookie origins, which then morphed again into a quest for the who-what-where-and-why of the ubiquity of Chinese food in America.
The one word that sums up Lee鈥檚 findings on her rollicking adventures is 鈥渆rsatz.鈥� That鈥檚 not meant as a judgment, just a statement of fact. What we eat (and how we eat) in American Chinese restaurants is anything but 鈥渞eal Chinese food,鈥� Lee, a second generation Chinese-American discovers. 鈥淚t鈥檚 American. It just looks Chinese.鈥�
For one thing, there鈥檚 no actual soy in American soy sauce 鈥� and the vast majority of those clear packets with brown liquid are manufactured in a Jewish, family-owned factory in New Jersey.
Even the Chinese takeout containers 鈥� originally used to hold shucked oysters in the early 20th century 鈥� are available only in the US. They鈥檙e not even sold in neighboring Canada. (And how about this for Chinese restaurant trivia: In takeout boxes on the East Coast of the US, wires run the short length of the box, while on the West Coast they run the long way.)
But most important, Lee tells us, fortune cookies do not exist in China 鈥� unless they鈥檝e been imported from these American shores.
鈥淭he Fortune Cookie Chronicles鈥� is packed full of such ah-ha tidbits, delicious secrets, and fun facts. But where Lee shines most is in the narration of the stories of the real-life people she meets on her worldwide discovery tour.
She travels to Fujian Province, 鈥渢he single largest exporter in the world of Chinese restaurant workers today.鈥� She tells the harrowing story of the six-year odyssey of Michael Chen and his quest to make it to the US. (He was a passenger on the Golden Venture, the ill-fated vessel which, in June 1993, ferried almost 300 illegal immigrants from China to the US only to run aground on New York鈥檚 Rockaway Beach.)
Today, Chen owns a 150-seat Chinese restaurant in an upscale suburb of Columbus, Ohio.
Lee humanizes her numbers-filled reportage of the life-threatening dangers Chinese restaurant delivery staff face with a day-by-day account of a single worker who seems to have disappeared into thin air. She follows the plight of a fractured immigrant family who settle in a tiny Georgia town and cling to ownership of the lone Chinese restaurant which they blindly hope will provide them with life and liberty in their adopted land.
In the midst of telling the stories of others, Lee ultimately discovers her own: 鈥淭his book began as a quest to understand Chinese food. But three years, six continents, twenty-three countries, and forty-two states later, I realize it was actually a personal journey to understand myself.鈥�
If America began as a melting pot, she decides, and more recently evolved into a tossed salad, then, in the 21st century, 鈥淲e are a stir-fry; our ingredients remain distinct, but our flavors blend together in a sauce shared by all.鈥�
Hungry yet? Go get Lee鈥檚 book, order in from or go to your favorite neighborhood Chinese restaurant, get comfy, and get ready to feast.
Oh, and that 鈥�8鈥� in Lee鈥檚 name? It means 鈥減rosperity鈥� in Chinese.
