China to Chinatown Chinese Food in the West 2

 

This book mainly describes about how Chinese food was accepted worldwide. The first half of the book is about westerners coming to China and actually eating local menus at local restaurants and reviewing them. The second half was about Chinese immigrants in America or Chinese who sailed to Britain and opened Chinese restaurants in the west.

Westerners first discovered Chinese food, in the 13th century. Back then, many of the westerners criticized Chinese food, saying that they were very dirty that they would not eat it unless of severe hunger and that they had bad table manners.

In the 19th century, these images of Chinese food changed. The westerners started noting recopies and even started to cook Chinese food. They were curious in Chinese food and learned about the ingredients, the meanings of it and how they cooked it.

In Gray's book, he introduces a restaurant that served dogs' and cats' flesh. The restaurant even had a menu for a pair of Black eyes for 4 cents. He also added that the dog's flesh was to strengthen the body.

In the early 20th century, China became a very common place to visit for westerners and they were no longer surprised or shocked in Chinese food.

At this time, Chinese food was something what we could imagine now, like boiled noodles and dumplings.

Westerners living in the treaty ports had duties to eat Chinese food and they were served boiled chickens, fish, shrimp and find meat.

The first Chinese immigrants who came to America were people who worked at the laundry or at a Chinese restaurant.

Chinatown in San Francisco became something of a tourist attraction and Chinese restaurants were established.

Since 1945, Chinese food became globalized. Chinese restaurants heeded to culinary needs, trends and tastes that make the restaurant business prosperous.

In China, restaurants served only tea to customers, but in America, they also had to provide soft drinks, ice and cold water. Americans were not used to hot spices, so seasoning had to be tone down too.
Westerners started cooking Chinese food for themselves and even recipe books were published. The first recipe book for Chinese food written in English appeared in the United States in the 1920s.

Lastly, the author implies that by rejecting any claim to ethnic authenticity, and by denying any intention of presenting foreign food, Chinese food could be accepted more in the world. 

A streaming video that I thought was closely related to the theme of my book.

https://youtu.be/xVlc3kbu7o4?si=5Eq5U2dMK8OHuHR0

In the video, they introduce Europe's oldest Chinatown in Paris. I thought that the part where they say that it is a combination of two cultures, and where they mentioned about the first Chinese labors that came to France at the beginning of World War 1, was closely related to my book.