{"id":1454,"date":"2013-08-29T12:10:53","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T17:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hillaryproctor.com\/?p=1454"},"modified":"2013-08-29T12:10:53","modified_gmt":"2013-08-29T17:10:53","slug":"food-for-thought-the-fortune-cookie-chronicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/29\/food-for-thought-the-fortune-cookie-chronicles\/","title":{"rendered":"Food for Thought: &#8220;The Fortune Cookie Chronicles&#8221; by Jennifer 8. Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Food for Thought is an occasional series covering creative works that are connected to a food issue or trend. <a href=\"http:\/\/hillaryproctor.com\/category\/food-for-thought\/\" title=\"Food for Thought\">See more<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hillaryproctor.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/07\/fortunecookie1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1583\" alt=\"Open Fortune Cookie\" src=\"http:\/\/hillaryproctor.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/07\/fortunecookie1.jpg\" width=\"512\" height=\"512\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the summer, I read Jennifer 8. Lee&#8217;s <em>The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food<\/em>. Within the first few pages, I was floored by this sentiment:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;American Chinese food is predictable, familiar, and readily available. It has a broad appeal to the national palate. It is something nearly everyone nowadays has grown up with \u2013 both young and old&#8230;Our benchmark for Americanness is apple pie. But ask yourself: How often do you eat apple pie? How often do you eat Chinese food?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Thought-provoking, right? I enjoyed reading about each segment of her quest to understand Chinese food in America, from historical anecdotes to more personal discoveries. A former <em>New York Times<\/em> reporter, Lee turns thorough, detailed research into engaging storytelling. Here are a few paraphrased tidbits from the book:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side of New York pioneered food delivery in the mid 1970&#8217;s<\/li>\n<li>Origins of the fortune cookie are disputed, but likely point back to Japan instead of China<\/li>\n<li>One time, 110 people across 29 states all won the Powerball just from playing numbers they found on a fortune cookie<\/li>\n<li>Chop suey exploded as a &#8220;national addiction&#8221; around 1900, which was what started the proliferation of Chinese restaurants<\/li>\n<li>General Tso&#8217;s chicken is a completely American dish<\/li>\n<li>One company in New Jersey makes the vast majority of soy sauce packets, chopsticks, and white cartons distributed throughout the country<\/li>\n<li>Lee&#8217;s search for the greatest Chinese restaurant outside China culminated at a Vancouver strip mall<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hillaryproctor.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/07\/fortunecookie2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1582\" alt=\"Fortune Cookie\" src=\"http:\/\/hillaryproctor.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/07\/fortunecookie2.jpg\" width=\"512\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/fortunecookie2.jpg 512w, http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/fortunecookie2-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/fortunecookie2-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You can find <em>The Fortune Cookie Chronicles<\/em> on <a title=\"The Fortune Cookie Chronicles\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Fortune-Cookie-Chronicles-Adventures\/dp\/0446698970\">Amazon<\/a>, or watch Lee&#8217;s <a title=\"TED talk\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/jennifer_8_lee_looks_for_general_tso.html\">TED talk<\/a> for her overview of the subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Food for Thought is an occasional series covering creative works that are connected to a food issue or trend. See more. Earlier in the summer, I read Jennifer 8. Lee&#8217;s The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. Within the first few pages, I was floored by this sentiment: &#8220;American Chinese food [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[184,314,315,316,497,499,511,548,645,1143],"class_list":["post-1454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-for-thought","tag-book-review","tag-chinese-food","tag-chinese-food-books","tag-chinese-food-in-america","tag-food-books","tag-food-for-thought-2","tag-fortune-cookies","tag-general-tsos-chicken","tag-jennifer-8-lee","tag-the-fortune-cookie-chronicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}