Overseas Chinese News Network: Several facts you don’t know about Chinese restaurants in the United States

Overseas Chinese News Network: Several facts you don’t know about Chinese restaurants in the United States. China News Service, December 28. China Overseas Chinese News Network compiled a report saying how popular is Chinese food in the United States? …

China News Service, December 28 (Xinhua) Compiled by the American Overseas Chinese News Network, how popular is Chinese food in the United States? In any city of any size in the United States, newcomers can find at least one Chinese restaurant. Data from the Asian American Restaurant Association shows that the number of Chinese restaurants in the United States is three times that of McDonald's stores.

According to the Snope website, no matter what you want to eat, it can be delivered to your doorstep through food delivery services. A report from Eater.com shows that even in this incredible new era, Chinese food still ranks second among the most commonly ordered foods by Americans.

For this authentic food like apple pie, we need to know the following 7 facts:

1. When is the busiest time of year for Chinese restaurants?

If your answer is Christmas, you are correct. The reason for this fact is that a long time ago, on Christmas Day, most of the restaurants open were Chinese restaurants. But while people who want to eat out now have more choices on Christmas Day, for many American families, eating at a Chinese restaurant on the holiday has become a tradition, as you can see from the search results for "Chinese food" on search engines between December 24 and 31 every year.

Jewish Americans, especially those living in New York, are particularly ahead of the curve in this trend. An article published in "The Atlantic" in December 2014 stated that another reason why Americans favor Chinese food at Christmas is that Jews and Chinese were the two largest non-Christian immigrant groups at the time, and in Chinese food, in addition to dairy products, many can be substituted for clean foods.

2. Why are there so many Chinese restaurants in the United States?

After the Chinese Exclusion Act was enacted in 1882, one of the unexpected results was the influx of Chinese restaurant owners into the United States. Despite the 10-year immigration ban on Chinese workers, the law stipulates that some people can enter the United States as "businessmen" and the law also supports the entry of their relatives. When restaurateurs were given this special status in 1915, the number of Chinese restaurants in the United States exploded, according to Heather R. Lee, a historian at New York University Shanghai.

Annual sales at Chinese restaurants doubled between 1920 and 1930, Li said. "Chop-suey palaces" surpassed laundries as major employers of Chinese labor. By the time the Chinese Exclusion Act was outlawed in 1943, Chinese food had not only become accepted in the United States, it had gradually become the country's most beloved meal.

3. Where was the first Chinese restaurant opened?

In 1849, the first Chinese restaurant?#24191; Canton Restaurant opened in San Francisco. Liu Haiming, a professor who studies Asian culture, said that during the "Gold Rush" period from 1848 to 1849, Chinese were among the thousands of immigrants who poured into Northern California, most of them from Guangdong, China. They also became the earliest entrepreneurs in San Francisco. The Cantonese restaurant was not the only Chinese restaurant to open in San Francisco that year, but it was undoubtedly the largest, with seating for 300 people at a time.

4. How old is the oldest Chinese restaurant?

Pekin Noodle Parlor in Butte County, Montana celebrated its 100th birthday in 2011. The store still serves everything from steaks to chop suey that it has had since it opened in 1911. Although the building is located near a former "red light district" and one of the store's features is its 17 private rooms, the setting has spawned all sorts of anecdotes.

5. Was "chop suey" really invented in the United States?

> Not so. Although rumors have it that the dish was created by a Chinese chef on a whim by mixing broth with leftover food, food scholars now believe the dish is either an American take on Chinese cuisine, or at least inspired by it.

6. Where is the origin of Chinese takeout boxes?

Registered by Frederick Weeks Wilcox in 1894, the "Paper Barrel" is a storage box folded from a whole sheet of paper, with a rope on the box as a handle. Wilcox viewed the "paper bucket" as an improved version of the oyster bucket, which at that time was made of wood and was used to hold oysters.

As one of the first restaurants to offer takeout services, Chinese restaurants chose paper buckets to hold takeout food, a practice that was very common in the mid-20th century. Later, plastic coating was added to the barrels, and in 1970, the well-known Chinese pagoda pattern was printed on both sides of the barrels for the first time.