New Book
- Inscrutable Eating : Asian Appetites and the Rhetorics of Racial Consumption “You are what you eat,” but what if you're seen as a rat eater, bat lover, or MSG user? In Inscrutable Eating, Jennifer Lin LeMesurier considers how everyday assumptions about Asian food influence the perception of Asian and Asian American identity within the US racial landscape, demonstrating that beliefs about how certain people eat are inseparable from attitudes that support hierarchies around race, gender, and sexuality. Drawing on rhetorical theory, affect theory, and Asian American studies, LeMesurier analyzes messages in US popular culture about Asian eating to develop the concept of gut orientations: rhetorically dominant ways of interacting with food that scale upward to feelings of desire and disgust toward social groups. Looking at examples from fears around MSG to uproar over wet markets as the source of COVID-19, she argues that these “gut” reactions establish certain racial views as common-sense truths rather than cultural biases, reinforcing dominant norms about what belongs on whose plate, or who belongs at what table. In demystifying marginalizing discourse around food and eating, LeMesurier shows how exposing the tacit, felt ideas of consumption is necessary to contest broader forms of discrimination.
Related Guides
The Chinese Diaspora
- The First Restaurants in Boston's Chinatown, Part 1 (The Passionate Foodie) What was the first Chinese restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown?
Films & Podcasts
- The Queen of Chinese Cuisine (streaming, Academic Video Online) Just as Julia Child revolutionized French food, so did Cecilia Chiang with Chinese cuisine. After moving to the United States in 1959, Cecilia launched the Mandarin in San Francisco. The restaurant introduced foods like Peking duck, pot stickers and hot and sour soup to an American audience, and it began to attract celebrities and foodies from across the country. Her cooking has set a standard for Chinese food in America, and it has influenced everyone from Alice Waters to James Beard.
- Eat Drink Man Woman (dvd) Sihung Lung stars as master chef Tao Chu, who bemoans the modern state of traditional culinary arts in Taiwan and his losing his taste for the magnificent dishes he creates. Trouble is also brewing at home, where one by one his three daughters meet the catalysts that will inspire them to leave home.
- Chungking Express (Blu-Ray) At once funny and touching, this comedy/drama of life, love and take-out food in contemporary Hong Kong follows the barely-connected romances of two city policemen. One man pines for his long-gone girlfriend while meeting a mysterious woman in a bar; the other becomes the object of obsession for a gamine sandwich shop worker
- The Wedding Banquet (dvd) Director Ang Lee tells the story of the age-old conflict between parents and their children in this comedy about a marriage of inconvenience. A gay Taiwanese professional (Winston Chao), who lives with his American lover (Mitchell Lichenstein), tries to end his family's endless matchmaking attempts by announcing his engagement to an illegal Chinese alien (May Chin) in need of a green card. Within days, the family turns the planned City Hall marriage into a banquet with hundreds of guests ... and their son's easy deception becomes a very complicated affair.
- Eat Your Words: The Food of Swatow and the Teochew Diaspora On today’s episode, Cathy is joined in-studio by Diana Zheng, author of the cookbook Jia!: The Food of Swatow and the Teochew Diaspora. This region of Southern China, commonly called Teoswa, is home to a delicious and distinct cuisine, yet not many have heard of it outside of China. Diana shares her revelations in learning about the food of her heritage, and how the culture has spread to parts of Southeast Asia.
- The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food (Library of Congress) Who writes those little messages in fortune cookies and how do fortune cookie makers get their lucky numbers? For that matter, where did fortune cookies originate - should the U.S., China or Japan claim credit? Did General Tso cook his own chicken, and why was there a lawsuit over who invented chop suey? If our benchmark for Americanness is apple pie, why do so many Americans eat Chinese food far more often than they eat apple pie? The answers to these and other fascinating questions was explored by Jennifer 8. Lee (her middle name connotes "prosperity" in Chinese), as she discussed her recent book "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food."
