What happened to the chop suey restaurants of New York's Chinatown? Asking that simple question led author and food historian Andrew Coe on a research odyssey that resulted in this first authoritative history of the American experience of Chinese food. In his book, Coe investigates the complex ways we relate to alien cultures through the medium of food, showing how our openess to the outside world-or lack thereof-determines what we eat. Drawing on a wide range of
archival and modern sources, including folklore, cookbooks, menus, photos, movies, and music, CHOP SUEY uses Chinese food to show how we make foreign foods our own.