Chinese-Japanese Cook Book (Cooking in America)

Book Description:

Published originally in 1914, this is the first Asian cookbook published in America. The fascinating new introduction by Asian cooking authority Jacqueline M. Newman reveals the trickery at play from the two sisters of Anglo-Chinese descent who wrote the book. The Chinese recipes are simple Chinese-American ones using ordinary ingredients. Many are for chop suey and chow mein using lots of celery, bean sprouts, and gravy. The Japanese meat and fish recipes are also simple even though several use rabbit, pheasant, venison, pigeon, even whale; the vegetable dishes are more Chinese than Japanese. Desserts straddle both cuisines. This book marks the beginning of the interest in Asian cuisine in America, and it is notable, almost 100 years later, to see the way authenticity had been edited for both the public and the author’s purposes.


Original Introduction

This is a most intriguing little book. It is another in our selection of ethnic influenced books available in America after the Civil War into the 1920s. This is one of the earliest half-dozen Chinese cookbooks published in the United States; and possibly the first Japanese one.

The authors begin their preface by indicating that Chinese cooking has become very popular in America in recent years and that certain Japanese dishes are also in high favor. They mention that Chinese restaurants are now to be found in all the large cities of America and that their patronage "is of the very best, and many of the dishes are justly famous."

They tell the reader that there is no reason why these same dishes should not be cooked and served in any American home. "When it is known how simple and clean are the ingredients used to make up these oriental dishes, the Westerner will cease to feel that natural repugnance which assails one when about to taste a strange dish of a new and strange land."

There follows a brief overview of Chinese and Japanese cuisines. The authors indicate that the recipes which follow have been selected to appeal to the Western palate and which can be prepared with the kitchen utensils of Western civilization. They also indicate that many of the recipes prepared by the Chinese cooks in this country are actually modifications of their native dishes.

Turning to the recipes, we find many which we would recognize today, probably fairly authentic for Chinese restaurants cooking for Americans in that era. Chinese dishes include Bird’s-nest Soup, Seaweed Soup, Sweet and Sour Fish, Steamed Duck, Chop Suey, Chow Main, Fried Rice, Beautiful Moon Tarts, and Almond Cakes.

A shorter section of Japanese dishes includes Satsuma Soup (using tofu and miso paste), Hare, Sweet and Sour [Usagi Amai-Sui, which uses syou sauce, mirin sauce, red plums, and Japanese gelatine, and is served with white-bean cakes or rice], and Peony Eggs. Many of the recipes are quite sophisticated. There are even instructions for growing your own bean sprouts at home, which, the authors indicate, are much better than the canned varieties.

All in all, I repeat, a most intriguing little book from the hands of two rather remarkable women.