Nixon Goes to China (to Eat)

How the President Brought Chinese Food to the U.S.

 

Andrew Coe, a writer for Saveur, Gastronomica, The New York Times, and others, takes on the history of Chinese food in America in his latest book, Chop Suey. The title dish is more American than Chinese, and was, at the turn of the last century, the height of cuisine, before becoming a popular sandwich substitute and dinner-table standard. Below, Coe adapts a story told in Chop Suey for Zócalo, about the man who pushed American tastes beyond chop suey toward diverse Chinese dishes – President Richard Nixon.

Raising the Bamboo Curtain

If …