The 'Not-So-Rough' Guide

“Is there anything more American than Chinese food? Remember that scene in ‘Manhattan’ where Woody Allen and Mariel Hemingway cozy up in bed in his cramped apartment with cardboard boxes of something in black-bean sauce while W. C. Fields plays on the television? Or the scene in ‘A Christmas Story’ when the holiday meal is rescued by crispy duck? Both examples highlight one of the key features of American Chinese food: it’s always there when you’re in a tight spot. And it really is always there. One of the fascinating facts in Andrew Coe’s new history ‘Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States’ is that there are today over forty thousand Chinese restaurants in the country, ‘as exciting,’ Coe writes, ‘as the corner gas station or the Super 8 Motel down by the highway entrance.'” (cont’d @ The New Yorker)