Louis Armstrong recorded a song in the 1920s called “Cornet Chop Suey.” It was culinary jazz.
Since there was no bok choy or white radishes or soybean sprouts to use, celery, bell peppers and onions became the ingredients of choice, with shredded meat added, and enough soy sauce to turn the white rice black. The name may (or may not) come from the Cantonese sap seui, which translates as “mixed leftovers.” It was a mishmash, created in the mid-1800s by Chinese immigrants to make their native food more appealing to American taste, what there was of it. Or at least you were if your basic diet consisted of white bread and deep-fried everything.Ĭhop suey is the defining dish when it comes to Chinese-American cooking. And an hour later, in the old American anti-vegetable parlance, you were hungry again. It was something you ate on Sunday nights with family. It meant chicken chop suey, pork fried rice, sweet-and-sour something or other, egg foo young, and lots and lots of tea. For meals consisting of one from column A, two from column B, white rice and fortune cookies at meal’s end. Rather, the box is for the classics of Chinese-American cooking. I guess dim sum will work okay in the boxes. Some years ago, the Smithsonian paid tribute to the container with an exhibit called “Sweet & Sour: A Look at the History of Chinese Food in the United States.” And the phrase “sweet & sour” is especially apt, for this is not a container built for searing spices of Szechuan and Hunanese cooking. This white, waxed container more often than not comes with a red drawing of a pagoda on the side (which is, of course, Japanese) and the words “Enjoy” and “Thank You” emblazoned on the top, and over the fold.
And for most Chinese restaurants, it’s still the standard for takeout.
#SEASHORE RESTAURANT TORRANCE TV#
It was also used, for many years, for honey - and was until after World War II, when Chinese takeout competed with pizza for the food most Americans took home to eat while watching The Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” on small black-and-white TV screens. The Chinese food takeout container was born in the last decade of the 19th century, when it was known as an “oyster pail” because, well, it was used for to-go orders of oysters.
It’s technically an isosceles trapezoid solid, a three-dimensional representation of a high school geometry problem. It is, easily, the most iconic to-go container in culinary history - a Totem of Takeout, an origami box built for noodles, pork, shrimp and chicken.
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