December 21, 2011
Why Did Jewish Communities Take to Chinese Food?
For immigrant Jewish populations, Chinese food offered an exotic spin on familiar foods. Image courtesy of Flickr user dslrninja.
The custom of Jewish families dining out at Chinese restaurants, especially on Christmas Day, has long been a joking matter. “According to the Jewish calendar, the year is 5749,” one quip goes. “According to the Chinese calendar, the year is 4687. That means for 1,062 years, the Jews went without Chinese food.” Even Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan made light of the tradition during her Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. Granted, Chinese restaurants are typically among the few businesses open on December 25th, but it turns out that there are historical and sociological reasons why these two cultures have paired so well.
In a 1992 study, sociologists Gaye Tuchman and Harry G. Levine focused their attentions on New York City, where there are substantial Jewish and Chinese immigrant populations. No matter how different the cultures may be, they both enjoy similar foods: lots of chicken dishes, tea and slightly overcooked vegetables. For Jewish newcomers, Chinese cooking offered a new twist on familiar tastes. Then there’s the matter of how food is handled, a matter of great importance to observant Jews. Chinese food can be prepared so that it abides by kosher law, and it avoids the taboo mixing of meat and milk, a combination commonly found in other ethnic cuisines. In one of their more tongue-in-cheek arguments, Tuchman and Levine wrote that because forbidden foods like pork and shellfish are chopped and minced beyond recognition in egg rolls and other dishes, less-observant Jews can take an “ignorance is bliss” philosophy and pretend those things aren’t even in the dish.
Chinese restaurants were also safe havens, the sociologists observed. Jews living predominantly Christian parts of the city might have to contend with the longstanding tensions between those groups. Furthermore, an Italian restaurant, which might bear religious imagery ranging from crucifixes to portraits of the Virgin Mary, could make for an uncomfortable dining experience. A Chinese eatery was more likely to have secular decor.
There was also the sense among some Jewish participants in the study that Chinese dining, with exotic interiors and the strange-sounding menu items, was a delightfully non-Jewish experience. Furthermore, like visiting museums and attending the theater, Chinese restaurants were seen as a means of broadening one’s cultural horizons. “I felt about Chinese restaurants the same way I did about the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” one of the study’s unnamed interview subjects remarked. “They were the two most strange and fascinating places my parents took me to, and I loved them both.”
For a fuller explanation on how this dining trend came about, you can read Tuchman and Levine’s study online [PDF]. And if you have memories of a Chinese restaurant experience, share them in the comments section below.
This is very interesting. I’ve always wondered why Jews dine on Chinese restaurants during Christmas but I’ve never gave it much thought.
Comment by Jeff @ Cheese-Burger.net — December 22, 2011 @ 10:01 am
That makes so much sense on the Kosher aspect!! I had my own hypotheses on the Chinese on Christmas thing, but this article covers it all.
Comment by Amy @ What Jew Wanna Eat — December 22, 2011 @ 11:02 am
I could think of a few other factors which might contribute to that affinity.
1) The typical Chinese restaurant dining style is family-oriented. Sharing a number of dishes among all the diners at a table is standard. When indulging in an unfamiliar cuisine, the ability to share it (without fuss or raised eyebrows) makes it into a more entertaining and bonding experience.
2) All non-Chinese people are foreigners in a Chinese restaurant, and are treated with approximately the same respect as each other. That offers a degree of equality which hasn’t always been available to Jews in this society, and a degree of comfort that comes along with that treatment. Moreover, see (3).
3) Increased familiarity with the cuisine brings increased respect (or at least comfort, knowing they’ll be able to please the customers) from the proprietors, creating a virtuous cycle that keeps happy customers coming back.
So, I think a big part of what makes Jews and Chinese restaurants into a couple is hospitality. As for the “overcooked vegetables,” I would dispute that. The vegetables in Chinese cooking, even Chinese-American style cooking, are steamed or sauteed, not boiled into submission. That Jews like and eat fresh vegetables (however cooked) and aromatic herbs is not in dispute.
Comment by Brooklyn Reader — December 22, 2011 @ 11:48 am
My thought was always that Chinese restaurants were simply the only restaurants open on Christmas day.
Comment by Kyle — December 22, 2011 @ 12:00 pm
Yes, all well and good, but do the Chinese eat at Jewish restaurants at Tet?
Comment by Jack — December 25, 2011 @ 12:15 pm
My wife and I are Baptist and had Chinese for lunch today!
Comment by Richard — December 25, 2011 @ 1:19 pm
I remember dining with my family — sibs, cousins, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents — at a Chinese restaurant in Queens NY many years ago. The older-style Chinese menu, with its “one from Column A, two from Column B” choices, provided another opportunity for arguments, which must have been an attraction for my relatives.
I also remember my cousins ordering pistachio ice cream for dessert, not because they liked that flavor, but because the enjoyed hearing the waiter trying to say “pistachio”.
Comment by DMajor — December 25, 2011 @ 3:25 pm
There is another reason. There is almost no milk used in the preparation of most of Chinese cuisine, no matter from what province.
Comment by chsw — December 25, 2011 @ 8:01 pm
My parents always took my family to Chinese restaurants to celebrate birthdays. It was food my mother never cooked at home and that was more appealing and exotic to her than typical “American” fare.
Comment by judith — December 25, 2011 @ 11:35 pm
I think chew (#8) is on to something. I know many Jews who are more comfortable eating shellfish or bacon than mixing dairy and meat.
Comment by Deb — December 26, 2011 @ 12:16 am
I think it was the Chinese tea and fortune cookies that were the main attraction.
Comment by Scott Berkowitz — December 26, 2011 @ 3:33 pm
For additional information on this topic, read this touching, humorous and sometimes sad book:
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee. There is a chapter devoted to Jews and Chinese food but the entire book and the history of Chinese food in America is fascinating.
http://www.fortunecookiechronicles.com/
Comment by Chaya — December 27, 2011 @ 2:18 pm
We never ate at Chinese restaurants on Christmas or other times–they weren’t kosher. But it was a nice day because most of us had the day off and unlike other Jewish holidays we could travel to visit each other. We ate standard Jewish American kosher food.
And now there are kosher Chinese restaurants which I occasionally patronize; actually I prefer Mediterranean food.
And now just about any cuisine has its kosher counterparts–great.
Comment by Ethel Carol — December 27, 2011 @ 6:15 pm
My mom just told me that we went to Chinese Restaurants when it rained- not certain why- but that was the plan-I also remember eating tomato egg drop soup- can’t find it any longer- and for those from LI- August Moon in Mahasset was the place to go in the 60′s & 70′s!
Comment by Judith C. — December 28, 2011 @ 9:58 am
I had an aunt from NY who found herself living in Chicago. Chinese food was her favorite, so for her, it went beyond Christmas Day! I learned to like it for her sake. Now….love it! I heard about the whole deeper connection from my daughter who took a “Food and Rabbinics” class in college. Worth the tuition!
Comment by Anita Silvert — December 30, 2011 @ 1:46 pm
I wonder if this preference for Chinese cuisine has extended to other Asian restaurants and their cuisines.
Because my daughter and her children are Cambodian, and I am Jewish, I find myself eating in a variety of SE Asian restaurants between Olympia and Seattle, WA: Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian – or a mix of the three.
Many Anglo Jews find the Chinese-American restaurant to be more American than Chinese these days, and have switched to other Asian cuisines – even South Indian (but not Filipino, for some reason): here in Lacey, WA, an Indian and a Filipino restaurant operate side-by-side quite profitably.
Bob Godwin,
Lacey, WA
Comment by Robert B Godwin — December 31, 2011 @ 1:04 am