Hungering for America (2002); Food books

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HUNGERING FOR AMERICA:
ITALIAN, IRISH & JEWISH FOODWAYS IN THE AGE OF MIGRATION
by Hasia R. Diner
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
320 pages, paperback, $39.95
2001

   Jesse Sheidlower told me about this book.  I saw a reviewer's copy for half price, and bought it from Amazon.  Unfortunately, it doesn't have an index!  No bibliography, either!  The binding says "January 2002," but the copyright is 2001.
   Diner is Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University, and she says she worked ten years on this book.  There are about fifty pages of footnotes.
   For me, the book is worthless.
   There are no food recipes cited.  Zero!  The illustrations are very few; there are hundreds of wonderful classic illustrations (cartoons, song covers, extensive photos of period products) that could have been used.
   It's very hard to go through without an index, but I didn't see a single citation that I can use for a single food.
   "Notes" are on pages 232-283.  Hardly a cookbook is cited.  Where are publications like THE JEWISH BAKERS' VOICE?  Instead, we get the JOURNAL OF SOCIAL HISTORY and AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST.
   Buy this, if you must, used at the Strand.  Or read it if it comes to NYU's Bobst Library (one of the world's better libraries).

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DIRTY RICE (1962?)

   IIRC, DARE has 1966 or 1968.
   THE NEW YORK TIMES SOUTHERN HERITAGE COOKBOOK (G. P. Putnam's Sons, NY 1972) by Jean Hewitt, has on page 164, "DIRTY RICE (LOUISIANA)."

HOLIDAY INN
INTERNATIONAL COOK BOOK
by Ruth Malone
Copyright 1962
Copyright 1972, revised seventh edition

Pg. 52:
Fort Smith, Ark.--South
   DIRTY RICE
Pg. 156:
Lake Charles, La.
   CAJUN DIRTY RICE

(Anyone have the 1962 edition?--ed.)

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PENNE (1968)(continued)

LUIGI CARNACINA'S
GREAT ITALIAN COOKING (LA GRANDE CUCINA INTERNATIONALE)
edited by Michael Sonino
Abradale Press, NY
1968

Pg. 189:
Penne or Maltagliati with Ricotta
Penne o maltagliati con la ricotta

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GOLD COIN CHICKEN (1953); GOLDEN DOLLARS (1962)

CHOW! SECRETS OF CHINESE COOKING
by Dolly Chow (Mrs. C. T. Wang)
Charles C. Tuttle Co, Rutland, Vermont
1953

Pages 58-59:
Gold Coin Chicken
(Chin Ch'iem Chi)


THE FINE ART OF CHINESE COOKING
by Dr. Lee Su Jan
Gramercy Publishing COmpany, NY
1962

Pg. 77:  GOLDEN DOLLARS
Pg. 83:  GOLDEN HOOKS (Shrimp--ed.)
Pg. 163:  DRUNKEN DUCK OR CHICKEN
Pg. 164:  DRUNKEN PORK
Pg. 224:  HIDDEN TREASURE RICE PUDDING

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ANTS ON THE TREE (1975, 1977)

FLORENCE LIN'S CHINESE REGIONAL COOKBOOK
by Florence Lin
Hawthorn Books, NY
1975

Pg. 66:
Chiao Hua Chi
BEGGAR'S CHICKEN
Pg. 71:
Lung Ch'uan Feng Yi
PRINCESS CHICKEN
Pg. 134:
Ma Yi Shang Shu
ANTS ON THE TREE
Pg. 200:
Lo Han Chai
BUDDHA'S DELIGHT
Buddha's Delight is one of the most popular vegetarian dishes in China.
Pg. 302:
Pa Pao Fan
EIGHT PRECIOUS RICE PUDDING


THE SCRTUABLE FEAST:
A GUIDE TO EATING AUTHENTICALLY IN CHINESE RESTAURANTS
by Dorothy Farris Lapidus
Dodd, Mead & Co., NY
1977

Pg. 153:
9. ANTS CLIMBING TREE (ma i shang shu)
Chopped pork seasoned with onions, ginger root, soy sauce, and crushed red pepper is combined with fried or boiled bean thread (cellophane noodles).  The piled-up bean thread resembles a tree and the bits of pork look like ants.  Can be very hot to taste.  This dish is sometimes called Chopped Meat with Mung Bean Stick.

(Pg. 137 has "Kung Pao Diced Chicken," for example.   "General Tso's Chicken" is nowhere to be found, despite a large Szechuan index--ed.)

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VICEROY'S (KUNG PAO) CHICKEN, SLIPPERY CHICKEN (1976)

THE GOURMET CHINESE REGIONAL COOKBOOK
by Calvin B. T. Lee and Audrey Evans Lee
Castle Books, Secaucus, NY
1976

Pg. 129:  PEKING DUST
Pg. 137:
   KUNG PAO CHICKEN
   Also known as Viceroy's Chicken, this dish honors a Peking bureaucrat who was either exiled or sent as an emissary to distant Szechuan.  It has become deserved popular along with the quite different Kung Pao Shrimp.
Pg. 142:
   SLIPPERY CHICKEN
   This spicy and aromatic dish plays up the smooth texture of bean curd with chicken meat.  The effect is truly one of slippery chicken and quite novel.

(No "General Tso's Chicken" here, either--ed.)

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BUDDHA'S DELIGHT, HAPPY FAMILY (1962)

THE PLEASURES OF CHINESE COOKING
by Grace Zia Chu
Cornerstone Library, NY
1962; reprinted 1969

Pg. 69:
   _Fortune Cookies_
   Fortune cookies are unknown in China, but they have become as popular in America as chop suey.
Pg. 90:  _Millionaire Chicken_
Pg. 105:  _Individual Eight Precious Pudding_
Pg. 131:  _Buddha's Delight_
Pg. 137:  _Gold Coin Mushrooms_
Pg. 138:  _Happy Family_

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THOUSAND YEAR OLD EGGS, BEGGAR'S CHICKEN (1969)

TREASURED RECIPES FROM TWO CULTURES--
AMERICAN AND CHINESE
Women's Society of Christian Service
St. Mark's United Methodist Church
Stockton, CA
First printing, 1966
Second printing, 1967
Revised Third Printing, 1969

(Not paginated--ed.)
   THOUSAND YEAR OLD EGGS (Pay Don)
These are preserved eggs wrapped in dried mud and have been kept for some time--not a thousand years!  One acquires a taste for these eggs.  Remove the mud, wash egg, shell.  Slice with egg slicer.  The egg white is dark and the yolk a greenish color.  Pour a little salad oil over the sliced eggs.  Serve with sliced pickled scallions.
(...)
   BEGGAR'S CHICKEN
(...)
   THE STORY OF THE BEGGAR'S CHICKEN
   A beggar had stolen a chicken from a farmer's house by using a handful of mud paste to choke the chicken so that it would not make any noise.  Then he carried the chicken back home, but he was so poor that he had nothing to use for cooking the chicken nor killing it.  So he made more mud paste and coated the whole chicken, feather and everything, into a mud ball; he put this mud ball chicken over the coal fire that he had stolen to keep himself warm.  He kept turning the chicken for hours.  When the mud got all dried near dawn, he split and crushed the dried mud and found all the feather was stuck onto the mud.  Then he had a delicious meal.
   --From a Formosan Cook Book

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DIM SUM, PEKING DUST (1950)

NOODLES AND RICE
AND EVERYTHING NICE
by the Hong Kong Young Women's Christian Association
Local Printing Press, Ltd., Hong Kong
1950

Pg. 4:  Around one o'clock came "dim sum," "touch the hearts," which are small prepared delicacies such as crisp egg rolls, steamed filled dumplings, fried yam patties, noodles, chow mein, etc.
Pg. 34:
   FROG MEAT AND CHICKEN
   "Double Phoenix Facing the Sun"
Pg. 36:
   CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI
   "Gold and Jade Chicken"
Pg. 44:  SWEET AND SOUR PORK
Pg. 57:
   WANTON SOUP (...)
   EGG DROP SOUP
Pg. 65:  FRIED SPRING ROLLS
Pg. 68:  PEKING DOILIES
Pg. 71:  EIGHT PRECIOUS GLUTINOUS RICE PUDDING
Pg. 72:  PEKING DUST
   Anyone who has visited Peking knows that "Peking dust" is no idle talk.  That cold dry area is well known for its dust storms.  When the wind blows, anyone on the street can have plenty of Peking dust to eat.  This pudding, so facetiously named, is most easily prepared in a climate where these cold dry conditions prevail.  It is a dramatic finale to any meal, either Chinese or Western.

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MUFFULETTAS, MOON SANDWICHES (1973)

THE NEW ORLEANS UNDERGROUND GOURMET
by Richard H. Collin
Simon and Schuster, NY
1973

Pg. 213:
CHARLIE'S NEW YORK DELICATESSEN
   METAIRIE  2023 Metarie Rd.
(...)
   Charlie's carries--and indeed proudly features--local specialties that most New Yorkers have never dreamed of, such as oyster poor boys, Muffulettas, and moon sandwiches (they are "out of this world," and consist of ham, cheese, and roast beef).

(FWIW:  My next trip is to Hawaii and New Zealand.  I'll try to have some "surf-playing" and "macadamia" nuts tomorrow--ed.)