CULTURE AND POLITICS

CHINESE RESTAURANT SYNDROME

How California Cuisine, The New England Journal of Medicine, MSG, and Anti-Chinese hysteria ERASED the history of Asian Cuisine in America

By Melanie Eng

The Panda Express Gang

We can boil down the American notion of what Chinese food is to a few general dishes: General Tso’s Chicken, fried rice, egg rolls, and fortune cookies at the end of your meal. This gastronomic narrative has played out over and over again like a bad movie in restaurant chains such as Panda Express or “dingy” small family-run restaurants in your hometown. Is that all there is to it? Of course not, but these dishes are what we might call the Chinese restaurant situation and are a way of understanding the meaning of culture and taste in America.

From a different perspective, what is the meaning of Chinese cuisine? There is “elevated” Chinese cuisine, but what does that really mean? Much of how we perceive East Asian cuisine within the United States comes from my home state, California. The rise of Pan-Asian and “California” cuisine is intertwined with the erasing of the people behind its invention and origin: East Asian immigrants. This is problematic because food is an ever-changing vehicle for social commentary, and losing its history is the equivalent of losing a culture.

Perhaps the most prominent and recognizable symbol of China’s mark on U.S. soil is Panda Express. In 1973, father and son duo Ming Tsai and Andrew Cherng opened the Panda Inn. Shortly after in 1983, Andrew and his wife Peggy Cherng opened the very first Panda Express in the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California. What separated Panda Express from your typical Chinese fare was its accessibility to American tastes. The flavors are bold yet unintimidating, and it’s inexpensive. The infamous Orange Chicken and many other dishes have their origins in the Hunan Province. As of 2017, Panda Express makes approximately three billion dollars in sales, and has over thirty-nine thousand employees.

Delicious

Although we call ourselves a melting pot, America has a deeply complex relationship to food and those who provide it. Despite loving to eat, we play a cruel joke on ourselves by also loving to diet. These contradictions not only upend notions of a well-balanced diet, but are also a kind of covert racism that often tries to hide behind bogus forms of authority. In 1968, The New England Journal of Medicine published an article which detailed the detriments of “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome."

The article was an attack against Chinese food and small mom-and-pop Chinese restaurants for its use of monosodium glutamate, claiming that it was unhealthy. Not only is MSG harmless, but it is naturally occurring flavor enhancer. MSG hides in the nuttiness of an aged cheese, the tangy saltiness of soy sauce, and the pungent flavor of pickled vegetables. This was a targeted attack on Chinese people and their businesses. People who may have been inclined to dislike Chinese people all of a sudden had a scientific reason to dislike the food and distrust the people. After all, they were making them sick. While this didn’t stop everyone from eating sweet and sour pork, many Americans turned their eyes away from hometown restaurants and small immigrant businesses suffered.

During this same point in time, there was a “culinary breakthrough” in Berkeley, California. Acclaimed chef Alice Waters and her “foodie” friends opened Chez Panisse in 1971 on Shattuck Avenue. Their vision was to create dishes that were local and fresh, as well as sustainable. The restaurant was an immediate hit, and Waters became known as the pioneer of “Californian Cuisine.” Wikipedia describes the movement as “dishes that are driven by local and sustainable ingredients with an attention to seasonality and an emphasis on the bounty of the region. The food is typically chef-driven [and in the case of Chez Panisse the star power of Waters]. Foods low in saturated fats and high in fresh fruits and vegetables with lean meats and seafood from the California coast often define the style.” In principle, there is no difference between California Cuisine and Chinese food, yet Water’s revolution easily skyrocketed in both status and price as Chinese food stayed cheap and suspect.

It's still there and so is she

How is it that these two practices could be the same yet one is heralded as a revolution and the other unhealthy? The answer is simple: racism. Oftentimes people do not have the resources to examine these claims, and must them take the word of those in power. People have neither the resources nor the inclination to question the New England Journal of Medicine. The lack of knowledge bundled with xenophobia led to erasing the huge contributions of Chinese immigrants and elevating a telegenic white woman.

There is still hope for us dumb Americans, though, as chefs within the last fifteen years have been trying to deconstruct what it means to serve Asian food in America. David Chang, a Korean-American Chef best known for his restaurant Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York, has made a large contribution to the reimagining of Asian food in the United States. Momofuku Noodle Bar opened in 2004, and became an immediate hit with its modern American (white plate, small portions, usually deconstructed) twist on Asian cuisine.

Now with a handful of restaurants with the Momofuku name under Chang’s belt, he also has a show on Netflix, Ugly Delicious. His show delves into the history of some of America’s favorite dishes, as well as his own personal and culinary life, often detailing his memories of trying to navigate a dominantly white field. In the episode “Fried Rice” (season one, episode seven), Chang discusses Chinese food, and more specifically, it’s demonization in America. Chang brings in a focus group to discuss their experiences with monosodium glutamate (MSG) alongside Ian Mosby, a food historian.

The majority of the people said that MSG irritated them, causing headaches, dizziness, and fatigue. One of the people in the focus group even said he would experience “shakes” just from remembering his experiences with MSG while passing by Chinese restaurants, a sort of culinary PTSD. Following their discussion, Chang then asks them, “Do you all eat junk food?” Every one of them cheered as Doritos, Ruffles, and other corner-store favorites were passed out. As they all ate in a satisfied silence, Chang and Mosby began to discuss the participants hypocrisy. The snacks and refreshments given to their group had plenty of MSG in them. “MSG is one of the most used food additives in the United States,” Mosby says, “millions of tons of that stuff gets used every year, but most of it doesn’t get used by Chinese restaurants, most of it gets used by the food processing industry.”

An ugly delicious moment

Almost all processed foods we eat includes MSG, and for those same people to say they experience health defects from Chinese food, but not processed snack food shows how racism directly affects our tastes and experiences with food. As Mosby and Chang make clear, “In some of the early studies, this was a disease they called ‘Chinese Restaurant Syndrome’. They didn’t call it MSG Syndrome.” Here is a clear example of racism worming its way into science. Chang closes the discussion by saying “Whether it’s ‘don’t go to this restaurant because you’ll get sick’, I tend to see more of that run by not just Chinese or Korean people, but essentially anyone that’s ethnic. And, yeah, I think that puts a ceiling on how far a cuisine can go."

Chinese food in America is just one facet of an ongoing conversation we’re having about food, race, and history. The world of food is a complicated place, especially in the United States. Our deep-seated racism remains prominent even now. It has clearly affected the way we eat in the States and how we create new myths and histories. In the case of Chinese food, there is no doubt that its practices are the backbone of every high-end restaurant, a cultural swindle that might never be recognized.

I could easily write the world off as a terrible place (because it can be), but I don’t want to. Chefs are trying to change the narrative of the food we eat. They aren’t trying to rewrite or erase our culinary histories, but are rather trying to repair our relationship with what we eat. No one is denying that the food we’ve grown accustomed to tastes good, but we must question our biases and ask where these preconceived ideas of ethnic food come from. Food should not only be for survival, but also for enjoyment and a sense of belonging. As long as the food is delicious, hot, and ready to be shared, we can have complex conversations around the table.

©Melanie Eng and the CCA Arts Review