Jews and Chinese Food

[Pan]

I've always found kosher Chinese places to be terrible. Was Moshe Peking the place on Columbus Av. around 94 St. or so?

[Alberts]

Speaking only for my family... growing up it seemed like the attraction of the Chinese food was (now this is late 60s, early 70s mind you) that they minced the pork so small that if you wished and imagined hard enough, -and even though you actually ordered the pork-, you could almost make believe it was chicken.

It was about as risky as it got.

[bloviatrix]

I've always found kosher Chinese places to be terrible. Was Moshe Peking the place on Columbus Av. around 94 St. or so?

Moshe Peking was on either w.36th or w.37th between 5th and 6th. It's been gone for about 15 years or more. The place on Columbus was China Shalom. It closed over a year ago.

In my circles, no one eats Chinese anymore. They all eat sushi.

[wesza]

But one time I was at Moishe Peking,  in NYC, with a Jewish friend and she was explaining the various restrictions, including differences between countries. She  grew up in a Kosher home, & was a strict observer.  I asked her is she ever wanted to eat ice cream as a dessert, after dinner, say as Pie A la Mode . She said "Sure! But all we had to do was go outside the house and eat it on the front porch." 

!!!!?????

I have such fond memories of Moshe Peking. It was the "fancy" kosher chinese place (as opposed to Bernstein's which was the regular place). For special occasions like birthdays, we would drive into Manhattan for dinner there. Mom would always order the Chicken Almond Ding.

In terms of how long after meat you can eat dairy, there are different minhagim, customs, dependent on where your family comes from. It can be as little as one hour or as long 6 hours. There's really no restriction for going from dairy to meat so long as you brush your teeth and rinse out your mouth. I won't go into the exceptions.

Chicken Almond Ding was part of the next step of NYC Chinese Menu evolution.

If i'm not mistaken it began on NY's upper west side as the next step after Subgum variations which were the first step ups from Chop Suey.

I can remember when the only option on the menus if you wanted actual slices of chicken was "Moo Goo Gai Pan", the next step was 1/2 a breast split and severd as "Almond Chicken", or Lemon Chicken".

This was about the time the Hunan Restaurants started on the UWS and just after the "Sun Luck's", started to upscale the market.

If i'm not mistaking there even started to be upscale Chinese Restaurants on the East Side during the late 60's.

Now I've been told that there are several "Sushi Chinese Restaurants" wonder whats next ?" Korean Sushi Chinese Mongolian Barbque" Glatt Kosher in Bensonhurst. Probably have two book tables weeks in advance.

Kosher Chinese was quite easy to adapt by using veal for pork, chicken for chicken, squab for squab, duck for duck, Halibut and Seabass for most seafood adaptations, spices, seasoning, tofu, veggies and almost everything else could be improvised and several of the places are quite good. Actually Veal is quite similar is taste and character for almost all Cantonese Dishes like Roast Veal Filet, Veal Spare Ribs, Pot Stickers, Won Ton, Egg Rolls and almost everything is pretty good tasting Kosherized.

This of course must have made the Chinese Restaurants attempt to become interesting to new markets, which they've obviously done.

It's interesting how quick they adapt, now it not unusual for any place to promote that they feature Cantonese, Peking, Szechwan, Hunan and Mandarin with occassional Hakka and Mongolian Dishes.

Only in America.

Irwin

[Pan]

I could never figure out what "subgum" meant, except that I gather it means it has pork in it?

[Gifted Gourmet]

I could never figure out what "subgum" meant, except that I gather it means it has pork in it?

actually, I believe that it means that it has some form of meat in it, but has vegetables as well ... more aptly defined as:

"of or designating various Chinese-American dishes prepared with mixed vegetables such as water chestnuts, mushrooms, and bean sprouts."

ETYMOLOGY: Chinese (Cantonese) shap kam, mixture, subgum.

rather enjoy the term "subgum" .. always think sublingual ...

Edited December 25, 2003 by Gifted Gourmet (log)

[GOURMAND]

Growing up in Brooklyn in the 30's and 40's and from European parents, eating out was something new to them and Chinese restaurants were among the cheapest. Actually the basic food we ate there was chow mein and my family considered themselves very sophistcated to be doing that. What other restaurants were there at the time escept perhaps for a Kosher deli that was far too expensive to dine at regularly?

It took many years before we eventually embarked upon lobster cantonese. That was one of the greatest experiences of all time. And, as odd as it may sound; my father had no problem eating lobster but under no circumstances would he eat a pork product.

By the way........here's one for you:

If the Chinese ever wanted to kill off the Jewish population of the USA they could accomplish it on a single Sunday by poisoning the spare ribs.

However, if the Jews of this country ever wanted to wipe out the Chinese it would take them about two weeks. All they would have to do is stop eating out..

[project]

Busboy wrote:

"It's been a long time since my econometrics and calculus days. Nonetheless, I think project's strategy may be unnecessarily complex because it goes beyond the relatively simple question "Do Jews as a group eat more Chinese food than similarly situated non-Jews?" to tackle the strength of the correlation between Jewishness (and other variables) have on propensity to consume Chinese food. Certainly this is a valuable figure to have if you are, say, trying to model the ideal density of chinese restaurants in a given area based on census data, but beyond the scope of the original inquiry."

"Goes beyond"? not really. There are two aspects of Fat Guy's question that make getting an answer not so simple.

First he asked "as a group". So, he's not asking if some Jews eat more Chinese food per person or if Jews in New York City do, etc., but what is the situation for all Jews? In principle he has to be including Jews in all countries, but I restricted to just the US and Canada.

So, for an answer considering "as a group" somehow we have to consider all the Jews and all the non-Jews. E.g., maybe there is some place where Chinese and non-Jews really like the weather and eat a lot of Chinese food and some other place where there are a lot of Jews but the Chinese really hate the weather and there are no Chinese restaurants. Then our 'sampling' should include these people. The easy way around all such considerations is to get a list of all the people and select by throwing darts at the list. Since the dart throwing is independent of everything else, it all comes out in the wash (there are some theorems that say these things).

Second, Fat Guy included "similarly situated". Here is an example of why: Maybe in the US and Canada, the Jews are mostly urban. And maybe everyone in urban areas eats huge quantities of Chinese food. In this case, being Jewish would have nothing to do with it. So, being Jewish would be 'spurious' and the real 'cause' would be living in urban areas. It may even be that Jews eat in delicatessens so much that in urban areas they actually eat less Chinese food than non-Jews but are so strongly urbanized that as a whole they eat more Chinese food than non-Jews. We could imagine similar effects from age, income, education, etc.

So, Fat Guy is looking for one answer -- just one -- that applies to all groups of people, Jewish and non-Jewish, "similarly situated".

With both "as a group" and "similarly situated", Fat Guy shows that he has had at least some contact with applied statistics essentially as in 'scientific' sociology.

With these two aspects of the question, Fat Guy is coming close to trying to identify Jewish as a 'cause'. Here he is following the recommended path of the J. Coleman school of scientific sociology.

Fat Guy proposed some analysis of variance with some special matching in the sampling.

I proposed a 'regression' model to ease handling both variables with a few values and ones with many values. Also, I avoided the possibly onerous matching. In an important sense, analysis of variance is a special case of regression.

In one place I did provide some detail: We can look at presentations of regression, e.g.,

C. Radhakrishna Rao, 'Linear Statistical Inference and Its Applications: Second Edition', ISBN 0-471-70823-2, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1967.

and see the assumptions listed. We can ask if our outlined use of regression would satisfy those assumptions? In particular, the errors, Z(i) in my description, are supposed to be independent, identically distributed, and have mean zero. I outlined how we could assume this. Using regression analysis without attention to the assumptions sounds like just throwing abstract nonsense at a practical problem; such things are done at times, and I wanted to avoid doing so.

I was also more careful about a 'random variable' than is common. The elementary discussions of 'sample spaces' I have seen, typically for high school, actually get these foundations wrong; what they have won't work. I wanted to avoid such nonsense.

I avoided mention of 'correlation' and 'propensity to consume' because they really are not very relevant and not needed, even in a fully detailed treatment.

For calculus, it is not fully relevant: In some elementary treatments, calculus is used to define expectation for a random variable that has a density. In my treatment, I didn't have to assume that the random variables have a density. The way to define expectation in general is in the subject 'measure theory', and that is what Kolmogorov used as the foundations of probability. Measure theory is the grown up version of the core of calculus.

For econometrics, that's by the economists, yet again borrowing with questionable appropriateness from areas of mathematics including regression, optimization, etc., and if all the economists were laid end to end ...!

tryska wrote:

"how about just walking into random chinese restaurants and asking the patrons if anyone of jewish descent would raise their hands. take note and then walk out."

This approach would have problems with Fat Guy's "similarly situated".

In parts of the social sciences, they pay attention to how quantities are measured. In particular they consider 'reliability' and 'validity'. Asking people just to raise their hands could yield questionable measures. Also, might want to count the number of people and the amount they spent.

We should note that really we have not been very clear on 'amount of Chinese food'. One measure would be amount of money spent in US dollars, say, before tips and taxes. This measure does not promise to be exactly proportional to weight of the food, volume of the food, or total food energy in the food.

Now, if we are going to get a grant for this research, then I believe that we will need new copies of SAS, SPSS, TeX, LaTeX, AMSTeX, Adobe's collection, Mathematica, and a few others, a new LAN with some laptops, desktops, wireless, servers, firewall, packet filtering, and an OC-192 line (would settle for 10 Gbps Ethernet). We will need a preliminary design, and for this we will need some 'participant observation' at a wide variety of restaurants, both Chinese and non-Chinese. The suggestions here for an international scope are well considered. We will need appropriate travel support and arrangements. Will need some gym time with personal trainers to work off all the 'sampling' efforts. Will need some good digital photography -- h'ware, s'ware -- to appropriately document our 'sampling'. For a start, I suggest a series of dinner discussions at 'Le Cirque'? We will also want to discuss 'exit' for this 'venture'.

For the question, without "similarly situated", let's see: There are about 1 billion non-Jews that eat Chinese food essentially 100% of the time -- hmm ....

[Gifted Gourmet]

If the Chinese ever wanted to kill off the Jewish population of the USA they could accomplish it on a single Sunday by poisoning the spare ribs.

However, if the Jews of this country ever wanted to wipe out the Chinese it would take them about two weeks. All they would have to do is stop eating out..

The sagacity of this piece of advice is unparalleled!

Boycott lo mein? Dodge dim sum? Eschew egg rolls? Avoid a steaming cauldron of Mongolian hotpot? Evade eggrolls? Shun moo shu? Skip the highly admired Kung Pao chicken? Never happen in our lifetimes!

Highly unlikely for sure! It would, if you will permit me, separate "the men from the boys", so to speak ...

but then there would be the obligatory thread on what constitutes "a proper minyan" ... bloviatrix, this is your territory ....

another story for another day ...

Edited December 25, 2003 by Gifted Gourmet (log)

[Singapore]

I'd like to add a data point to the thread:

During the first Gulf War, I spent some time, courtesy of the US Navy, in Haifa, Israel. Being of Chinese descent, if I spent more than a month at sea, I'd get an incredible craving for Chinese food, and would search out Chinese restaurants at virtually every port of call.

In Haifa, I found two restaurants, one kosher, and the other non-kosher. The kosher place had very little business. (The cook actually came out to apologize to me "How can I cook? They won't let me use pork, or fresh seafood, and the beef is tasteless!") The non-kosher place had Jewish people lined up around the block. Most popular dish, according to the wait staff: pork filled dumplings, and roast pork fried rice! I went there twice, despite the fact that it was one of the more expensive restaurants.

BTW, I was completely unsuccessful in finding a good Chinese restaurant in Egypt (Alexandria, Hurgada, and Cairo).

[Rachel Perlow]

hmm.  most Jewish moms were cooking things like meatloaf and the like?

My mom did, about once a week.

We weren't kosher, but both of my parents grew up in kosher homes. My mom, however, did frequent Chinese restaurants when she was young, usually with her big brother (13 years older), but I don't think her parents. I don't ever recall going to a Chinese restaurant with my paternal grandparents though. I distinctly remember my Grandma calling Chinese food "Chinks." And, unlike in the paper which we are discussing, I think did know she was saying something racist when she said it.

When my dad was in the army and they moved to Ohio after they got married, they experimented with all sorts of non-kosher foods. For example, my mom made the stereotypical baked ham with pineapple.

Growing up, like I said, we weren't kosher, but my dad insisted on certain restrictions, like not mixing meat and dairy at the table (cheeseburgers apparently didn't count), although we didn't have separate dishes. We frequently had lamb chops, but never pork chops. That meatloaf was all beef. We went to a Chinese restaurant every Sunday -- family dinner for 1 less than the number of people at the table -- Spare Ribs, Pork Fried Rice, Egg Foo Yung, and Shrimp with Lobster Sauce was de rigueur. And Mom never made a baked ham after they moved back east from Ohio, as far as I recall.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Growing up, like I said, we weren't kosher, but my dad insisted on certain restrictions, like not mixing meat and dairy at the table (cheeseburgers apparently didn't count), although we didn't have separate dishes.

Possibly why people who adhere to the most stringent kashrut rules have fewer neuroses? They simply follow all rules as "din" ....and the rest of us are forever creating new "minhagim" ...

Growing up as Reform Jews, and from a home where a Christmas tree was essential, my dad made his clove-studded baked ham.

My younger brother is now glatt Lubavitch and I have kept a kosher kitchen as well .. go figure ....

Whatta wacky world, thank G-d!

Edited December 25, 2003 by Gifted Gourmet (log)

[Jason Perlow]

This type of behavior among modern Jewish families is what I like to refer as "Kosher of convenience" so not as to make any impression on people that you are bad Jews even though they will conveniently break the rules of Kashrut as they see fit and make up their own weird rules what cannot be eaten and when. Rachel's family is far more like this than my own, which for the most part is totally secular and has no problems with eating anything at any time and will prepare pork, shrimp, shellfish, etc in their own households. Her family still pretends to be Conservative.

At our own wedding, I had a major fight with my mother in law who flat out REFUSED to allow shrimp to be placed in plain view on large platters with cocktail sauce during the cocktail hour. Instead, the shrimp was "passed" around by waiters in small amounts as hourderves, because this was perceived by her family to be less conspicuous. God forbid the rabbi would see huge plates of shrimp sitting out there on the table, but passing it around like it was some kind of dirty secret was perfectly ok.

I'll never figure them out.

[robert brown]

Did anyone post the joke about the Chinese man who brags to a Jewish guy about how long there has been Chinese food?

[Gifted Gourmet]

Did anyone post the joke about the Chinese man who brags to a Jewish guy about how long there has been Chinese food?

Isn't it only a matter of nannoseconds before that appears here?

Kind of like waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop ....

[VivreManger]

While in La I dined at the China Islamic Restaurant in Rosemead and started to ponder why the Kosher Chinese phenomenon does not draw upon this rich authentically Han culinary tradition instead of substituting veal for pork and committing other forms of gastronomic heresy.

I love lamb and Muslim Chinese cooking does too. It also features a sesame covered scallion bread that almost tastes like it emerged from the ovens of H&H. It even has the best feature of chive cheese w/o the calories. They even use lots of cabbage.

True, Chinese Muslims eat shellfish so the match is not complete, but for the most part this cuisine should -- rather than Szechuan and Cantonese that are so dominant -- be the basis for Chinese food for observant Jews.

[foodpsycho]

The only Jewish/Chinese joke I know is:

Jewish man goes into a Chinese restaurant and sits down.

Waiter comes over to the table to take his order.

Man thinks for a moment and asks: "Any Chinese Jews?"

Waiter says, "No, there's orange juice, pineapple juice but no Chinese Juice"

Groan

[cakewalk]

I think one of the attractions of Chinese food (and not just for Jews) was the fact that it always seemed so elaborate. All that cutting and chopping, etc., it just wasn't something most moms in the 60's and 70's were used to doing (think meat loaf), so going out to a Chinese restaurant was somewhat exotic. No way would we get that stuff at home.

hmm. most Jewish moms were cooking things like meatloaf and the like?

I was referring to simplicity in cooking, which is what I remember most about our meals when I was growing up. I think it accounts for a large part of the attraction to Chinese restaurants, for Jews and non-Jews alike, perhaps especially for those of us who grew up in lower-middle class, or working-class families. The neighborhood Chinese restaurant (Jade Garden on Jerome Avenue, BTW) was exotic for us at that time. The food was exotic, certainly not anything I or any of my friends would ever have found in our own kitchens, and that goes for my non-Jewish friends, too. The food was different, the utensils were different, the paintings on the walls were different. It was lovely and enticing because of that, for my siblings and friends, that is. My parents, and most of my friend's parents, never stepped foot in the place. I'm not so sure that this Jewish/Chinese food affinity thing is only Jewish, but then I'm referring only to my own memories.

(Then again, maybe it all started with Lenny Bruce's routine about things that were Jewish and things that were Goyish. He did say, in that routine, that the Chinese are Jewish. Didn't he? And to think he's finally been Pardoned by Pataki.)

[jo-mel]

I could never figure out what "subgum" meant, except that I gather it means it has pork in it?

actually, I believe that it means that it has some form of meat in it, but has vegetables as well ... more aptly defined as:

"of or designating various Chinese-American dishes prepared with mixed vegetables such as water chestnuts, mushrooms, and bean sprouts."

ETYMOLOGY: Chinese (Cantonese) shap kam, mixture, subgum.

rather enjoy the term "subgum" .. always think sublingual ...

Just to further expand on 'subgum' ----I also think it means a variety of ingredients - usually ten. Literally it means ten brocade/tapestry or 'ten varieties'.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Let me unload this ancient, oft repeated joke because it is so perfect for the thread ....

A Jewish man and a Chinese man were conversing. The Jewish man commented upon what a wise people the Chinese are.

"Yes," replied the Chinese, "Our culture is over 4,000 years old. But, you Jews are a very wise people, too."

The Jewish man replied, "Yes, our culture is over 5,000 years old."

The Chinaman was incredulous, "That's impossible," he replied. "Where did your people eat for a thousand years?"

Now, the other proverbial shoe has now dropped ...

groan .. redux ...

[WHT]

Let me unload this ancient, oft repeated joke because it is so perfect for the thread ....

So Bernie and his wife where enjoying dinner at their favorite Chinese place and his wife mused “ do you think there are Jews in China?” “Sadie maybe we can ask the waiter.” Bernie retorted. So they did. Bernie asked if they had Chinese Jews. After a long wait the waiter returned. “We have Apple Juice, Orange Juice, Pineapple juice but no Chinese Juice.”

[wesza]

While in La I dined at the China Islamic Restaurant in Rosemead and started to ponder why the Kosher Chinese phenomenon does not draw upon this rich authentically Han culinary tradition instead of substituting veal for pork and committing other forms of gastronomic heresy. 

I love lamb and Muslim Chinese cooking does too.  It also features a sesame covered scallion bread that almost tastes like it emerged from the ovens of H&H.  It even has the best feature of chive cheese w/o the calories.  They even use lots of cabbage. 

True, Chinese Muslims eat shellfish so the match is not complete, but for the most part this cuisine should -- rather than Szechuan and Cantonese that are so dominant -- be the basis for Chinese food for observant Jews.

Being very familiar with Chinese Muslim Food please consider that the amount of Muslim Immigrants from China until the 1960's was negligent.

The food is interesting, tasty but so very different to what rhe NYC Jewish customer expects that it would be quite difficult to woo that market, especially since it's welcomed with open arms the Korean, Sushi and other more familiar in many ways cusines.

The closest to the Jewish market evidenced in Seattle has been the acceptance of one "Glatt Kosher" Chinese Restaurant that is a Chinese Vegan Restaurant called the Bamboo Garden that is overseen by the Seattle Vad. I'm glad that I was able to convince the oporators to open a branch here from Honolulu.

Even more interesting it is also the only successfull Kosher Restaurant in Seattle to sustain it's business for so long.

I do attribute this to the fact the the majority of it's customers are Vegeterians and Vegans who also enthusiastically welcomed the opening. Plus Parking and a good location and competent staff.

The Lamb dishes served at our Taiwan, Szechuan, Shanganise, Malay and Hakka Restaurants are very similar to the Halal type of Lamb dishes served at Muslim Restaurants as well as Indian and Pakistan. There is a Han Population who enjoys the Goat and Lamb sold at "Ranch 99 Markets, Mexican Markets and our many Halal Butcher Shopes but we still haven't had any specialty places open yet.

Irwin

Edited December 26, 2003 by wesza (log)

[menton1]

So Bernie and his wife where enjoying dinner at their favorite Chinese place and his wife mused “ do you think there are Jews in China?” “Sadie maybe we can ask the waiter.” Bernie retorted. So they did. Bernie asked if they had Chinese Jews. After a long wait the waiter returned. “We have Apple Juice, Orange Juice, Pineapple juice but no Chinese Juice.”

On a more serious note, there were actually a whole community of Jews living in Shanghai during WWII; they had fled from Germany and were offered some type of "refuge" by the Chinese. About 20,000 Jews fled there after Kristallnacht. Most survived the war, but suffered greatly under atrocious conditions such as hunger and disease.

If you can get your hands on it, there is a wonderful documentary called "Shanghai Ghetto" that explains this uplifting story of surviving through hope.

[Pan]

They were given refuge by the Japanese occupiers. Shanghai was occupied in 1937.

Edited January 3, 2004 by Pan (log)

[wesza]

So Bernie and his wife where enjoying dinner at their favorite Chinese place and his wife mused “ do you think there are Jews in China?” “Sadie maybe we can ask the waiter.” Bernie retorted. So they did. Bernie asked if they had Chinese Jews. After a long wait the waiter returned. “We have Apple Juice, Orange Juice, Pineapple juice but no Chinese Juice.”

On a more serious note, there were actually a whole community of Jews living in Shanghai during WWII; they had fled from Germany and were offered some type of "refuge" by the Chinese. About 20,000 Jews fled there after Kristallnacht. Most survived the war, but suffered greatly under atrocious conditions such as hunger and disease.

If you can get your hands on it, there is a wonderful documentary called "Shanghai Ghetto" that explains this uplifting story of surviving through hope.

Menton & Pan:

There is a interesting book written by a Rabbi friend of mine called "The Fugu Experiment" it goes into details about the rationale of the Japanese Occupiers deciding to treat the Jewish in Shanghai with much better consideration then the Germans would have preferred during this period.

I had several family member who were interned who had arrived in Shanghai thru Harbin China and also knew several who had moved to Hong Kong when I lived there.

Irwin

Edited January 3, 2004 by wesza (log)