Post-WWII "Ethnic" Food and Restaurants

[Chris Amirault]

As many food historians have documented, working- and middle-class Americans coming back from the Pacific and European theatres in WWII brought with them a greater sense of risk and experimentation around food.

I'd like to hear some about people's experiences with that food growing up. For example, many people first tasted "Italian" food thanks to Chef Boyardee (who really existed, apparently). I certainly know that my first "Chinese" food came in two cans -- crispy noodles and chop suey -- from the folks at La Choy (now owned by ConAgra), the company that could (sing along if you can) "make Chinese food [drum roll] swing A-merican!" Apparently, "swinging American" meant forbidding all garlic, ginger, and chili, cooking every vegetable until grey, using lots of celery, and suspending the whole mess in a glutinous substance primarily made from corn starch.

That make-at-home food is pretty interesting, to be sure, but I'd also like to hear about people's experiences eating out in places that served this sort of food. As car culture exploded in the 1950s and 1960s, so too did a new interest in "ethnic" restaurants; I grew up outside of Boston, near Route 1, and in Saugus MA there were many of these places. My family was working middle class, and we often spent bits of our small discretionary income at restaurants like the Kowloon (scroll down halfway) and the Diamond Head, for egg foo young, duck sauce, and moo goo gai pan, and at the Leaning Tower of Pizza, complete with the actual leaning tower of Pisa attached to the restaurant. At least, that's what my dad told me....

I went back to the Kowloon a couple of years ago, and it was a hoot to see the audacious volcano-and-hula-skirt decor from my youth. But I also started thinking that these restaurants were the first places in which I had sweet and sour paired in a main dish, unusual (to me) ingredients, spicy food of any kind (the hot mustard with the "BBQ pork slices" in our pupu platter, the ground red pepper on our pizzas), and meals that didn't consist of meat and two veg. Moreso than in my New England Yankee home, I probably developed my curious palate in these dimly lit faux food joints, and so they hold a special place in my heart (and mouth ).

What about you? Sure, you may scoff at it when you're sitting down to Per Se, but what role did this legendarily bad food play in the development of the foodie that you've now become? Fess up, pardner!

[fifi]

Great topic. My dad served in the Pacific and he brought two culinary legacies back with him . . . A love of Spam and a deep hatred for mutton.

We were working middle class in Houston and really didn't eat out all that much. There was the occasional trip with an aunt and uncle to the favorite steak house in town or a day at the waterfront with the grown-ups eating shrimp and drinking beer while the kids played at being wharf rats. I really don't remember much in the way of "ethnic" restaurants. There may not have been much. My mother cooked an Americanized version of Italian. She had been raised next door to an Italian family. As far as I can tell, Houston didn't diversify very much until in the early 60s. Our first brush with other ethnic food at home that I can remember is from the Philippines. It was in the early 60s that my dad had a couple of trips to the hospital. We had a nurses shortage and a lot of nurses immigrated from there. My dad was in hog heaven with all of the pretty nurses. Also from the war, he had a real love for the Phillipines. He found out where to get some of the ingredients and talked food with them getting recipes. He did some awesome stews.

There was a restaurant across from the old Shamrock Hotel that was the first place to serve pizza, Valian's I think, and that was probably the late 50s.

[mizducky]

That make-at-home food is pretty interesting, to be sure, but I'd also like to hear about people's experiences eating out in places that served this sort of food. As car culture exploded in the 1950s and 1960s, so too did a new interest in "ethnic" restaurants; I grew up outside of Boston, near Route 1, and in Saugus MA there were many of these places. My family was working middle class, and we often spent bits of our small discretionary income at restaurants like the Kowloon (scroll down halfway) and the Diamond Head, for egg foo young, duck sauce, and moo goo gai pan, and at the Leaning Tower of Pizza, complete with the actual leaning tower of Pisa attached to the restaurant. At least, that's what my dad told me....

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Oh my ... while the only one of the restaurants on that stretch of highway in Saugus that I ever visited was the infamous Hilltop Steak House, I do have fond memories of all those over-the-top buildings, including the Kowloon.

As to my own experience: as a nice Jewish grrl growing up in the suburbs of New York City, the main ethnic cuisines I got exposed to outside of my own were Italian and Chinese. Italian usually meant pizza--especially what the local pizza joints called Sicilian style pizza, an oblong pie with thick doughy crust, usually cut into square pieces. Once in a very great while my folks would take us kids to a somewhat more upscale Italian restaurant--white tablecloths, lots of red gravy, lots of garlic. At home, my mom occasionally made really tasty (if perhaps inauthentic) chicken cacciatore and eggplant parmagiana. We also had fun putting together our own antipasto trays, gettin' wacky with the salami and provolone and lotsa little cans of Progresso stuff (my mom and I shared an unholy passion for Progresso's canned caponata). Even though I grew up to find out there was lots more to Italian food than that, I still have fond memories of the red-gravy Italian-American joints...and that Progresso caponata (haven't seen it for years).

I experienced a lot of the same Jewish mystique for Chinese-American food documented so intriguingly in this article. In particular, my very first memory of ever being taken to a for-real restaurant is from when I was barely two years old, when my folks took me to this Cantonese joint in Pearl River (Rockland County) called the China Pearl. I loved the white tablecloths and the colored lights--it made me feel all growed up. Apparently my folks weren't even sure I'd like Chinese food, so they ordered me a hamburger--I distinctly remember thinking it funny that the burger came on white Wonder-style bread. I don't remember actually tasting any of my elders' Chinese entrees at that meal, but that must have happened because that was the last hamburger I ever had at a Chinese joint--on subsequent visits I was fighting for my share of the shrimp and lobster sauce with the best of 'em.

When I was older I was taken on expeditions to New York City's Chinatown, which seemed the height of exotic cosmopolitanism to me; I was also enough aware of my own poor immigrant forebears that I felt some kind of admittedly-naive solidarity with this other immigrant community housed so close to the ghetto where my mom grew up. And then when I hit college age and moved to Boston, I plunged into the partly student-driven mystique for Szechuan restaurants, whose food may not have been all that more authentic than the Cantonese joints I grew up on, but we Anglo students sorta thought they were.

[jgarner53]

Oh, how I remember the crunchy Chinese noodles! For a long time, that was my favorite part of a Chinese meal. Having grown up quite the picky eater, I was probably close to 12 before I'd deign to try many of the things on the menu. The Chinese place we went to was Bamboo Terrace. I remember eating foil-wrapped chicken, bbq spareribs, sweet & sour chicken or pork, and dishes like cashew chicken. They always brought out a little dish of the crunchy noodles before you ordered.

Growing up in Southern California, we had a large Mexican population, so I was exposed to Mexican food as well. My grandparents had a favorite homey place they went to every Saturday night, and while this was long before I'd try Mexican food, (I remember eating hamburgers or plain ground beef in a taco shell), my mom would also make things like enchiladas and tacos pretty regularly. Of course, she seasoned the ground beef (always ground beef) with Lawry's taco seasoning mix, and bought pre-made taco shells. If there was salsa, I didn't eat it, though my grandmother made her own.

There weren't a lot of Italian restaurants around, that I remember, except for pizza. Mom would make spaghetti (again, ground beef) and manicotti and lasagna. Mexican food was far more prevalent: the big plates covered in sauce and cheese, with a puddle of cheese-topped refried beans and mound of rice. Sombreros on the wall. The most popular Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood (still is pretty popular, too), had once been a steak house, and the formica-topped tables still sported the Western/ranch themed design (brands, branding irons, fence posts,etc) that they'd had when the place was the steak house. The menu was laminated to become the placemats, the colored lights (dim otherwise) made it feel festive. That was my first encounter with shredded beef, which I thought was a particularly amazing invention.

[MicBacchus]

I'll echo Fifi - we didn't eat out a lot. My mom would refuse to cook on Mother's Day so we'd hit a Chinese restaurant; usually the only time I didn't have a homecooked meal. Since non-homemade food was a real treat, this tasted fabulous; my favorites being Shrimp in Lobster Sauce and Butterflied Shrimp. the only Chinese made at home was chop suey with shrimp.I grew up in Balto so you can see the seafood leaning I have.

I should add that my mom was from a small town in Kentucky - no crack intended - and learned to cook simple meals based on what was available seasonally with not many special spices or herbs. I thought (until I was 21) that spaghetti sauce consisted of tomato sauce, hamburger, garlic salt, and the cheese in a green can.

On the other hand, she made the best crabcake EVER -- no filler or anything to take away from the crab taste. My dad was on a ship, and I don't remember him having an aversion to anything except oysters which he couldn't keep down sober or drunk!!

Don't remember any Mexican food. Mom had a sauerbraten recipe (my dad was half German) that used left-over roast beef and gingersnap cookies with left-over mashed potatoes for potato pancakes. As for Polish, she'd make her version of stuffed cabbage which was layered in a casserole.

Guess I need to add that mom was a WAVE who worked in DC and VA so maybe was exposed to some new ideas.

[mpav]

We never ate out. No Mexican ever. Menner's Spanish Rice in a can was our ethnic treat, plus Buitoni pasta and marinara sauce. Franco-American Spaghetti was ethnic treat #2. Never Chinese. Mom was convinced it was made from local pets. When some company started selling tubs of frozen chow mein we ate "Chinese."

Our vegetables at home were always canned, but we did eat good pot roast, stuffed cabbage, fried fish every week and a concoction with spaghetti, canned tomatoes and cheese. What you don't know, you don't miss. I'd still rather eat at home.

[bavila]

While my dad went to Japan and Korea in the Korean War, I can't say I can tell how that impacted his palate, if at all. Both parents grew up with their own vegetable gardens -- largely a necessity during the War due to rationing, and just a way of being frugal. So most of the year we had fresh veggies (which I didn't really appreciate until I left home for insipid college cafeteria veggies).

As for "ethnic" at home, I think we were pretty limited to La Choy and spaghetti sauce made with a McCormick seasoning pack. Cajun standards like gumbo and etoufee were on our table, but weren't considered exotic in Louisiana. I hear my grandmother's crepes were legendary, but she died when I was an infant.

Eating out, there was watered down Mexican, Italian and Chinese. For many decades there has been a significant Lebanese population in my hometown (Lafayette, Louisiana), but for some reason middle Eastern restuarants have only popped up in the last 10 years or so. There's a nice variety now -- Colombian, Japanese, Greek, etc.

I'll have to ask Dad about his food experiences overseas, keeping in mind that he's not much of a foodie. When I told him I liked a squeeze of lime in my ginger ale, he said, "Or you could just mix ginger ale and Sprite." Sheesh.