An Hour After You Read This Article You'll Be Hungry

Husock, Howard

AFTER YOU READ THIS ARTICLE, YOU'LL BE HUNGRY HOWARD HUSOCK Ii was a Sunday nighi ritual, noi ostensibly religiom and certainly not Jewish—not with all that non-sealed seafood and bits of...

...AFTER YOU READ THIS ARTICLE, YOU'LL BE HUNGRY HOWARD HUSOCK Ii was a Sunday nighi ritual, noi ostensibly religiom and certainly not Jewish—not with all that non-sealed seafood and bits of pork...
...Perhaps this is just a culinary coincidence...
...Indeed, there is plenty of proof of a special relationship between Jews and Chinese food, ranging from Boston's basketball genius Red Auerbachs penchant for taking promising draft choices and or winning teams out for egg rolls, to the very existence of Moshe Peking...
...The same ability to distance oneself and appreciate the surrounding culture underlies the Jewish impulse toward sociology, anthropology, journalism...
...Manhattan's kosherChinese crossbreed...
...It was in a Sunday booth at China Gate where I learned that there was more to Jewish cuisine than corned beef and rye...
...All in all...
...My own family, with its soft spot for China Gate, doesn't buy the above theories, by the way...
...Jews, faced with a country that reveres canned ham and country sausage, inevitably experience some degree of dietary tension...
...And only in later years did I learn, from a Chinese friend, that, among the Chinese, it is conventional wisdom: If you want to open a restaurant, look fora Jewish neighborhood...
...Howard Husock is the managing editor of Boston's Channel 2's "Ten O'Chick News...
...with the title "A Rosenberg By Any Other Name...
...Even better, the Chinese serve tea—right in the shtetl tradition, except in a cup not a glass—thus avoiding the embarrassing glass of milk that Woody Allen must have gagged on next...
...There was egg loo yong...
...Remember the scene in Annie Hall in which Woody Allen, home for an Easter weekend with Diane Keaton's ailAmerican Wisconsin family, finds himself forced to mutter, unconvincingly, about the "great ham," as he grimaces between bites...
...without any doubt, there was a signilicant overlap between those who went to shut on Saturday and to China Gate on Sunday...
...His work his...
...The two groups may simply feel comfortable with each other for various reasons: Both have entrepreneurial traditions as small businessmen...
...I do have some other even less scientific theories, though...
...appeared in MOMENT in Marth /979...
...I like to think, though, that there is something of even greater value in the inclination of Jews to patronize the China Gates of the world...
...Perhaps this means that Jews should soon produce a generation of great Chinese-style cooks as well as connoiseurs...
...Only in later years did I find that in other neighborhoods and other cities, the same ritual was being repeated...
...It is a quality honed by centuries of living as outsiders and it makes of that necessity a virtue...
...It is Joseph Hirschorn collecting the best of Western art for his museum...
...the ones my mother called Chinese kreplach...
...For the moment, I'll have the spicy bean curd, hold the MSG...
...Maybe it is as simple as that...
...But it did have its own shrines and ceremonies: gold-leal pagodas and pastel murals on the walls, vigilant attendants at the ready to refill the water glass...
...and so forth...
...Impervious to stereotypes, my father suggests that, in his boyhood home of South Philadelphia at any rate, Chinese restaurants were esteemed for value: a lot of rice and low prices...
...Call it the Diaspora palate, the ability to develop an appreciation and taste for the best in other cultures...
...But it's hidden pork, little bits in moo shi pancakes, thin strips overshadowed by bamboo shoots...
...There is, indeed, lots of pork in Chinese food...
...it was the nearest thing we had to a delicatessen—in the neighborhood, filled with neighbors...
...what other ethnic group is known for its appreciation of a cuisine not its own'.' If there is an explanation, part of it may be sociological...
...in this country, both are upwardly mobile, emphasizing higher education for their children...
...But it seems worth examining as a badge of Jewish culture: After all...
...We're not forced to deal with those big, pink platters of ham...
...It is Shel Silverstein, so internalizing the essence of country-western music that he can write songs for Loretta Lynn...
...There is, for instance, the "pork and assimilation" theory...
...Chinese restaurants offer a happy compromise for those who do not observe all the dietary laws, as well as a common ground on which to entertain Gentiles...
...It is Edward G. Robinson learning the style of Irish and Italian New York...
...If that happens, only Moshe Peking may know for sure...
...shrimp and lobster sauce, and even wontons...

Vol. 8 • May 1983 • No. 5


 
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