Chop Suey : A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States

by Coe, Andrew

  Discussions resumed on a much harsher note in the Great Hall of the People the next morning. Zhou gave a “scorching” lecture on the state of the world, emphasizing China’s great differences with the United States. Kissinger felt he had to respond in kind, but just as he was getting warmed up for his tough talk, Zhou interrupted: “I believe the second item which you wanted to go into is Indochina, which is also very long. I suggest rest now and relaxation. Otherwise, you will be under tension and the duck will be cold.”

  “That would be most calamitous,” Kissinger replied. “Tension we can take.”12

  Zhou escorted the Americans to a dining room next door, where they were seated at a large round banquet table. White-jacketed waiters began to pass around the plates of what would be their most memorable meal in China. “If I could choose a last meal on Earth,” said Lord, “it would be Peking duck”; and this meal featured not just one serving of duck; it was a complete, traditional Peking duck dinner, with duck parts for every course, including the crispy skin, feet, gizzards, and brains and a soup made from the bones. The pièce de résistance was tender, juicy duck meat dabbed with a rich, salty-sweet-tart sauce and wrapped in a thin pancake with scallions or slivered cucumbers. The consummate Chinese host, Zhou himself deftly wrapped these succulent packages for the enjoyment of his honored guests. As they ate, the tension of the meeting mellowed, carried away on a sea of duck fat. Zhou steered the conversation to the subject of the Cultural Revolution, which he said had caused immense disruption in the country and killed many, including party officials. Used to the image of the implacable, inscrutable Chinese Communist, the Americans felt that with this statement Zhou had bared something of his soul, his deepest anguish.

  After lunch, the premier insisted that his guests pile into a tiny elevator and ascend to a special kitchen, apparently designed for the sole task of preparing Peking ducks. Its only occupant was a soldier scrubbing the floor of the spotless room. John Holdridge, a Kissinger aide, wrote: “The stunned look on his face when he saw a band of foreigners in his kitchen guided by none other than the Chinese premier was alone well worth the trip.”13 Zhou showed them the special ovens for roasting the ducks and explained how apple and cherry wood coals helped give the birds their flavor. The Americans were impressed, according to Holdridge: “This whole episode shows the great hospitality, graciousness, and effort to put us at ease displayed by Premier Zhou Enlai, surely one of contemporary China’s greatest leaders.”14

  When the two sides returned to the conference room, Kissinger resumed his forceful rebuttal of Zhou’s speech. However, his heart—or should we say his stomach?—wasn’t in it. A mood of duck-fueled geniality pervaded the room, and the talk soon returned to the more welcome subject of President Nixon visiting China. In fact, this meal set a pattern that was followed again and again during the Americans’ advance trips to China. Whenever the discussion became a little too heated, or the Chinese felt that the Americans needed to unwind a bit, Zhou would suggest another duck dinner. During Kissinger’s “Polo II” trip in October 1971, Zhou invited the Americans to dine on roast duck just as negotiations bogged down over the wording of an important Chinese-American communiqué. He decided that his two guests of honor would be Kissinger, of course, and, as the youngest American present, Nixon aide Dwight Chapin (later a bit player in the Watergate scandal).

  “Premier Zhou did our pancakes for us,” Chapin recalls, “because that’s what a gracious Chinese person does. I had no knowledge this was going to happen. So delicious: I don’t have the words to express the taste delight. Then at the end, they bring out the topper—the head of the duck, split in half. Zhou gives one half of the head to Kissinger and one half to me. He tells us to eat the brain. I can tell you that I touched it to my lips, but didn’t eat it.”

  Afterward, the premier suggested to a duck-happy Kissinger a radically different organization for the communiqué, one that laid out the Chinese and American positions side by side without any attempt at synthesis. “It was unprecedented in design,” Kissinger wrote. “It stated the Chinese position on a whole host of issues in extremely uncompromising terms. . . . But as I reflected further I began to see that the very novelty of the approach might resolve our perplexities.”15 Stuffed with duck, Kissinger agreed to Zhou’s proposal.

  Unfortunately, one cannot subsist on Peking duck alone. The American advance parties had to endure almost daily Chinese banquets, with their complicated etiquette and dizzying array of dishes. Acting as a stand-in for Nixon, for whom he had worked as a glorified gofer since the early 1960s, Chapin wrote notes to his boss counseling him on how to handle the river of unfamiliar dishes he would encounter. Eat light from the start, he advised, because it keeps coming. The president should also be prepared to use chopsticks and to expect his host to place choice pieces of food on his plate. In addition, it was proper etiquette to try everything. If they were in Shanghai, that “everything” could be particularly dangerous. During the Polo II trip, the Party leaders in Shanghai served Kissinger and his team a dish they called “Dragon, Tiger, Phoenix” that turned out to be a stew of snake, cat, and chicken. During the January 1972 advance trip headed by General Alexander Haig, the standout dish in Shanghai was a plate of tiny brown deep-fried birds. “Gentlemen,” their host gleefully announced, “this is a salute to spring—a sparrow! Yes, the sparrow that flies.” Chapin only hesitated a moment: “I just threw one in my mouth. It was very crunchy, but not bad.” (Only much later did the Americans learn that their Shanghai hosts weren’t exactly warm to renewing relations with the United States. After Mao’s death, they would become key members of the radical Communist group known as the Gang of Four.)

  Another challenge the Americans faced was chopsticks. Although they found forks and knives at each table setting, Lord advised them to use chopsticks to show respect for their Chinese hosts. Unfortunately, Kissinger proved utterly incompetent at wielding chopsticks during the Polo I trip and had to resort to his fork. To make matters worse, the Chinese waiters removed it at the end of each course, and he further lost face by having to ask for another. His clumsiness became a running joke. When he and his aides were in Hawaii at the start of the Polo II trip, Holdridge saw his chance and pounced. He called everyone together and formally presented Kissinger with “a handy, dandy practice kit for using chopsticks,” consisting of “three types of chopsticks—wood, ivory, and silver—plus an assortment of different items to be picked up by the chopsticks: mothballs, marbles, and wood chips. I can’t recall any other occasion in my tenure with him during which he was absolutely speechless,” Holdridge recalled.16 Four months later, Chapin sent a pair to everyone on the White House staff going to China, along with the suggestion: “Borrowing from the Chairman the old ‘Practice makes perfect,’ I suggest you become acquainted with using the enclosed chopsticks.”

  In early February 1972, when the final advance team was holed up in Beijing’s Hotel of the Nationalities and working virtually around the clock to prepare for the presidential visit, the Chinese head of protocol posed a question to Ron Walker, director of the White House Advance Office: “What is President Nixon’s favorite Chinese food?” The query was relayed by satellite phone back to Washington, where Chapin brought it to H. R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff. A veteran ad man who had worked on Nixon campaigns since 1956, Haldeman understood the real question: what did they want the world to see him eat?

  If Americans knew one thing about Richard M. Nixon’s eating habits, it was that he ate cottage cheese, and lots of it. He was obsessed about his weight and not looking fat on national television. His regular lunch, which he ate either alone or with Haldeman, was a scoop of low-fat cottage cheese with some pineapple (the California touch) or a splash of ketchup for flavor. But on the occasions when this tightly wound man allowed himself to indulge, he had sophisticated tastes—for a politician. He liked rich, meaty food. At home, this meant steak, meat loaf, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, and chicken fricassee. Eating out, he
liked to frequent the best French restaurants in Washington and New York, where he ordered dishes like beef stroganoff and duckling a l’orange. All washed down with copious amounts of the best wine and liquor; the manifest for Air Force One showed, among other bottles, thirty-year-old Ballantine’s Scotch, Chateau Margaux 1966, Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1966, Chateau Haut-Brion 1955, and Dom Perignon champagne, mostly for the president’s consumption. To put it bluntly, the most powerful man in the world was a very heavy drinker (and particularly at the end of his presidency). One cuisine he apparently didn’t eat much of was Chinese. The main Washington hangout for the younger Nixons was the nearby Trader Vic’s, but the president and first lady did not take their much-publicized walk over to the Tiki Temple for another year. At this moment, Nixon had more important concerns than gustatory satisfaction, like winning the upcoming election. Haldeman and Nixon mulled over the question for a while and then sent word back to Chapin. Within a few hours, Walker had his answer for the Chinese: “The President will eat anything served to him.”

  Haldeman had decided that Nixon’s trip would highlight visual image over political substance. The reason was twofold: they wanted to distract the public from the pesky details of any treaty the United States and China might sign—particularly one involving the hot-button question of Taiwan’s status. And for the campaign, they needed to show Nixon as a confident, sophisticated world leader: negotiating international agreements, conversing with Chairman Mao, contemplating history at the Great Wall of China, and eating authentic Chinese food (while Democratic opponents Edmund Muskie and George McGovern were choking down stale doughnuts in New Hampshire coffee shops). They didn’t tell the public that when Air Force One took off from Andrews Air Force Base on February 17, 1972, its hold was stuffed with frozen steak, hamburger, lobster tail, Campbell’s bean and bacon soup, Wishbone salad dressing, ketchup, white Pepperidge Farm bread, apple and cherry pies, and three flavors of ice cream. On short notice, Zosimo Monzon, the Nixons’ personal steward, could turn all this into a good American meal. When cameras were present, though, the only food that would pass the president’s lips during his week on foreign soil would be Chinese.

  The passengers on Air Force One that day dutifully carried their chopsticks and their fat briefing books stamped with the presidential seal. These contained everything they needed to know for the upcoming trip, from a history of U.S.-Chinese relations to a description of what they would encounter on the table: “Banquet food served in the Peoples’ Republic of China is to the ‘Chinese food’ served in restaurants in the U.S. as Beef Wellington is to a cafeteria hamburger.” One might be served things like sharks’ fins, birds’ nests, sea cucumbers, snake, dog, bears’ paws, and who knows what else. “Fortunately, one’s taste buds are a more reliable guide to the excellence of these delicacies than one’s imagination. Most Westerners are surprised to find, once they have tasted them, that they like them very much.” As for the tricky question of Chinese etiquette, which promised to be radically different from what one was used to at Washington’s state banquets and embassy dinners, “the Chinese relish their cuisine,” Mrs. Nixon read. “You should not be offended at the noisy downing of soups, or even at burping after a meal. These are unconscious table habits accepted in Chinese society.”17 There would be toasts at the banquets, of course—with fiery mao-tai, a 106-proof liquor distilled from sorghum. Nixon was warned not to actually drink it during toasts; just touching it to your lips would be enough. Finally came the delicate matter of table topics: What do you talk about with the ageing Long March veteran who is your tablemate? Why, food, of course: “While citizens of many countries regard their native cuisine as the finest in the world, the Chinese have more basis than most for their pride. They react with much pleasure to compliments about the truly remarkable variety of tastes, textures, and aromas in Chinese cuisine.” There was one caveat: “It is wise not to say a particular dish is ‘good’ or ‘interesting’ when in fact you do not like it, as your hosts, in an effort to please, may serve you extra portions to your embarrassment.” The best course was to remember the experience of Caleb Cushing’s party more than a century earlier—“gape, simper, and swallow!”

  As Air Force One approached Beijing on February 21, Nixon and his aides still had no idea whether their China trip would succeed or fail. The first signs were ominous: no welcoming crowd awaited them at the airport, just forty officials in dark coats and a military honor guard. While a burly aide kept everyone else inside, President and Mrs. Nixon, who wore a flaming red coat, descended alone the stairs to the tarmac. There, Nixon and Zhou shook hands for a long minute, both to ensure that every camera got the shot and to erase an old diplomatic slight. (In 1954, secretary of state John Foster Dulles had refused Zhou’s handshake at a peace conference.) The Americans were then hustled into a motorcade and driven to the now familiar Diaoyutai guesthouse for lunch. We are told only (by Kissinger again) that the spread was “opulent.” Afterward, Zhou pulled Kissinger aside and informed him that Chairman Mao wanted to meet Nixon at his residence, immediately. Ageing and seriously ill, Mao was still China’s paramount leader and was obsessed with his place in history. There wasn’t much substance to their hour-long discussion, but one clear message was sent: Mao bestowed his blessing on the process of rapprochement. Afterward, Nixon barely had time to change into a fresh suit for what promised to be the biggest media event of the trip, the official welcoming banquet.

  Figure 7.3. Adroitly wielding her chopsticks, Mrs. Nixon enjoys some spicy eggplant on her visit to the kitchens of the Peking Hotel, February 1972. The White House used the interest in Chinese food to distract attention from more substantive issues.

  For the Chinese, the evening was far more than just another state dinner; it was also a coming-out party, a signal to the world that the People’s Republic was emerging from twenty-two years of self-imposed isolation. They planned every phase of the event with meticulous care, mobilizing their nation’s limitless human resources, shipping in the best ingredients, and requisitioning the top hotel and restaurant chefs for the kitchens at the Great Hall of the People. While there had never been any question whether the banquet would follow Chinese standards of cuisine and service, certain limits had been imposed. For the past seven months, the Chinese had been testing the culinary sophistication of the Americans visiting China on the advance trips. After these trials, the Chinese protocol staff had given the Americans one guarantee: President Nixon would not have to eat sea cucumbers during his China visit.

  The Nixons arrived in a boxy, Chinese-made “Red Flag” limousine and entered the Great Hall of the People, passing under a huge portrait of Chairman Mao. Zhou Enlai escorted them up a grand staircase for photographs and then down a long receiving line into the banquet hall itself. Here the American TV networks picked up the story. Back in the States, millions of Americans eating breakfast watched the cameras pan over the empty tables and the white-jacketed waiters standing at attention, as the reporters desperately tried to fill the time. Barbara Walters of NBC commented to Ed Newman back in New York: “We had our first taste of food and, Ed, you know what? It tasted like Chinese food! We had been told that it was so very exotic and so different that we might not recognize it, but we did indeed—it’s just better than the Chinese food that we get in our country.” She also revealed that the Chinese serve their “most esteemed” foreign guests nine-course banquets, while lesser visitors receive fewer courses.

  Finally President Nixon and Premier Zhou Enlai entered, and the meal began under the glare of the television lights at the big round table next to the stage. In addition to the cold hors d’oeuvres—salted chicken, vegetarian ham, cucumber rolls, crisp silver carp, duck slices with pineapple, three colored eggs (including thousand-year-old eggs with their aroma of sulfur and ammonia), and Cantonese smoked salted meat and duck liver sausage—a sharp-eyed viewer could spot big rosettes of butter and slices of white bread at every place. The barbarians would not have to sneak loaves in their poc
kets. Walters was awed at what she was seeing: “Mrs. Nixon using chopsticks!” The perfect Chinese host, Zhou selected a delicacy from one of the dishes and gave it to Mrs. Nixon. She gingerly pushed the food around her plate for a minute or two, finally inserted something into her mouth, and ever-so-slowly began to chew. Watching from New York, Ed Newman observed: “I think we can also see that President Nixon is using chopsticks and apparently doing very well with them.” Over on ABC, Harry Reasoner was also impressed: “Here is a tremendous picture: the President of the United States with chopsticks!” The next day, the New York Times television critic wrote: “Some images were simply beyond words or still photographs,” including the sight of “Mr. and Mrs. Nixon carefully wielding chopsticks.”

  Chopsticks were quickly forgotten as Zhou rose to toast the friendship of the Chinese and American peoples. The reporters declared that he was “warm and gracious” and had dispelled the chill that had descended at the airport. Then Nixon took the stage and read his toast, suggesting that the two nations should, in the words of Chairman Mao, “seize the day, seize the hour.” After complimenting the chefs for preparing such a magnificent banquet, Nixon descended to toast each top Chinese official with mao-tai. He didn’t forget his instructions: the level of drink in his glass hardly dropped. The president, Dan Rather opined, looked “energetic and triumphant.” For two more hours, the meal continued, through entrées including spongy bamboo shoots and egg-white consommé, shark’s fin in three shreds, fried and stewed prawns, mushrooms and mustard greens, steamed chicken with coconut, and a cold almond junket for dessert. These were served with assorted pastries, including purée of pea cake, fried spring rolls, plum blossom dumplings, and fried sweet rice cake. Finally came a simple dessert of melon and tangerines, and then the banquet ended. For those present, it had been an amazing, history-making evening, even if the details were a bit vague after all those firewater toasts. Of all the Americans present, only Charles Freeman, the veteran of Taipei’s dining scene, opined the meal’s offerings had merely been “very good, standard Chinese banquet food.”