Final book review

Hi! I finished reading the whole book of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. I would like to share the summary and what I thought about the book.

The book is about the Author Jennifer B.Lee finding out about Chinese cuisine in America. She introduces dishes in America that are seen as Chinese food which are completely different menus to Chinese food in China. Fortune cookies, Chop Suey, General Tso’s chicken, Kari-out soy sauce, and Fold-Pak takeaway cartons. These dishes do not exist in China but are popular in the United States. She researches the origin of each of the dishes and introduces the histories related to Chinese food. She especially goes into fortune cookies and finds out that they came from Japan and she talks about how China popularizes fortune cookies. Finally, I learned that American Chinese food’s features are to have broccoli, sweet-and-sour, random cauliflower, deep-fried stuff, fried rice, fried noodles, egg rolls. 

Reading the whole book, I was able to learn about Chinese cuisine in America. I learned that Chinese food in America is completely different from the original Chinese food in China. I first thought that it would not be that different and I thought there would be some factors of Chinese. However, it was not true and the dishes were completely different and made up. I found out that these foods were made to match the American taste. I was surprised with how different the dishes were compared to the Chinese cuisine in China. Also, I was surprised by how Americans see Chinese food. I felt that the American’s image of Chinese food is wrong and they should know that they are not eating the original Chinese food. However, it sounds difficult to persuade the Americans that the Chinese food they are eating in America doesn’t exist in China. 

Looking at other countries' Chinese restaurants, they varied a lot. First, they had different ingredients which made some countries make their countries traditional food plus Chinese food. Furthermore, some countries mix Japanese food and Chinese food. For example, they add ‘yakisoba’ to the menu. Finding out that different countries serve different types of Chinese food I got confused if Chinese food only refers to Chinese food in China. I thought that Chinese food in America could be accepted as Chinese food. 

I would recommend this book if you would like to know the history of Chinese cuisine and the origin of fortune cookies. However, I personally won’t recommend this book. The reason is that you don’t need that much knowledge about the history of fortune cookies or other histories related to Chinese food in America. Although it was interesting to know about lots of kinds of Chinese foods in America, I thought each chapter went into too much detail it became difficult for me to understand. However, overall, it was an interesting book and I was able to learn new facts about Chinese cuisine.