Cuisine of the Overseas Chinese in the Western United States: Using Recipes to Interpret Archaeological Plant Remains

Summary

Most of the Chinese who immigrated to the United States in the mid to late 19th century came from a few districts in southern China, an area with a well-developed cuisine. They brought ingredients, cooking equipment, dining implements, and seeds for garden crops to prepare food for daily meals and festivities. However, their culinary traditions were modified by a variety of factors including the absence of some ingredients, the easy availability of Euro-American foods, and restrictions on the immigration of women, which meant that in the United States men often became the cooks. Cooking Chinese dishes in remote mining and railroad construction camps was more challenging than in urban centers. This paper explores how cookbooks can help us interpret the dishes and meals represented by the plant remains from late 19th-century Chinese contexts in the western United States and how they document changes in traditional Chinese foodways.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• 2017 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Naomi F. Miller

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15384