History
Chinese restaurants in the United States began during the California gold rush, which brought twenty to thirty thousand immigrants across from the Canton (Guangdong) region of China. By 1850, there were 5 restaurants in San Francisco. Soon after, significant amounts of food were being imported from China to America's west coast. The trend spread eastward, with the growth of the American railways, particularly to New York City. There has additionally been a consequential component of Chinese emigration of illegal origin, most notably Fuzhou people from Fujian Province and Wenzhounese from Zhejiang Province in Mainland China, specifically destined to work in Chinese restaurants in New York City, beginning in the 1980s. Quantification of the magnitude of this modality of emigration is imprecise and varies over time, but it appears to continue unabated on a significant basis. Adapting Chinese cooking techniques to local produce and tastes has led to the development of American Chinese cuisine.
In 1907, the first recorded Chinese restaurant in London, England was opened. The rise in the number of Chinese restaurants in the UK only began after the Second World War, and has been attributed to returning service personnel. In 2003, the first British Chinese restaurant achieved a Michelin star. In the United Kingdom, the business employs a large percentage of Chinese immigrants (90% in 1985). Opening a restaurant or takeway gave a relatively low capital cost entry for Chinese families into self-employment, many takeaways served a pseudo-Chinese cuisine based around western tastes, and the limited cooking skills and experience of the shop owners.
Read more about this topic: Chinese Restaurants
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“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)