China and the Fad for Japan
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competition with the finest eating palaces. Their patronage to
day is of the very best, and many of their dishes are justly
famous” (1).
Comments about culture accompany many of the recipes. Some simply
supply infonnation about food and methods of preparation: “Bird’s nest is a
gelatinous substance, a species of seaweed, with which certain Chinese birds,
the esculent swallow and the white-backed swallow, build their nests” (16).
About the shrimp omelet, she informs readers, without recommending they
attempt the Japanese method, “the Japanese brown both sides at once, by putting
some burning charcoal into a tin plate and laying this on top of the omelette on
the stove” (88-89). Others, however, attempt to overcome Americans’ sense of
the strangeness of the Asian dishes by comparing them with familiar American
ones: syou (soy) sauce is similar to Worcestershire sauce (2); fried peas are
“used by children as salted peanuts are used in America” and “Chinese children
make little cornucopia paper bags into which to put these peas and eat them like
nuts” (63); chestnut kintons “might be called the Japanese fudge” (106). She
goes so far as to suggest that the foods not only resemble American favorites but
are in fact superior to them: owa okashi, a Japanese candy made with roasted
rice is “an improvement over the American popcorn-peanut balls” (105).
One might think Eaton would suggest American substitutes for Chinese
foods and Japanese foods as Asian grocery stores would have been unavailable
to most of the book’s purchasers. However, she detenninedly sticks to authentic
Chinese ingredients: syou sauce, quong sang chong (water chestnut flour),
Chinese artichokes, lychee nuts, and lotus seeds. Otherwise, the recipes are
similar to those devised for American readers today with the notable exception
that many foods were sauteed in animal fat, such as goose and ham, which
would certainly not have repulsed turn-of-the-century Americans. At the end of
one of Bosse’s articles, “A New Dinner for Churches and Clubs,” published in
the Ladies' Home Journal (1913), readers are encouraged to write to the author
for the “address of reliable firms where Chinese foods may be obtained,” (113)
but the cookbook offers no such help. The sisters, and presumably their editors,
had decided to aim the book at serious cooks, for whom authenticity would be
important. The only compromise is the inclusion of a recipe for the extremely
popular but unChinese chop suey. The book’s inclusion in a series of handbooks
for hotels and restaurants further confirms that its recipes were not for
beginners. Eaton stresses the importance of authenticity while encouraging
Americans to come into contact with Chinese people with her advice to her
readers to eat each dish in a Chinese restaurant before preparing it on their own.
Although she doesn’t go so far as to encourage conversation with Chinese chefs
or waiters, she does attempt to instill confidence that they are capable of
replicating the dishes they enjoy.
Bosse’s magazine articles assume that readers will want to serve their
Chinese meals in an appropriate setting, encouraging them to decorate with
Chinese scrolls, lanterns, even jade lamps: