Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Short Stuff: Chinese Food on Christmas

Transcript

Short Stuff: Chinese Food on Christmas · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Jerry's even here. She's sitting in for Dave c the
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: super producer. Uh. And this is short stuff a good
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: one too, if you ask me. Yeah. So, I know
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: that A Christmas Story is one of your favorite movies.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: And I know that that great scene at the end
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: that is unfortunately now dripping with ethnic overturns and racism. Sure,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: but it was. It's still a funny scene of the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: family going out to eat Chinese food on Christmas and
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: an empty Chinese restaurant. The only problem I have with that, well,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: aside from the other stuff I just mentioned, is that
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: it's not it's not full of Jewish patrons. Yeah, it's
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: pretty much empty if I remember correctly. Isn't it They're
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the only ones there. It is entirely possible that I
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: think that takes place in Cleveland, outside of Cleveland, doesn't it?
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Or is it Indiana? I think it was shot outside
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: of Cleveland, but maybe said in Indiana. Okay, there was
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: probably not a Jewish person to be found in Indiana
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen Maybe that's probably it. And my god,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: did you know Bob Clark died in a car accident
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: brought on by a d U I driver in two thousand.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I had no idea until just recently. So yeah, his
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: his oldest son r I P. Bob Clark and son Um.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: But yes, so there is something weird in that there's
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: no Jewish people in there, because at any Chinese food
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: restaurant on Christmas in America, especially these days, you're going
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to find plenty of Jewish people eating there. In fact,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: it's a huge tradition among the Jewish American community. It
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: turns out. Yeah, and you brought up this very kind
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of funny moment at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Justice Elana Kagan, someone said, where were you Um during
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the Christmas attack launched by al Qaeda the year before,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and she said, like all Jews, I was probably at
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: a Chinese restaurant. What a great line. And apparently Chuck
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Schumer was like, well, the reason being is because it's
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: probably the only place open. So he just kind of ruined. Yeah,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: he did. He explained it, but he probably didn't need
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: to explain because from you know, just researching this, but
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: also my own awareness, like eating Chinese food on Christmas
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: is not just a Jewish tradition any longer it's become
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: an American tradition. But it definitely traces its origins back
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: to the Jewish community, and apparently right around the turn
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of the last century in the Lower East Side of
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: New York City is where the it really finds its roots,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: which is pretty cool that you can trace something like
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: that back like that, Oh totally. It makes sense because
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: if you're typing, if you're talking about different types of food,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: like like Mexican food or Italian food, there's you know,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: like dairy mixed in with the me eat in a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: lot or most of the dishes, so it's it's hard
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: to eat kosher. Chinese food, first of all, doesn't have dairy.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: You know. My famous story about does have cheese on
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: it in the Chinese restaurant. Still one of the great
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: things that ever happened to me as a child was
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: overhearing that conversation. But they don't, you know, they don't
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: have dairy in their food generally, and uh, the stuff
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: is just you know, if you've got your meat and
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: you've got rice, and you've got things that are cooked together.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: But it's like vegetables and meats cooked together. It's not
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have like cream sauce or cheese and stuff
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: like that, right, which to a Jewish person is basically
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the tantamount to being kosher. And you know, today it's
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: really easy to um be kosher in America because the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: food industry back and I think the fifties said, oh,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of Jewish people who live here.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Now there's like a whole market for making kosher foods
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: or just labeling foods is kosher that we're already kosher anyway. Um,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: But before that, Chinese restaurants were one of the only
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: places out in the rest of America where a Jewish
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: person could go and and feel pretty confident about having
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: a kosher meal. So you know, that in and of
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: itself makes sense. And there's also some other Um, there's
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: other some commonalities too, especially between Eastern European Jewish people
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: and um Chinese cuisine, and that there there's a lot
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: of sweet and sour dishes common to both. Um. Creplock,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: which is like a meat filled dumpling, is is um
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: kind of resemble some of the Chinese meat filled dumplings
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: like dim sum um. And then also the pancakes Chinese
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: pancakes resemble blintzes too, so it's not like it was
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: just the most entirely foreign concept to to a lot
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: of these Jewish Americans who were recently arrived. Um, but
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: it was still exotic and new too. Yeah. So we'll
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: take a break now and then as promised, I know it,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: let us astray, but we will head down to the
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: lower side right after this. All right, So you promised
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: talk of the lowery side where this was kind of born.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: So there's a woman named, and this is not a joke.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Her name is Jennifer eight Lee, the number eight. I
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: guess she's named after the movie. I don't know. I
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: didn't get that far. I just verified that he was
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: in a type of Yeah, Jennifer eight with Andy Garcia
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and I can't remember who else and John John Goodman.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I can't remember who Duma Thurman. Oh maybe maybe, Well
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: you you talk and I'll look up about that. All right.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: So Jennifer eight Lee as a producer of the Search
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: for General. So is it it's General? So right, it's
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: it's General eighth. And she had this to say. Jews
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and Chinese were the two largest non Christian immigrant groups
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: at the turn of the century. Uh. And so these
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: groups were linked by living in the lower side of Manhattan,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and they were also linked by otherness. And uh. Two
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: for Jewish people to love Chinese food, um, she feels
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: just says a lot about immigration history in the United
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: States and being an outsider in the United States kind
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: of living together, which is really kind of a nice thing,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, I thought that was a really good point.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's an accurate point too, but it's something
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: that's kind of easy to overlook. A lot of people
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: just kind of I think narrow it down to, oh, well,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: that was what was open on Christian and um, Christian
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: holidays and Sundays, which is true. Um, like that, that's
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: you know, Chinese restaurants going to be open on Christmas.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: So if you're a Jewish person looking to go out
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: to eat, you know, the Italian place is going to
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: be closed because they're celebrating Christmas. The the the Irish
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: pubs probably going to be closed because they're celebrating Christmas.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: So the Chinese food happened to be open, but it's
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: definitely there's a lot, a lot further deeper layers to
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: it than that. Yeah. Another one is that, Um, Chinese
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: people had no history of being prejudiced towards Jewish people,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: which was a big deal. Uh. They were open on Sundays,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: they were open on other Christian holidays. They I think, Um,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: there could have possibly been a reputation at some Italian
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: restaurants are early in the day of early in the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: days of New York that they were maybe um, not
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: as welcoming for Jewish people, but a nice way to
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: say it at the very least. You know, if you
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: were a Jewish and you went to an Italian restaurant,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: you might take note of the extensive religious Yeah, the imagery,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the word Virgin Mary and Jesus with the crown of
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: thorns and all that, and be like, good, you know,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to the Chinese food place instead. Yeah. Yeah,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't necessarily hostile, right, but yeah, it wasn't
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: like come in Jewish friends necessarily who knows, but they
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: didn't have to think about it at the Chinese restaurant.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: And then what's more, too, it wasn't just the Jewish
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: community that was welcomed with open arms to Chinese restaurants
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: during this time. Um, if you were black too, you
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: could find a place to eat at a Chinese restaurant.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: They like, they didn't discriminate against anybody. They were like,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: you got some money and you want to eat, come
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: on in. Yeah, it's very nice and welcoming. Uh. In
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the thirties. By the time the nineties rolled around, Jewish
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: cookbooks like full On had Americanized versions of famous Chinese
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: dishes like egg Fu young and chop suey and Uh.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: The Lowery Side sort of started expanding. Jewish people moved out,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: moved to different boroughs, different neighborhood out into the suburbs,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: and bada being bad a boom. All of a sudden,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Chinese restaurants were following because they know they've got a
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: good customer base. Yeah, dude, So there I saw that
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: there's something like forty thousand Chinese food restaurants in the
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: United States. These days there's fourteen thousand McDonald's forty thousand
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Chinese food restaurants. And it was the this the aspora
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: of the Jewish community from the Lower East Side of
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: New York further and further out into America that kind
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: of drew Chinese food restaurants out with them. So you
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: can thank the Jews from New York for your local
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Chinese food place that you love so much. Give him
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: a give him a tip of the hat and say
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: thank you Jewish friend. Um, I appreciate you bringing the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Chinese food restaurant this way. That is really cool. I know.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: They became sort of neighborhood hubs in Jewish communities and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: they would see friends and neighbors and the families were
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: there and children were playing together. Uh. It was just
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: a sort of a beautiful symbiotic relationship, it seems like
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: from the beginning. Yeah. Yeah, And so over time the
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: rest of America said, hey, the Jewish people are really
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: onto something here. Let's uh, let's get in on this.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: And now a days like eating Chinese food on Christmas
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: is just a general American tradition um. And you can
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: see that apparently in Google searches um for Chinese food,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: which I guess skyrocket on Christmas or right around Christmas, right, yeah,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I think, um, they go up or actually that's a
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: grub hubs status Chinese food is up a hundred and
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: fifty two on Christmas Day. But uh, it definitely the
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Google search peaks on Christmas Day. And that's been going
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: on since they've been keeping track of Google stats, and
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: so apparently the most popular Chinese food order in all
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: of America on any day, but in particular Christmas days
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that General Sow's. Have you ever had Chinese food on Christmas? Yeah? Yeah,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, I didn't realize how
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: cliche wey where you mean? And I would go get
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: General So's chicken at a Golden Buddha on on tenth
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: in Midtown, not the one indicator. And we just drove
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: past it the other day and it's it's gone, which
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: is kind of sad. So there goes our Christmas tradition.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: But um, yeah, for for a few years we would
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: go eat Chinese food on Christmas. Is good. I love
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Chinese food so much. Yeah, I do too. I need too.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, um, researching this the other day,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: we ended up getting Taie. It wasn't Chinese, but you know,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: close enough, but I was like, we've got to get
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: some Chinese food. Um. Just from reading about all this
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and seeing words like egg fu young and chop suey
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: and stuff, it made me so hungry for it. I
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: never had that's that stuff. I don't even know what
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: chop suey is, so that I think it's a short
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: stuff in and of itself, but supposedly they think it's
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: chop suey basically means leftover, so that it has its
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: own origin story. We'll do one on chop suey two. Okay,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: sweet sweet indeed um. So if you want to know
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: more about Chinese food on Christmas, well then buddy, you've
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: got a day to figure it out and then try
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: it for yourself tomorrow. Because the Jewish community figured it
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: out a long time ago. And since I said that,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: it means that short stuff is out. Stuff you should
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Know is a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts. For my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: favorite shows.