Back when I first penned this review, I decided I'd keep it simple- The Fortune Cookie Chronicles turned out to be an excellent book. It strives to answer some of the most common questions that come up when "Chinese Food" is a topic of conversation. As it happens, that's rather a lot, being that there are more Chinese restaurants in America than any two fast food chains combined.
Little factoids like that (Or that the 8 in her name is deliberate, but not for shock value- 8’s a lucky number in China.) are sprinkled all through the book- tidbits of passing interest backed up by research, and deftly tucked into the narrative. The storytelling laid beside the bald facts is poignant, stirring, and leaves definitive impressions at various levels of depth. Equal parts reporting, blog post, vignette, and amateur food critic, each section gives answers and information that not only serves to bolster your current understanding, but compound it as you read on. You'll think back as you near the end of the book and absentmindedly apply bits of info from the beginning to form a more complete picture. That's not as easy a trick to pull off as it sounds, considering your average college textbook. Likewise, it isn't something I say lightly.
Full disclosure though, a drafted manuscript that used similar research to address several of the book's major topics was sitting on my harddrive when this book came out. Jennifer beat me handily to getting things published (benefits of being a journalist and reporter rather than a chef I suppose), but in hindsight I don't mind a bit. She did an excellent job from start to finish. Not speaking Mandarin or Cantonese myself, her net was a wider cast than mine, and I was very pleased at the surpassing thoroughness of her efforts- though some of my contacts in Japan might have been useful to her. Her list of notes and bibliographical references is also quite comprehensive- for those with a scholarly bent, that section alone is worth digging into. She's done a LOT of legwork, dredging up old manuscripts, translations, even court documents detailing the struggle of Asian-Americans to find citizenship and some measure of stability here in the United States. These days, I have to wonder how many more new versions of the very same struggles are going to be written and referenced in the months and years to come as the nation backslides into horrors thought banished for good.
There's one major problem with reviewing a manuscript as well constructed as this- most every enticing soundbite and succinctly distilled phrase has already found its way onto either the cover or the dust jacket.
So- if you've ever wondered who General Tso was, or why his chicken seems to be everywhere. If you're Jewish, and have memories of Chinese food every December around Christmas. If you've ever wondered where that Chinese Takeout Box came from, how the fortune cookie came about, or who wrote all those fortunes, or ever played the lucky numbers on the back. Any of that, plus all sorts of other satisfied curiosities work together to let me recommend this book with some real enthusiasm.
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