Gold Rush - Chinese & French Restaurants in Saigon & San Francisco -- an article review

 

Photo source:  Wall Street Journal

“Cosmopolitan Cuisine.  Chinese and French Restaurants in Saigon and San Francisco, 1850-1910”

 Author: Erica J. Peters

Source: Ethnologie française , Janvier 2014, T. 44, No. 1, RESTAURANTS EN VILLE (Janvier 2014), pp. 29-36

Published by: Presses Universitaires de France

This article contrasts and compares the opportunities and challenges faced by both Chinese and French restaurants in Saigon and San Francisco during the last half of the 19^th century.  It points out that the people running these restaurants were often immigrants and that running a restaurant in a new country had certain advantages:

When immigrants come to a new country, they often find the restaurant business is very appealing. It is a business that also allows one to feed one’s family; restaurants thrive on the cheap unskilled labor that an immigrant family can provide, and running a restaurant does not require much in the way of language skills.  Immigrants can also use their connections back home to help supply food products with a unique appeal. These ingredients are not local, so they have a particular cachet - both as a taste of home for ones compatriots and as a taste of the exotic, for locals or immigrants from other countries who might be tempted to come try your restaurant. The same goes for the immigrant’s style of food preparation - it works both as a taste of home for people of the same background, and as a taste of the exotic for everyone else. (pg. 29)

My interest is in the restaurants in San Francisco, so that is what I will focus on.  The article continues by pointing out:

Throughout the nineteenth century, hard times in China pushed many Chinese to leave the country. … Still other Chinese traveled across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco to take advantage of the 1849 California Gold Rush, until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 obstructed that path. In these cities on opposite sides of the Pacific, Saigon and San Francisco, Chinese people (mostly Cantonese) set up fine Chinese restaurants and banquet halls to meet the needs of their community and reach out to clientele from other ethnicities as well. Other Cantonese entrepreneurs opened low-end eateries, offering hungry workers a cheap meal. French people were also drawn by the California Gold Rush, and many set up restaurants in San Francisco. Like the Chinese, they initially hoped to "mine" the miners - to make money from those seeking gold. Over time they catered to the growing city, offering an upscale alternative to the local chop houses, informal restaurants serving steaks and chops. French restaurateurs in San Francisco relied on France’s international reputation for magnificent cuisine. (pgs. 29-30)

 The section on Chinese restaurants in San Francisco notes that when the Gold Rush began, “almost all restaurants in San Francisco were run by Chinese immigrants, serving Western-style chops and steaks alongside fricassees and various hashes.” (pg. 32)  These were mostly Cantonese who “managed a wide range of restaurants, from the low-end, serving day workers for just a few cents, to a middle level, offering more meat and more variety for salaried workers, to very expensive banquet halls, for special occasions or for tourists.” (pg 32)

 The restaurants were often distinctive in their architectural and decorative styles, especially the more upscale (and so expensive) ones. 

Many Chinese workers in San Francisco could not afford to eat at these restaurants. Like in Saigon, the poorest workers would simply buy some nuts, a bun, or a bowl of soup from a street vendor when they had earned some coins or could get credit. Or they might pop into the corner grocery: Chinese grocers often had an open kitchen where customers could prepare their small purchases into a meal, topping a bowl of rice with some stir-fried vegetables, pork or fish, and a little lard, pickled vegetables, and sauce. (pg.32)

 But what really caught my attention was the very detailed description of an upscale meal: 

The apex of the Chinese restaurant experience cost two to ten dollars a head and went on for hours. First, gilt-edged invitations went out, announcing that "a slight repast awaits the light of the guests’ presence". When guests arrived, they gathered in an outer room, enjoying tea and cigars. …  Place settings included a stack of tiny plates, a small bowl, a porcelain spoon, ivory chopsticks, and two large metal cups, one holding a pint of hot tea, the other a pint of rose-scented rice liquor. A soup tureen sat on the table with other appetizers around it, including cucumber and celery salads, pickled duck, ginger, eggs, and melon-seeds, as well as salted almonds and other nuts. Many were finger foods, and "circular wafers, about two inches in diameter, [were] often used to envelop mouthfuls of food.” 

… 

[Guests were served] fried sharks fin and grated ham; stewed pigeon with bamboo sprouts... boned duck with nuts, pearl barley, and mushrooms... bamboo soup... banana fritters, and birds-nest soup... There are also other dishes which cost up to a dollar a mouthful... Each dish is served cut and minced in quart bowls, many of which are silver-plated and provided with a metal heater in the centre, filled with coals to keep the food warm. 

Other courses might include terrapin with onion and water chestnuts; mushrooms with hundred-layer leek, Chinese quail, skewered chicken hearts, rice soup, stewed mutton, roast duck, and mince pies; followed by a succession of fancy dishes, such as "delicate cakes [...] in the form of birds or flowers" and jellies designed to look like fresh oranges, until you saw the rainbow inside. (pg 33) 

Other descriptions include: 

In another dish, roast ham was prepared so as to resemble the halves of dried peaches, with the fat on one side and the lean on the other - a very palatable dish. 

Among the best was a species of muffin, the outside of which peeled off like the rind of an orange, and revealed a succession of delicate layers... like the unopened leaves in a rosebud. 

One of the choicest delicacies on the table was a bulbous succulent root, imported from China, called water chestnuts. They have the flavor of our chestnuts and Jerusalem artichokes combined, are snowy white, and crisp... as a very tender radish. (pg 33)

The article notes that, as anti-Chinese sentiment increased in San Francisco, other types of restaurants gained popularity.  It wasn’t until the turn of the twentieth century that eating Chinese food became popular again, due to the rise of the chop suey houses. 

The article then puts its focus on French restaurants in San Francisco, the first of which opened in May, 1849.  It notes that most French people who came during the Gold Rush hailed from southern France and brought their food traditions with them.  This means classics like bouillabaisse, which benefited from San Francisco’s abundant seafood sources.  The restauranteurs emphasized their continental heritage and took advantage of the good reputation French cooking already had. 

For example, 

At a midrange French restaurant, the prix-fixe menu might cost two dollars, and the customer would get soup, a fish course, some simple appetizers (such as pickled beets, stuffed mushrooms, or a bean and tomato salad), then the main course (often a roast), then dessert or fruit, with wine to accompany the meal and coffee to round it off. (pg 34) 

I find this article helpful due to the detailed descriptions of the available foodstuffs and menus, and its insight into why so many immigrants started restaurants.  I hope I can find recipes for some of the dishes.