The number of people who helped in my research is beyond counting. Let me begin with the four members of the Coe-Ziegelman family. Andrew Coe’s seminal work Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States inspired my own hope of some day writing about this subject, and he has offered encouragement at every step of the way. Jane Ziegelman had something penetrating to contribute whenever Chinese food was being discussed. I must thank their children, Buster and Edward, for being cheerful and intelligent participants in many talk-filled lunches in Flushing, Manhattan Chinatown, and elsewhere. Among the many friends who over the last few years shared in the eating, talking, and thinking, special thanks to Michael Gray and Patricia A. Andrews, Kian Lam Kho and Warren Livesley, Regina Schrambling and Bob Sacha, Danielle Gustafson and Bradley Klein, Cara De Silva, Madeleine Lim, and Ame Gilbert.
Many other writers and scholars generously shared ideas and information with me. I am especially indebted to Lucey Bowen, Ava Chin, Karen Christensen, Janet Chrzan, Fuchsia Dunlop, Nathalie Dupree, Jonathan Gold and Laurie Ochoa, Bruce Kraig, Rachel Laudan, Elizabeth L. Mo, Alejandro and Maricel Presilla, Jacqueline M. Newman, Molly O’Neill, Erica J. Peters, Valerie Saint Rossy, Ed Schoenfeld, Scott Seligman, Richard Tan, Grace Young, and Willa Zhen.
My left-hand man, neurologist Dr. Gary Alweiss, kept this writer’s-cramp-afflicted southpaw more or less able to hold a pen throughout the writing process. Thanks, Gary!
I am grateful for moral support from my nephew Jorj Bauer and his wife, Susan Talbutt. Jorj’s expertise also got me through several computer emergencies.
Thanks to Susan B. Carter for allowing me to cite important findings from her own forthcoming book on the Chinese in America, and to Zanne Stewart (at a very difficult moment in her life) and Suzi Arensberg Diacou for sharing firsthand recollections of some pivotal events during the 1970s and 1980s.
My work has been immeasurably helped by access to the collections of the Bobst Library at New York University, the New York Public Library, and the Firestone Library at Princeton University. I am also grateful to the Bergen County (New Jersey) Cooperative Library System and the North Bergen Public Library for the kind of help we would all like to have from local taxpayer-supported libraries.
A grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation supported the first stages of my research. The Taiwan Tourism Bureau made it possible for me to visit Taiwan in 2010; sincere thanks to Marian Goldberg, Polly Yang, and the extraordinarily knowledgeable Helen Wong.
Paul Freedman and Eugene N. Anderson read versions of the text in manuscript. Their discerning comments (and Gene Anderson’s profound knowledge of Chinese culinary history) have greatly enhanced the final result.
My agents, Jane Dystel and Miriam Goderich, have been towers of strength as this project straggled from first idea to completion. Heartfelt thanks to everyone at Dystel & Goderich.
Finally, I am grateful to my editor, Jennifer Crewe, for seeing some merit in my original proposal and patiently steering the project to a long-delayed conclusion. My best thanks to Kathryn Schell, Jonathan Fiedler, Kathryn Jorge, and all of the Columbia University Press team. And a special shout-out to attentive copy editor Patti Bower, who had my back from first to last page.