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Popular Culture Review
Watanna, Winnifred enacted mainstream orientalist fantasies, exploiting the
discourse that feminized and aestheticized Japan” (118-19). Chinese-Japanese
Cook Book, however, suggests that Eaton considered America’s (and her own)
romanticizing of Japan simply to be an expression of appreciation, which could
become the basis for better relations between Americans and Asians. The
passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, which halted all Japanese immigration,
would demonstrate that fascination with all things Japanese did not translate into
support for Japanese residents of the United States, but in 1914 Eaton could still
be optimistic.
From the beginning, the cookbook presents the two cultures as equals:
although the cover illustration is of a Japanese woman, Chinese section of the
book comes first, and “Chinese” precedes “Japanese” in the title. Throughout,
Eaton minimizes the differences between the two, emphasizing that they have
many dishes in common and frequently use the same ingredients. She notes, for
example, that the recipe for Miishikujira (Japanese w hale or sea bass) “comes
from Nagasaki [the city Onoto Watanna claimed as her Japanese home], and is
really a Japanized Chinese dish. Japanese cooking of fish greatly resembles that
of the Chinese” (77). The book is divided into Chinese and Japanese sections,
but in a final chapter, “Cakes, Candies, Sweetmeats,” desserts from both
countries are intermingled. Also, she provides one grocery list for the two
cuisines. While actual residents of China and Japan might have objected, her
emphasis of the similarities argues that Americans should cease to privilege
China while also hinting that she and Bosse share the same heritage.
In the first paragraphs, Eaton confronts the reality that many Americans
considered Chinese restaurants to be unclean, informing her readers that “when
it is known how simple and clean are the ingredients used to make up these
Oriental dishes, the Westerner will cease to feel that natural repugnance which
assails one when about to taste a strange dish of a new and strange land” (1).
American housewives would probably have been startled but reassured by her
directions to wash “all vegetables and fruit. . .in cold water—if necessary in fifty
different waters”. She further implies that Asians could teach Americans a few
things about cleanliness and freshness of ingredients: “All cloths and dish towels
should be boiled and rinsed thoroughly” (9); “to determine whether a fish is
fresh, watch that its flesh is firm and thick, its scales glistening, and its eyes
prominent”; “eggs should be dropped into a bowl of cold water—eggs that are
absolutely fresh will immediately sink to the bottom and rest there” (10).
She somewhat defensively emphasizes that attitudes toward Chinese
cooking and Chinese restaurants have recently changed among sophisticated city
dwellers. Patronizing them is no longer bohemian but entirely respectable:
“The restaurants are no longer merely the resort of the curious
idlers intent upon studying types peculiar to Chinatown, for
the Chinese restaurants have pushed their way out of
Chinatown and are now found in all parts of the large cities of
America. In New York, they rub elbows with and challenge