The 1960s: Thoroughly Modern

Sketch by Lucey Bowen of Russell Wright designed platter for Shun Lee Dynasty, 1966

     Diners and critics who wanted their Chinese restaurants decorated in "authentic" style would have looked askance at the decor of Shun Lee Dynasty.  The owners had commissioned the very modern Russell Wright to design the restaurant from floor to ceiling and fork to chop-sticks.  Why wouldn't the owners hire the premier American designer of the time?  Wright had worked to develop native handicrafts in Cambodia, Vietnam and Taiwan.  Both the founder of Shun Lee and his partner were Nationalist Chinese who came from Taiwan to the United States.  They could not now return to the Communist mainland where Mao had launched the Cultural Revolution that would last a decade.
     Meanwhile, memories of World War II cooled, and the Japanese economic recovery entered the "Golden Sixties."  A young Japanese wrestler named Rocky Ayoki opened Benihana.  Bringing a style of Japanese grilling, teppan-yaki, together with a knife-wielding, food-flipping chef at every table, the restaurant soon became a fad on par with the hoola-hoop.  Nonetheless, I detect disdain in Margaret Bennett's "Has Anybody Here Seen Sushi?" about her adventures searching for sushi in Tokyo with her minimal language skills.  She refers to a venerable gentleman in a kimono, from whom she asked directions, as "probably the friendly, neighborhood white-slave network representative."
     Understandably, travel to Mainland China is neglected.  Curiously, an essay explains how to grow a garden of Chinese vegetables in the United States.  India and Southeast Asia are the focus.  Nostalgia pervades essays on the difference between Anglo-Indian curry and "authentic" Indian curries.  The authors of these pieces, and one about "Rijstaffel" in Java are written by old "Asia Hands," first, second or third generation veterans of the British or Dutch colonial service.
     Was the focus on Southeast Asia a reflection of the Cold War concern with a communist takeover there and the "Domino Theory?"  In 1964 and 1965, lengthy articles on "The Spice Heritage" appeared.   The first is nothing short of a complete review of European trade with Southeast Asia from the Romans through the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch, the French and the British.  The next delves into the particularities of growing, trading and consuming cinnamon and its relative, cassia bark.  Pepper and cloves received the same treatment. These histories are a subtle reminder of the long history of colonialism in the region.  They stop well short of the twentieth century.
     Perhaps the most important event in the orientation of American eating goes unmentioned in the magazine.  In 1965, the Immigration Reform and Nationality Act replaced the national origins quota system with one based on skills and family relations.  Asians were no longer excluded from immigration quotas.  The next decades would bring peoples and their cooking from places not previously represented on the American scene.