December 23, 2020 • 12 mins
What started out as a tradition among Jewish people on the Lower East Side at the turn of the last century has become a full-blown American holiday custom.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
Jerry's even here. She's sitting in for Dave c the
super producer. Uh. And this is short stuff a good
one too, if you ask me. Yeah. So, I know
that A Christmas Story is one of your favorite movies.
And I know that that great scene at the end
(00:24):
that is unfortunately now dripping with ethnic overturns and racism. Sure,
but it was. It's still a funny scene of the
family going out to eat Chinese food on Christmas and
an empty Chinese restaurant. The only problem I have with that, well,
aside from the other stuff I just mentioned, is that
it's not it's not full of Jewish patrons. Yeah, it's
(00:48):
pretty much empty if I remember correctly. Isn't it They're
the only ones there. It is entirely possible that I
think that takes place in Cleveland, outside of Cleveland, doesn't it?
Or is it Indiana? I think it was shot outside
of Cleveland, but maybe said in Indiana. Okay, there was
probably not a Jewish person to be found in Indiana
in the nineteen Maybe that's probably it. And my god,
(01:13):
did you know Bob Clark died in a car accident
brought on by a d U I driver in two thousand.
I had no idea until just recently. So yeah, his
his oldest son r I P. Bob Clark and son Um.
But yes, so there is something weird in that there's
no Jewish people in there, because at any Chinese food
(01:34):
restaurant on Christmas in America, especially these days, you're going
to find plenty of Jewish people eating there. In fact,
it's a huge tradition among the Jewish American community. It
turns out. Yeah, and you brought up this very kind
of funny moment at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for
(01:55):
Justice Elana Kagan, someone said, where were you Um during
the Christmas attack launched by al Qaeda the year before,
and she said, like all Jews, I was probably at
a Chinese restaurant. What a great line. And apparently Chuck
Schumer was like, well, the reason being is because it's
probably the only place open. So he just kind of ruined. Yeah,
(02:19):
he did. He explained it, but he probably didn't need
to explain because from you know, just researching this, but
also my own awareness, like eating Chinese food on Christmas
is not just a Jewish tradition any longer it's become
an American tradition. But it definitely traces its origins back
to the Jewish community, and apparently right around the turn
of the last century in the Lower East Side of
(02:41):
New York City is where the it really finds its roots,
which is pretty cool that you can trace something like
that back like that, Oh totally. It makes sense because
if you're typing, if you're talking about different types of food,
like like Mexican food or Italian food, there's you know,
like dairy mixed in with the me eat in a
lot or most of the dishes, so it's it's hard
(03:03):
to eat kosher. Chinese food, first of all, doesn't have dairy.
You know. My famous story about does have cheese on
it in the Chinese restaurant. Still one of the great
things that ever happened to me as a child was
overhearing that conversation. But they don't, you know, they don't
have dairy in their food generally, and uh, the stuff
(03:23):
is just you know, if you've got your meat and
you've got rice, and you've got things that are cooked together.
But it's like vegetables and meats cooked together. It's not
It doesn't have like cream sauce or cheese and stuff
like that, right, which to a Jewish person is basically
the tantamount to being kosher. And you know, today it's
really easy to um be kosher in America because the
food industry back and I think the fifties said, oh,
(03:46):
you know, there's a lot of Jewish people who live here.
Now there's like a whole market for making kosher foods
or just labeling foods is kosher that we're already kosher anyway. Um,
But before that, Chinese restaurants were one of the only
places out in the rest of America where a Jewish
person could go and and feel pretty confident about having
(04:07):
a kosher meal. So you know, that in and of
itself makes sense. And there's also some other Um, there's
other some commonalities too, especially between Eastern European Jewish people
and um Chinese cuisine, and that there there's a lot
of sweet and sour dishes common to both. Um. Creplock,
(04:28):
which is like a meat filled dumpling, is is um
kind of resemble some of the Chinese meat filled dumplings
like dim sum um. And then also the pancakes Chinese
pancakes resemble blintzes too, so it's not like it was
just the most entirely foreign concept to to a lot
of these Jewish Americans who were recently arrived. Um, but
(04:50):
it was still exotic and new too. Yeah. So we'll
take a break now and then as promised, I know it,
let us astray, but we will head down to the
lower side right after this. All right, So you promised
(05:34):
talk of the lowery side where this was kind of born.
So there's a woman named, and this is not a joke.
Her name is Jennifer eight Lee, the number eight. I
guess she's named after the movie. I don't know. I
didn't get that far. I just verified that he was
in a type of Yeah, Jennifer eight with Andy Garcia
and I can't remember who else and John John Goodman.
(05:55):
I can't remember who Duma Thurman. Oh maybe maybe, Well
you you talk and I'll look up about that. All right.
So Jennifer eight Lee as a producer of the Search
for General. So is it it's General? So right, it's
it's General eighth. And she had this to say. Jews
(06:16):
and Chinese were the two largest non Christian immigrant groups
at the turn of the century. Uh. And so these
groups were linked by living in the lower side of Manhattan,
and they were also linked by otherness. And uh. Two
for Jewish people to love Chinese food, um, she feels
just says a lot about immigration history in the United
(06:36):
States and being an outsider in the United States kind
of living together, which is really kind of a nice thing,
I think. Yeah, I thought that was a really good point.
I'm sure it's an accurate point too, but it's something
that's kind of easy to overlook. A lot of people
just kind of I think narrow it down to, oh, well,
that was what was open on Christian and um, Christian
holidays and Sundays, which is true. Um, like that, that's
(07:00):
you know, Chinese restaurants going to be open on Christmas.
So if you're a Jewish person looking to go out
to eat, you know, the Italian place is going to
be closed because they're celebrating Christmas. The the the Irish
pubs probably going to be closed because they're celebrating Christmas.
So the Chinese food happened to be open, but it's
definitely there's a lot, a lot further deeper layers to
it than that. Yeah. Another one is that, Um, Chinese
(07:24):
people had no history of being prejudiced towards Jewish people,
which was a big deal. Uh. They were open on Sundays,
they were open on other Christian holidays. They I think, Um,
there could have possibly been a reputation at some Italian
restaurants are early in the day of early in the
days of New York that they were maybe um, not
(07:46):
as welcoming for Jewish people, but a nice way to
say it at the very least. You know, if you
were a Jewish and you went to an Italian restaurant,
you might take note of the extensive religious Yeah, the imagery,
the word Virgin Mary and Jesus with the crown of
thorns and all that, and be like, good, you know,
I'm going to the Chinese food place instead. Yeah. Yeah,
(08:09):
And it wasn't necessarily hostile, right, but yeah, it wasn't
like come in Jewish friends necessarily who knows, but they
didn't have to think about it at the Chinese restaurant.
And then what's more, too, it wasn't just the Jewish
community that was welcomed with open arms to Chinese restaurants
during this time. Um, if you were black too, you
(08:29):
could find a place to eat at a Chinese restaurant.
They like, they didn't discriminate against anybody. They were like,
you got some money and you want to eat, come
on in. Yeah, it's very nice and welcoming. Uh. In
the thirties. By the time the nineties rolled around, Jewish
cookbooks like full On had Americanized versions of famous Chinese
(08:49):
dishes like egg Fu young and chop suey and Uh.
The Lowery Side sort of started expanding. Jewish people moved out,
moved to different boroughs, different neighborhood out into the suburbs,
and bada being bad a boom. All of a sudden,
Chinese restaurants were following because they know they've got a
good customer base. Yeah, dude, So there I saw that
there's something like forty thousand Chinese food restaurants in the
(09:12):
United States. These days there's fourteen thousand McDonald's forty thousand
Chinese food restaurants. And it was the this the aspora
of the Jewish community from the Lower East Side of
New York further and further out into America that kind
of drew Chinese food restaurants out with them. So you
(09:32):
can thank the Jews from New York for your local
Chinese food place that you love so much. Give him
a give him a tip of the hat and say
thank you Jewish friend. Um, I appreciate you bringing the
Chinese food restaurant this way. That is really cool. I know.
They became sort of neighborhood hubs in Jewish communities and
(09:54):
they would see friends and neighbors and the families were
there and children were playing together. Uh. It was just
a sort of a beautiful symbiotic relationship, it seems like
from the beginning. Yeah. Yeah, And so over time the
rest of America said, hey, the Jewish people are really
onto something here. Let's uh, let's get in on this.
And now a days like eating Chinese food on Christmas
(10:17):
is just a general American tradition um. And you can
see that apparently in Google searches um for Chinese food,
which I guess skyrocket on Christmas or right around Christmas, right, yeah,
I think, um, they go up or actually that's a
grub hubs status Chinese food is up a hundred and
(10:38):
fifty two on Christmas Day. But uh, it definitely the
Google search peaks on Christmas Day. And that's been going
on since they've been keeping track of Google stats, and
so apparently the most popular Chinese food order in all
of America on any day, but in particular Christmas days
that General Sow's. Have you ever had Chinese food on Christmas? Yeah? Yeah,
(11:00):
And as a matter of fact, I didn't realize how
cliche wey where you mean? And I would go get
General So's chicken at a Golden Buddha on on tenth
in Midtown, not the one indicator. And we just drove
past it the other day and it's it's gone, which
is kind of sad. So there goes our Christmas tradition.
But um, yeah, for for a few years we would
(11:21):
go eat Chinese food on Christmas. Is good. I love
Chinese food so much. Yeah, I do too. I need too.
As a matter of fact, um, researching this the other day,
we ended up getting Taie. It wasn't Chinese, but you know,
close enough, but I was like, we've got to get
some Chinese food. Um. Just from reading about all this
and seeing words like egg fu young and chop suey
(11:41):
and stuff, it made me so hungry for it. I
never had that's that stuff. I don't even know what
chop suey is, so that I think it's a short
stuff in and of itself, but supposedly they think it's
chop suey basically means leftover, so that it has its
own origin story. We'll do one on chop suey two. Okay,
sweet sweet indeed um. So if you want to know
(12:03):
more about Chinese food on Christmas, well then buddy, you've
got a day to figure it out and then try
it for yourself tomorrow. Because the Jewish community figured it
out a long time ago. And since I said that,
it means that short stuff is out. Stuff you should
Know is a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
(12:23):
For more podcasts. For my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
Jerry's even here. She's sitting in for Dave c the
super producer. Uh. And this is short stuff a good
one too, if you ask me. Yeah. So, I know
that A Christmas Story is one of your favorite movies.
And I know that that great scene at the end
(00:24):
that is unfortunately now dripping with ethnic overturns and racism. Sure,
but it was. It's still a funny scene of the
family going out to eat Chinese food on Christmas and
an empty Chinese restaurant. The only problem I have with that, well,
aside from the other stuff I just mentioned, is that
it's not it's not full of Jewish patrons. Yeah, it's
(00:48):
pretty much empty if I remember correctly. Isn't it They're
the only ones there. It is entirely possible that I
think that takes place in Cleveland, outside of Cleveland, doesn't it?
Or is it Indiana? I think it was shot outside
of Cleveland, but maybe said in Indiana. Okay, there was
probably not a Jewish person to be found in Indiana
in the nineteen Maybe that's probably it. And my god,
(01:13):
did you know Bob Clark died in a car accident
brought on by a d U I driver in two thousand.
I had no idea until just recently. So yeah, his
his oldest son r I P. Bob Clark and son Um.
But yes, so there is something weird in that there's
no Jewish people in there, because at any Chinese food
(01:34):
restaurant on Christmas in America, especially these days, you're going
to find plenty of Jewish people eating there. In fact,
it's a huge tradition among the Jewish American community. It
turns out. Yeah, and you brought up this very kind
of funny moment at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for
(01:55):
Justice Elana Kagan, someone said, where were you Um during
the Christmas attack launched by al Qaeda the year before,
and she said, like all Jews, I was probably at
a Chinese restaurant. What a great line. And apparently Chuck
Schumer was like, well, the reason being is because it's
probably the only place open. So he just kind of ruined. Yeah,
(02:19):
he did. He explained it, but he probably didn't need
to explain because from you know, just researching this, but
also my own awareness, like eating Chinese food on Christmas
is not just a Jewish tradition any longer it's become
an American tradition. But it definitely traces its origins back
to the Jewish community, and apparently right around the turn
of the last century in the Lower East Side of
(02:41):
New York City is where the it really finds its roots,
which is pretty cool that you can trace something like
that back like that, Oh totally. It makes sense because
if you're typing, if you're talking about different types of food,
like like Mexican food or Italian food, there's you know,
like dairy mixed in with the me eat in a
lot or most of the dishes, so it's it's hard
(03:03):
to eat kosher. Chinese food, first of all, doesn't have dairy.
You know. My famous story about does have cheese on
it in the Chinese restaurant. Still one of the great
things that ever happened to me as a child was
overhearing that conversation. But they don't, you know, they don't
have dairy in their food generally, and uh, the stuff
(03:23):
is just you know, if you've got your meat and
you've got rice, and you've got things that are cooked together.
But it's like vegetables and meats cooked together. It's not
It doesn't have like cream sauce or cheese and stuff
like that, right, which to a Jewish person is basically
the tantamount to being kosher. And you know, today it's
really easy to um be kosher in America because the
food industry back and I think the fifties said, oh,
(03:46):
you know, there's a lot of Jewish people who live here.
Now there's like a whole market for making kosher foods
or just labeling foods is kosher that we're already kosher anyway. Um,
But before that, Chinese restaurants were one of the only
places out in the rest of America where a Jewish
person could go and and feel pretty confident about having
(04:07):
a kosher meal. So you know, that in and of
itself makes sense. And there's also some other Um, there's
other some commonalities too, especially between Eastern European Jewish people
and um Chinese cuisine, and that there there's a lot
of sweet and sour dishes common to both. Um. Creplock,
(04:28):
which is like a meat filled dumpling, is is um
kind of resemble some of the Chinese meat filled dumplings
like dim sum um. And then also the pancakes Chinese
pancakes resemble blintzes too, so it's not like it was
just the most entirely foreign concept to to a lot
of these Jewish Americans who were recently arrived. Um, but
(04:50):
it was still exotic and new too. Yeah. So we'll
take a break now and then as promised, I know it,
let us astray, but we will head down to the
lower side right after this. All right, So you promised
(05:34):
talk of the lowery side where this was kind of born.
So there's a woman named, and this is not a joke.
Her name is Jennifer eight Lee, the number eight. I
guess she's named after the movie. I don't know. I
didn't get that far. I just verified that he was
in a type of Yeah, Jennifer eight with Andy Garcia
and I can't remember who else and John John Goodman.
(05:55):
I can't remember who Duma Thurman. Oh maybe maybe, Well
you you talk and I'll look up about that. All right.
So Jennifer eight Lee as a producer of the Search
for General. So is it it's General? So right, it's
it's General eighth. And she had this to say. Jews
(06:16):
and Chinese were the two largest non Christian immigrant groups
at the turn of the century. Uh. And so these
groups were linked by living in the lower side of Manhattan,
and they were also linked by otherness. And uh. Two
for Jewish people to love Chinese food, um, she feels
just says a lot about immigration history in the United
(06:36):
States and being an outsider in the United States kind
of living together, which is really kind of a nice thing,
I think. Yeah, I thought that was a really good point.
I'm sure it's an accurate point too, but it's something
that's kind of easy to overlook. A lot of people
just kind of I think narrow it down to, oh, well,
that was what was open on Christian and um, Christian
holidays and Sundays, which is true. Um, like that, that's
(07:00):
you know, Chinese restaurants going to be open on Christmas.
So if you're a Jewish person looking to go out
to eat, you know, the Italian place is going to
be closed because they're celebrating Christmas. The the the Irish
pubs probably going to be closed because they're celebrating Christmas.
So the Chinese food happened to be open, but it's
definitely there's a lot, a lot further deeper layers to
it than that. Yeah. Another one is that, Um, Chinese
(07:24):
people had no history of being prejudiced towards Jewish people,
which was a big deal. Uh. They were open on Sundays,
they were open on other Christian holidays. They I think, Um,
there could have possibly been a reputation at some Italian
restaurants are early in the day of early in the
days of New York that they were maybe um, not
(07:46):
as welcoming for Jewish people, but a nice way to
say it at the very least. You know, if you
were a Jewish and you went to an Italian restaurant,
you might take note of the extensive religious Yeah, the imagery,
the word Virgin Mary and Jesus with the crown of
thorns and all that, and be like, good, you know,
I'm going to the Chinese food place instead. Yeah. Yeah,
(08:09):
And it wasn't necessarily hostile, right, but yeah, it wasn't
like come in Jewish friends necessarily who knows, but they
didn't have to think about it at the Chinese restaurant.
And then what's more, too, it wasn't just the Jewish
community that was welcomed with open arms to Chinese restaurants
during this time. Um, if you were black too, you
(08:29):
could find a place to eat at a Chinese restaurant.
They like, they didn't discriminate against anybody. They were like,
you got some money and you want to eat, come
on in. Yeah, it's very nice and welcoming. Uh. In
the thirties. By the time the nineties rolled around, Jewish
cookbooks like full On had Americanized versions of famous Chinese
(08:49):
dishes like egg Fu young and chop suey and Uh.
The Lowery Side sort of started expanding. Jewish people moved out,
moved to different boroughs, different neighborhood out into the suburbs,
and bada being bad a boom. All of a sudden,
Chinese restaurants were following because they know they've got a
good customer base. Yeah, dude, So there I saw that
there's something like forty thousand Chinese food restaurants in the
(09:12):
United States. These days there's fourteen thousand McDonald's forty thousand
Chinese food restaurants. And it was the this the aspora
of the Jewish community from the Lower East Side of
New York further and further out into America that kind
of drew Chinese food restaurants out with them. So you
(09:32):
can thank the Jews from New York for your local
Chinese food place that you love so much. Give him
a give him a tip of the hat and say
thank you Jewish friend. Um, I appreciate you bringing the
Chinese food restaurant this way. That is really cool. I know.
They became sort of neighborhood hubs in Jewish communities and
(09:54):
they would see friends and neighbors and the families were
there and children were playing together. Uh. It was just
a sort of a beautiful symbiotic relationship, it seems like
from the beginning. Yeah. Yeah, And so over time the
rest of America said, hey, the Jewish people are really
onto something here. Let's uh, let's get in on this.
And now a days like eating Chinese food on Christmas
(10:17):
is just a general American tradition um. And you can
see that apparently in Google searches um for Chinese food,
which I guess skyrocket on Christmas or right around Christmas, right, yeah,
I think, um, they go up or actually that's a
grub hubs status Chinese food is up a hundred and
(10:38):
fifty two on Christmas Day. But uh, it definitely the
Google search peaks on Christmas Day. And that's been going
on since they've been keeping track of Google stats, and
so apparently the most popular Chinese food order in all
of America on any day, but in particular Christmas days
that General Sow's. Have you ever had Chinese food on Christmas? Yeah? Yeah,
(11:00):
And as a matter of fact, I didn't realize how
cliche wey where you mean? And I would go get
General So's chicken at a Golden Buddha on on tenth
in Midtown, not the one indicator. And we just drove
past it the other day and it's it's gone, which
is kind of sad. So there goes our Christmas tradition.
But um, yeah, for for a few years we would
(11:21):
go eat Chinese food on Christmas. Is good. I love
Chinese food so much. Yeah, I do too. I need too.
As a matter of fact, um, researching this the other day,
we ended up getting Taie. It wasn't Chinese, but you know,
close enough, but I was like, we've got to get
some Chinese food. Um. Just from reading about all this
and seeing words like egg fu young and chop suey
(11:41):
and stuff, it made me so hungry for it. I
never had that's that stuff. I don't even know what
chop suey is, so that I think it's a short
stuff in and of itself, but supposedly they think it's
chop suey basically means leftover, so that it has its
own origin story. We'll do one on chop suey two. Okay,
sweet sweet indeed um. So if you want to know
(12:03):
more about Chinese food on Christmas, well then buddy, you've
got a day to figure it out and then try
it for yourself tomorrow. Because the Jewish community figured it
out a long time ago. And since I said that,
it means that short stuff is out. Stuff you should
Know is a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
(12:23):
For more podcasts. For my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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