Are We What We Eat? Food and Identity in Late Twentieth-Century ...

Significantly, Jen, like Barthes, demonstrates the importance of context in the process of culinary signification. Although on the sidewalk Ralph consumes an “American” food, he still appears as an ethnic Other, in part because of the way that he eats this food. Ralph does not realize that for most assimilated Americans, a hot dog bought on the street would be a quick lunch or a snack, not part of a big meal consisting only of this one food. Ralph’s behavior is typical notof most assimilated Americans but of new immigrants who, according to Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, often engage in acts of “big eating” as “a survival strategy” (55): “Many Asian American writers use the motif of eating to symbolize a survival-driven act of assimilation” (Wong 77). By eating so excessively, Ralph hopes to assimilate and to survive in the dominant culture; he naïvely believes that the more he consumes, the more “American” (and the safer) he will become in a hostile environment conspiring against him (American 44). Ralph’s excessive eating produces the opposite effect, however, because the more he eats, the less “American” he appears and thus the more susceptible he is to the “conspiracy” of the “outside, white” world (44).

Ralph continues to implement his survival strategy after he meets Grover Ding, a Chinese American, “English-speaking” restaurant owner (American 86), who like Ralph is a big eater. Ralph befriends Grover at a dinner party given by Old Chao, a fellow Chinese immigrant and engineering professor, and his wife Janis, who tries to play matchmaker with Grover and Ralph’s sister, Theresa. To impress Grover and appear as “American” as possible, the dinner guests and their hosts speak in English, not their usual Chinese dialect. These immigrants cannot fully mask their ethnic identities, however, for the content of their food, as well as the context of its consumption, signifies their ethnic status. The dinner of traditional Chinese food, including “Shredded Beef with Peppers” and “Squid with Button Mushrooms” (93), served over “ten long courses” (93)—too many for an American meal—is eaten at three o’clock, a time that Janis and Old Chao believe reflects “American style” (91).

During this dinner, both Grover and Ralph abstain from eating traditional Chinese dishes and thereby suggest their disconnection from