Chinese Banquets of My Youth (Mostly Thrown By People I Didn’t Know—But That’s OK Since They All Came To My Wedding Banquet ).
As many of you have read before, I ate very little Chinese food growing up. That’s because mid-20th century familial Chinese America was largely American born with Grandpa and Grandma often the only family members from China. Indeed my primary exposure to Chinese food was at Chinese wedding and birthday banquets, where many of you may have read that I only ate soy sauce and rice and passed on all of the entrees (except for bird’s nest soup if it was on the menu). And believe me those banquets were commonplace events.