chinese food

Joaquin "Jocko" Fajardo makes a spicy Mexican version of chop suey, a classic American Chinese dish. He tells us how his great-aunt learned to make the dish from the Asian employees at her Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles. NPR hide caption

One of the new dishes being tested at the Panda Express Innovation Kitchen in Pasadena, Calif., is this beef brisket stew. It was inspired by a dish of braised beef that chef Jimmy Wang's mother and grandmother used to make for him when he was growing up in Taiwan. Maya Sugarman/KPCC hide caption

Liagnfen Of Happy Tears, an appetizer of cold, spicy starch jelly noodles served at MáLà Project. The New York City eatery is part of a new generation of higher-end Chinese restaurants that are catering not just to American palates but also to a growing number of monied immigrants. Courtesy of MáLà Project hide caption

Japanese food was once derided, but it's now in the canon of haute cuisine, says author Krishnendu Ray. How we value a culture's cuisine in our society, he says, often reflects the status of those who cook it. Alex Green/Getty Images/Ikon Images hide caption

These shrimp "Peking ravioli" (aka dumplings) were featured at the third annual Festival of Dumplings in 2014 — honoring Bostonian and celebrity chef Joyce Chen. Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images hide caption

Chefs at work in the kitchen of a restaurant in New York's Chinatown, circa 1940. For many Chinese, opening up restaurants became a way to bypass U.S. immigration laws designed to keep them out of the country. Weegee(Arthur Fellig)/International Center of Photography/Getty Images hide caption

In the Fortune Garden kitchen in El Centro, Calif., near the Mexican border, cooks speak to each other in Cantonese, and waiters give orders in Spanish. Courtesy of Vickie Ly/KQED hide caption