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Potstickers. Kung Pao Chicken. General Tso's. Americans can't get enough of these dishes, yet food critics and historians often dismiss them as pale imitations of "authentic" Chinese cuisine. This lecture reveals the surprising origins of American Chinese takeout in the elite kitchens of the Chinese Nationalist Party in wartime Chongqing and traces its remarkable journey through postwar Taiwan to the United States in the 1970s. Far from being corruptions of Chinese food, these beloved dishes preserve a gourmet culinary tradition that once inspired swoons among China's elite and earned rave reviews from New York Times critics.

Miranda Brown is the Yi-Tsi Mei Feuerwerker Collegiate Professor of Chinese Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Culture, where she has taught since 2002. A San Franciscan by birth and historian of early China by training, she discovered in her later career her true passion: Chinese food. Her book, Dumpling Therapy, will be published by St. Martin's Press in January 2027. Professor Brown spent the 2023-2024 academic year in Taipei, Taiwan on a Fulbright grant, which enabled her to research post-war Taiwanese foodways and to eat way too much.