Hey, and welcome to the short stuff, I'm Josh. There's Chuck Jeri's even here, she's sitting in for Dave, see the super producer. 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 that is unfortunately now dripping with ethnic overtones and racism. Sure. But it was it's still a funny scene of the family going out to eat Chinese food on Christmas. Yeah. 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 pretty much empty, if I remember correctly. Isn't it 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 set in Indiana. Okay.

There is probably not a Jewish person to be found in Indiana in the nineteen thirties, maybe. So that's probably it.

My God. Did you know Bob Clark died in a car accident brought on by a DUI driver in 2007? Yeah, I had no idea until just recently. So I guess to you. Right. Yeah. His his oldest son. Very sad. All right. Bob Clark and son.

But yes. So there is something weird in that there's no Jewish people in there because any Chinese food 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 to be.

Yeah. And you brought up this very kind of funny moment at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Justice Elena Kagan. Someone said, where were you during the Christmas attack launched by al-Qaida 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 the whole thing. Yeah, he explained it, but he probably didn't need to explain because from, you know, this 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 New York City is where 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 take 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 meat and a lot or most of the dishes. So it's hard to eat. Kosher Chinese food, first of all, doesn't have dairy.

You know, my famous story about 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 the stuff is just, you know, you get 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 tantamount to being kosher. And, you know, today it's really easy to be kosher in America because the food industry back in the 50s said, oh, 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 as kosher that were already kosher anyway.

But before that, Chinese restaurants were one of the only places out in the rest of America where a Jewish person could go and feel pretty confident about having a kosher meal. So, you know, that in and of itself makes sense. There's also some other there's other there's some commonalities, too, especially between Eastern European Jewish people and Chinese cuisine. And that there's a lot of sweet and sour dishes common to both kreplach, which is like meat filled dumpling, is kind of resembles some of the Chinese meat filled dumplings like dim sum.

And then also the pancakes. Chinese pancakes resemble blintzes, too. So it's not like it was just the most entirely foreign concept to a lot of these Jewish Americans who are recently arrived. But it was still exotic. And New York, too. Yeah.

So we'll take a break now and then, as promised, I know I'll let us history, but we will head down to the Lower East Side right after this.

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All right, so you promised talk of the Lower East Side where this was kind of born. So there's a woman name 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 that wasn't a typo. Yeah, it's in a phrase with Andy Garcia and. Yeah, I can't remember who else in John.

John Goodman.

I can't remember who was Jennifer eight. So Uma Thurman. Oh, maybe.

Maybe. Well, you talk and I'll look up. How about that? All right. So Jennifer eight Lee is the producer of the Search for General.

So it's general, so. Right. Yeah, it's OK. It's General eight.

And she had this to say. Jews and Chinese were the two largest non Christian immigrant groups at the turn of the century. And so these groups were linked by living in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And they were also linked by otherness and to for Jewish people to love Chinese food, she feels just says a lot about immigration history and the United 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 Christian holidays and Sundays, which is true. Like, that's that's you know, Chinese restaurants are 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 Chinese people had no history of being prejudiced towards Jewish people, which was a big deal. They were open on Sundays. They were open on other Christian holidays. They I think there could have possibly been a reputation that some Italian restaurants early in the day of early in the days of New York, that they were maybe not as welcoming for Jewish people. Mm hmm. That's a nice way to say it.

At the very least, you know, if you're Jewish and you went to an Italian restaurant, you might take note of the extensive I got. Yeah, the imagery is 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. 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, it wasn't just the Jewish community that was welcomed with open arms to Chinese restaurants during this time. If you were black too, you could find a place to eat at a Chinese restaurant. 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. In the 30s, by the time the 1930s rolled around, Jewish cookbooks like Full On had Americanized versions of famous Chinese dishes like egg Fuyang and Chop Suey, and the Lower East Side sort of started expanding. Jewish people moved out, moved to different boroughs, different neighborhoods out the suburbs and bada bing ba boom. All of a sudden, Chinese restaurants were following because they know they've got a good customer base.

Yeah, I do too. I saw that there's something like 40000 Chinese food restaurants in the United States these days. There's 14000 McDonald's, so 40000 Chinese food restaurants. And it was the diaspora 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 can thank the Jews from New York for your local Chinese food place that you love so much. Give them give them a tip of the hat and say thank you, Jewish friend.

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 they would see friends and neighbors and the families were there and children were playing together. 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 on to something here. Let's let's get in on this. And now a days like eating Chinese food on Christmas is just a general American tradition. And you can see that apparently in Google searches for Chinese food, which I guess skyrocket on Christmas or right around Christmas, right?

Yeah, I think they go up. Ah, actually, that's a GrubHub statis. Chinese food is up one hundred and fifty two percent on Christmas Day, but it definitely the Google search peaks. On Christmas Day, and that's been going on since they've been keeping track of Google stats. Yep. And so apparently the most popular Chinese food order in all of America on any day, but in particular Christmas Day, is that General Tso's chicken?

Have you ever had Chinese food on Christmas? Yeah. Yeah.

And as a matter of fact, I didn't realize how cliche we were. You mean I would go get General Tso's chicken and Golden Buddha on Halloween night?

OK, on 10th in Midtown, not the one indicator. And we just drove past it the other day and it's gone, which is kind of sad. So there goes our Christmas tradition. But yeah, for for a few years we would go eat Chinese food and Christmas is good.

I love Chinese food so much. Yeah, I do too.

I need to as a matter of fact, researching this the other day we ended up getting Thai wasn't Chinese, but, you know, closed it up. But I was like, we've got to get some Chinese food just from reading about all this and seeing words like egg foo yong and chop suey and stuff. It made me so hungry for it.

I never had that stuff. I don't even know what chop suey is.

So that, I think is the short stuff in and of itself. But supposedly they think it's chop suey basically means leftovers. So it has its own origin story. We'll do an on chop suey too. OK, sweet. Sweet indeed. So if you want to know 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.

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