The Secret Menu (Chinese Food in America, and How I Made It)

A culinary and philosophical memoir about the secret menus in every aspect of immigrant life, and what it really means to be “Chinese.”

What is the secret menu? Hidden from view but commonly known, it’s the menu that insiders pick from to be assured of a delicious, authentic meal—often in immigrant-run restaurants. But there are secret menus in every aspect of life, cheat codes that promise to help us navigate a new home, or a new life in the best possible way: a promise that, if you just follow this formula, everything will be all right. Even if we know that things don’t always work out that way.

Shiamin Kwa uses food, history, poetry, art, and the story of her coming of age to explore the deepest and most evocative aspects of what it means to belong to and succeed in a new home, and what it even means to be “Chinese.” From her childhood in Malaysia to her family’s immigration to the United States and her years in China, Kwa paints a wide-ranging portrait of the centuries of movements between countries and continents that have shaped Chinese culture and food as they adapted to each new place.

Kwa’s descriptions of food are lush and vivid, plumbing the historical, personal, and philosophical depths of dishes and bringing in the difficult histories around Chinese immigration to America in complex and illuminating ways. In delicious prose that reads with the swiftness of a novel and the depth of a philosophical treatise, The Secret Menu shows us how the thinking and cooking lives are connected, and how the hunt for harmony, success, and a sense of belonging have helped generations of immigrants find their own menus for a delicious life filled with delights, against the odds.