From a mention in passing on The China Beat I learned about Harry Spiller, who has a place in the Guinness Book of World’s Records for the largest collection of Chinese restaurant menus in the world. This guy has actually popped up in the media dozens of times, and his collection occasionally touches down in museums around the United States.

The best write up I found was from this edition of the New York Times from September 2004, which was in advance of an exhibition at the Museum of Chinese in the Americas, found in NYC’s Chinatown.

The first Chinese restaurants in the United States were in mining towns of the California gold rush and even then catered to a mixture of Chinese and non-Chinese laborers. Soon they had spread East and into cities. For the most part, however, Americans viewed the cuisine with suspicion, Ms. Lee said.

Some restaurants began to bridge the gap. A menu from the Hong-Far-Low restaurant in Boston in the 1880’s features a picture of a bald man in Chinese dress, with the caption: “This is the first man in Boston who made chop suey in 1879.” Also on the menu: French fried potatoes.

By the early 20th century it had become fashionable for young urbanites to venture into Chinatowns for the exotic food, Ms. Lee said. A yellowing 1925 postcard in the exhibition depicts the crowded banquet hall of the new Shanghai Cafe in San Francisco, featuring “Chinese and American Dishes” and “Music and Dance Every Evening.”

Soon chop suey houses were springing up in cities across America, serving the ubiquitous mix of meat, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots and other vegetables that would become a staple of Chinese restaurants everywhere, alongside cheeseburgers and fried chicken.