Salem Lowe

As early as 1912 Salem had opened up their own American - Chinese restaurant. Not only were they exposed to Chinese immigrations but also adapting to their culture. The only problem is Americans weren’t really adapting but changing another culture to fit theirs. There is nothing on the menu that actually comes from Chinese cuisine but there is a lot of other options. The options are Americanized and very mixed. Salem Lowe, the name of the restaurant used an Abraham Lincoln portrait as an American symbol, probably in hopes of bringing more costumers in. The evolution of Chinese restaurants has been very drastic from over the years. An article from Akshitha Adhiyaman speaks on the differences of a home cooked Chinese meal rather than the one you buy at a restaurant. What we know as Chinese food isn’t what real Chinese people think about their culture. And even if that food was mentioned to them, they wouldn’t know what it was. The menu we see above uses food that Americans are familiar to, so they could turn Chinese culture into a business. Given the time this menu was offered to people, they were more comfortable with eating “American” dishes rather than those from other cultures. The menu if anything represents American pride that’s why there is so many American symbols and options. Although there is no real evidence how Chinese food changed to American standards, we can see the costumers never cared about the actual culture. They wanted the same food as before just with the “American – Chinese” restaurant stamp on it.