Food for Fantasy

In the 1914 “Chinese-Japanese Cook Book” biracial authors Sara Bosse and her sister Winnifred Eaton, a successful novelist known by the Japanesque pseudonym Onoto Watanna, adapted Chinese and Japanese dishes to appeal to white middle-class American women entertaining at home. Reading the domestication of these East Asian cuisines through this pioneering work that has been largely ignored by food historians shows how shopping, preparing the dishes, decorating the home, and dressing up in costumes for parties where these cuisines were served opened up empowering, alternative imaginative spaces for both authors and readers.