These restaurants were often established in small towns and rural areas where residents (predominantly European Canadians) already did not have gathering places of their own, and where the cook/owner could very well be the only Chinese person in the community. Many restaurants were opened, despite their owners having little prior cooking experience. ![]() ![]() In British Columbia, a form of buffet known as the "Chinese smörgåsbord" developed in pre-railway Gastown (the settlement that later became Vancouver) when Scandinavian loggers and millworkers encouraged their Chinese cooks to turn a sideboard into a steam table, instead of bringing plates of single dishes to the dining table.ĭue to common anti-Chinese sentiment at the time, as well as the Chinese Immigration Act, 18, many Chinese immigrants were unable to work in businesses other than restaurants or laundries. ![]() Many labourers who remained in Canada after the railway's completion opened small inexpensive " Chinese cafés" or worked as cooks in mining and logging camps, canneries, and in the private homes of the upper classes in cities and towns. Signage in Toronto's First Chinatown for chop suey in 1923Ĭanadian Chinese cuisine originated in the mid-19th century, primarily in Western Canada and the Canadian Prairies, among Chinese immigrants who moved to Canada, and among Chinese labourers working on the Canadian Pacific Railway between Vancouver, British Columbia and Montreal, Quebec.
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