Mixed with All the Hokum and Bally Hooey: 'Chinese Food' and America

I did not learn that I ate "Chinese food" until I was fourteen years old.By this time, I had lived in Kuala Lumpur, London, Brookline (Massachusetts), Newark (Delaware), and, finally, Tampa.I ate food at home, food in cafeterias, food in other people's homes, and food at stalls and restaurants all over the world.But until I went to my friend Chris's house, and his father said "So, Chris tells me that your house smells like Chinese food," I never thought that while my friends ate "food," I ate "Chinese food."Or, for that matter, that Chinese food clung to me and to my house.To me, this assertion seemed distinctly more complicated than already complicated questions I encountered constantly, like what was meant by the more typical and nearly incapacitating: "Where are you from?" Did my house smell?And if it did, did it smell of food?And what did it mean that it smelled of Chinese food?