Monday Miscellany #3
Tong Fong Low and Sprint Football,
Tong Fong Low
There are a two things in my grab bag today, first up, my favorite old-school Chinese-American restaurant, Tong Fong Low in Oroville, California.
Tong Fong Low, also known as Charlie’s Chop Suey, is probably the second oldest continuously-operated Chinese restaurant in the United States, having been founded in 1912. (The oldest, founded a year earlier, is in Butte, Montana.) I’m pretty sure that Tong Fong Low would have been a noodle joint in its infancy, although I’ve yet to find specific mention of it or its founder, Lee “Charlie” You, prior to 1926. So I’m shaky on the earliest decade of it’s life. It has, however, been in the same location since 1932. Here’s an ad from around that time
Excellent use of the word “appetible”, a word my spellchecker doesn’t recognize despite it being 100% correct. I think we can agree that people were more literate back in the day.
You’ll also note that Tong Fong Low made and sold its own chicken tamales and enchiladas, in a Chinese restaurant. Looking through old newspapers, you’ll see that this early fusion (sort of) cuisine was fairly common. Pre-World War II, Chinese and Japanese restaurants sometimes sold Mexican food, just as Mexican chili parlors sometimes sold chop suey and chow mein, worries about cultural appropriation be damned.
Tong Fong Low founder Lee You went back to China in the early 1950’s, leaving his son, Fred Gee, as the owner. Gee raised nine children on the proceeds of Tong Fong Low, all of whom went on to professional careers. And so, the Gees sold the restaurant in 1995 to the Wong family, who continue to operate to this day. (A second Tong Fong Low in Chico, opened in 2009 and closed last year, thanks to COVID.)
As far as I can tell, in the 40-plus years I’ve been going to Tong Fong Low, they’ve barely changed their basic menu—chop suey, chow mein and egg foo young. I find that very comforting. It also helps that their food is still very good, making this one restaurant that’s worth the trip to a small town.
Also, if you’re in Oroville, be sure to visit the city’s 159-year-old Chinese temple.
Sprint Football
A few months back, while I was researching my article on football players getting bigger, a shameful gap in my education was revealed to me. Until last year, I had never heard of something called “sprint football,” a version of American football where all of the players weigh 178 pounds or less.
Perhaps I hadn’t heard of it because I’ve not weighed less than 178 pounds since sometime in the Carter administration. Speaking of Jimmy Carter, did you know that Jimmy Carter played varsity sprint football at the Naval Academy, where, as at West Point, the game is really popular?
Currently, there are nine colleges that play in the Collegiate Sprint Football League: Army, Navy, Cornell, Penn, and five Division II schools you’re unlikely to have heard of: Alderson Broaddus University, Caldwell University, Chestnut Hill University, Mansfield University and St. Thomas Aquinas College. Princeton played sprint football until 2015, when it rage-quit the sport after suffering 16 winless seasons in a row. All the other Ivies have also played sprint football in the past.
It’s called sprint football, of course, because it’s a much faster version of the game. With no behemoths lumbering around, it’s not unusual to see defense linemen chasing down running backs. Likewise, it’s a true student-athlete sport, as there are no scholarships, no endorsements, no chance at a professional career and few fans in the stands.
Strangely, sprint football is experiencing a major grow spurt, as an entirely new league, the Midwest Sprint Football League will be starting play this coming fall. This new league features six Division II schools you’re unlikely to have heard of: Bellarmine University, Calumet College of St. Joseph, Fontbonne University, Midway University, Quincy University, and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. Note that five of those six schools are Catholic colleges, and the sixth, Midway, is a Christian school.
I think this quote from the MSFL website sums it up pretty well.
“Many American men who are in their late teens and early twenties will qualify to play sprint football, especially if they are under six feet tall," said Josh Rabe, Director of Intercollegiate Athletics for Quincy University. "The reality for most NCAA and NAIA football programs today is that relatively few of their players are a match for sprint football, given the emphasis of the NCAA and NAIA versions of the sport on strength, height and body weight. Sprint football will make varsity, intercollegiate football available to hundreds of talented players in the Midwest and Upper South who don't currently have access to a version of the sport that matches their size, quickness and athleticism."
We have weight classes for most individual combat sports, like wrestling and boxing, so why shouldn’t we have a weight class for the most combative of team sports?
As for that weight class, the maximum weight for sprint football has been creeping up over the past 70 years. It was originally 150 pounds, but started moving up in the 1980s. And, just within the last decade, it went from 172 pounds to 178 pounds, a recognition that American college students have been getting bigger. Eventually, I suppose, it’ll get to 187 pounds, the average weight of the 1946 Nebraska Cornhuskers, and the circle will be complete.
Foodlore and More
If you’re looking for another food history newsletter, here’s one I highly recommend: David Shield’s Foodlore and More. It deals principally with 19th century American food and agricultural history and it’s very good.
Shields, a professor at the University of South Carolina, is the author of an excellent book called, Southern Provisions: The Creation and Revival of a Cuisine, about the unexpected history of Southern cuisine. It’s a book I am currently using in my food history class. So, again, highly recommended.
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to share this with your friends, follow me on twitter and like the facebook page. I’ll be back on Thursday.