"The egg roll does have Chinese roots, however, that date back to 400 A.D., when spring rolls, a non-fried version, were often served with other traditional dishes to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Originally, spring rolls were made of a thin flour and water wrapper that was rolled and stuffed with vegetables, and then, sometime in the 1600s, and until 1912, meat, shrimp, and other ingredients, like bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, were added."
"Chinese workers had begun to immigrate to the U.S. in the 1850s during the Gold Rush, and by the 1870s, immigrants were settling in lower Manhattan in a three-street district that came to be called Chinatown. Small teahouses and rice shops popped up, but as Chinese food became increasingly popular with non-Chinese clientele, the restaurants grew into ornate palaces. In 1897, the largest Chinese restaurant, Port Arthur, opened, and it was here that - purportedly - the egg roll was invented."
Egg rolls became a popular Chinese-American menu item in the 1930s as a fried adaptation of older Chinese spring rolls. Spring rolls trace back to 400 A.D., originally using thin flour-and-water wrappers filled with vegetables; meats, shrimp, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts were added between the 1600s and 1912. Chinese immigration during the Gold Rush led to Manhattan's Chinatown and growing demand for Chinese food. Port Arthur opened in 1897; chef Henry Low later claimed to have created "tchun guen" in 1908 and introduced water chestnut flour in wrappers, but definitive proof of a single inventor is lacking, and other chefs like Lum Fung have competing claims.
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