chapotraphouse

Not as much as I'd like, I will give that as a primer. However, I do know general food history and can extrapolate. So from what I do know, Seasame and Tea Seed oil probably would have been the choices. These have higher smokepoints of 450-500 degrees, if they were cooked outside, smoke wouldn't have been an issue. Many stir fries are based on SE asian spring veggies, aka when you wouldn't want a fire running in your house the whole day. We cook inside now, so smoke is way bigger of an issue. Plus, modern Chinese cuisine also creates a shit ton of smoke inside. Fried rice and stir fries requires a smoking hot piece of carbon steel. If it was cold enough to put a fire inside, they probably just made soup from their leftovers instead of a stir fry to avoid the smoke, because nobody wants their house full of smoke.

So yeah, they were probably creating an obscene amount of smoke and didn't care because they were outside. Many modern home cooks suggest cooking stir fries using their wok over the grill to avoid the indoor smoke. If they weren't, it's because Stir Fry doesn't necessarily require the super high heat we associate it with