The Last Chinese Chef - By Nicole Mones Page 0,124

textile business in China, I came to know this remarkable cuisine better. Working with provincial state-owned textile mills in different parts of the country and returning to school at night to learn Chinese, I slowly saw how guanxi — the net of relationship and mutual responsibility — grew from a succession of special meals. Each meal celebrated our guanxi and improved it. These meals, over almost two decades, formed my first education into the hidden language of Chinese cuisine — the codes of seating and serving, the messages conveyed by a menu, and the social signals that substitute for the concrete business conversations we Westerners are used to having at table.

In 1999, a few years after I closed my textile business and saw the publication of my first novel, I began writing about Chinese food for Gourmet magazine. Here was the start of my second education in Chinese cuisine. Covering the food scene in major Chinese cities gave me the chance to interview chefs, restaurant owners, restaurant managers, sociologists, home cooks, and diners.

Still, to write The Last Chinese Chef, I needed to know a lot more. Almost all of the characters in the book are food experts, and the eponymous book-within-a-book is a faux food classic. To create this world of erudite cooks and diners, and to create an excerpted food classic they would all admire, I had to learn what they knew. Fortunately, much has been written over the centuries on Chinese gastronomy. I digested a good deal of it in translation (my Chinese literacy is nonexistent) and also returned to China to interview more chefs and restaurateurs.

While I could never list every person in China who has taught me something about cuisine over the last thirty years, certain people gave so generously of their time as to deserve special note. Vivian Bao shared her knowledge of Shanghainese cuisine, helped me connect with chefs in various places, and related her personal memories of China in 1958, the year Liang Yeh made his way from Gou Bu Li in Tianjin to the coast of Fujian Province. Yu Changjiang, a sociology professor at Beijing University with a special interest in restaurant and food culture, opened my eyes to the deeper meaning of food in China, helping me connect cuisine to patterns of ideology, history, and the contemporary Chinese economy. Anthony Kuhn, then of the Los Angeles Times, took me to meet Yu Changjiang and translated some of his academic papers so I could study them.

Many restaurant owners and managers took time from their busy lives to help me understand their world. In Beijing, Yu Jingmin (of Fang Shan), Li Shanlin (of Li Jia Cai), Li Jun (of Mao Jia Cai), and David Tang (of the China Club) each gave me an education. In Shanghai, Walter Wang, manager of Xian Yue Hien, and Dr. Wang, a home cook who demonstrated Chinese concepts of healing through food, were both helpful, and I thank Willie Brent and Jocelyn Norskog Brent for taking me to meet them.

In the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, Henry Chang (formerly of Dong Lai Shun and Juon Yuan, San Gabriel; now owner and chef of Chang’s Garden, Arcadia) worked hard to give me a complete view of his career and has always been generous with recipes. The pork ribs steamed in lotus leaves — the ones Sam’s Uncle Xie has him make over and over until they are right — are his creation. Wang Haibo, from Shanghai (chef and owner of Green Village, San Gabriel), and Chen Qingping, from Chongqing (chef of Chung King, Monterey Park), taught me much. Linda Huang (owner of Chung King) joined Henry Chang and Wang Haibo in helping me understand the difference between Chinese cuisine and Chinese-American cuisine, and between the Chinese and the American diner.

My research trip to Hangzhou, home of China’s literature-based cuisine, would never have succeeded without the help of Dai Xiongping, who introduced me to chefs and restaurant owners. Restaurant tycoon Wang Zhiyuan explained his formula for success in the new China and led a tour through the cavernous kitchens of Xin Kai Yuan. Wu Xunqu, a chef at Lou Wai Lou for forty-six years, explained the history of the city’s literary cuisine and then parted with his famed recipe for beggar’s chicken — though not, he cautioned, the complete recipe, for certain secret ingredients had to stay secret. Retired chef Xu Zichuan opened the door to his home and his memories. His daughter Xu Lihua, manager of Shan