EP 61 How to Cook and Eat in Chinese: Dishing up Culture

<p>Today we’ll journey through a fascinating cookbook whose purpose was to inform, educate and break through ingrained stereotypes. <em>How to Cook and Eat in Chinese</em> is a cultural road map into Chinese culture through its food and culinary traditions with some humorous and personal twists and turns along the way.</p><p>From the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship, Kim and Leigh discuss the political and social constructs that informed the creation of, if they do say so themselves, a spectacular piece of culinary literature.</p><p><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/84555/9781648370946" rel="nofollow"><em>How to Cook and Eat in Chinese</em></a> is so, so, so much more than a book filled with recipes for Peking duck, spring rolls, and congee. It’s guide book through Chinese culture and tradition.</p><p>Written in Chinese by a Tokyo-educated female women’s doctor, translated by her English-speaking daughter, and edited by her Boxer-Indemnity-Scholarship educated husband, this book, as you might expect, is rife with multi-generational and cultural perspectives. And in the case of the footnotes, familial banter.</p><p>Buwei and crew brilliantly set the table to aid in understanding a culture through the lens of its food. As Mrs. Chao reminds us, “a little thinking and and little willingness to experiment will go very far.” Oh, what wise words!</p><h3>Resources we found helpful for this episode</h3><p><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/84555/9781648370946" rel="nofollow">How to Cook and Eat in Chinese</a> by Buwei Yang Chao</p><p><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/84555/9780231158602" rel="nofollow">Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey</a> by Anne Mendelson</p><p><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/84555/9781958425831" rel="nofollow">Autobiography of a Chinese Woman</a> by Buwei Yang Chao</p><p><a href="https://www.notion.so/EP-61-How-to-Cook-and-Eat-in-Chinese-cef799b5ceda486ea6d070b13cf1fc8b" rel="nofollow">Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), National Archives</a></p><p><a href="https://www.hi