Florence Lin

Happy New Year to one and all! I hope that 2018 will bring you luck and love and lots of good things to eat. 

Thank you so much on endless loop for reading my blog, sending me notes, and letting me know I'm not just writing on the wind. You all are the best!

Today there won't be a recipe. Instead, I'd like to tell you a bit about someone very special to me and to the world of Chinese culinary knowledge.

Auntie Shen cooking at her home in Rossmoor

My lovely friend and mentor, Florence Lin, just passed away. I wrote about her last week, in a strange bit of coincidence. This wonderful old lady I called Auntie Shen was as delicate as a bird and not much taller than my ear, but she vibrated with life, had an outsized personality, and ate with a happy passion. Her life was an ode to living large.

Auntie Shen refused to marry the guy her family had selected for her. Instead, she joined the Chinese army during what we call WWII and what the Chinese call the War Against Japanese Aggression--both sound about right, fwiw--and carved out her own path as a modern woman. In peacetime, she went on to have two beautiful daughters and eventually travel with her family to the United States. 

A beauty at 60

But what she is most remembered for are her cookbooks. At a time when few Chinese Americans were taken seriously as food writers, she got published. Again and again. 

In fact, if you want to add some great cookbooks to your collection, please check out her titles. And though it is rarely mentioned (except here--thanks Grace Young!), Auntie Shen was also the genius behind the Chinese cookbook in the Time Life Foods of the World Recipes. 

This makes me more than a bit upset. Her name doesn't appear on the cover or, for that matter, much of anywhere inside the book. And yet she wrote all of those recipes. 

Let me put that out there for you and let it sink in. 

See her name? I don't...

But in spite of the fact that she received almost no credit, this is another book you should add to your shelves because it really is amazing. 

Back when I was desperately poor and couldn't afford to buy it, I borrowed a copy from the library and photocopied the whole recipe booklet on an office copier at night (hey, it was free), and then studied it from front to back. I've preserved those yellowing, spattered, and dogeared sheets as a reminder of how much she taught me and how much I really and truly loved that book.

True to form, when I showed that sheaf of messy pages to their author, she cracked up at finally finding a new edition for her work.

With Thomas Keller at the IACP awards

I was lucky enough to call her my friend for close to a decade, and I count my lucky stars for that. She was a model and a mentor, as well as a heck of a lot of fun to cook with and eat with and talk with for hours on the phone. You know, everything a great girlfriend should be. 

That photo at the top was taken in San Francisco in 2013, when the IACP gave Auntie Shen their milestone award for her contributions to understanding China's cuisines. I never saw her glow as much as she did that night. The photo to the right with the French Laundry's Thomas Keller is from her niece's blog, which also has a great introduction to her books and her life.

I was able to get Auntie Shen and the great Cecilia Chiang (known around here as Auntie Sun) together for a spectacular lunch and long conversation with a reporter from The San Francisco Chronicle,. Surprisingly, although they are almost the same age and in the same field and lived in the Bay Area, these two masters had never met before. Much of their conversation was preserved in the newspaper account, but my favorite part didn't get recorded...

Two giants of Chinese gastronomy

As soon as they sat down, they sized each other up in a very Chinese way. They soon discovered they were both born in the Year of the Monkey, so the next question was, of course, what month? Auntie Shen won by about a couple of weeks, if memory serves, so she became the elder sister at the table. 

Anyway, the good news is that she was 97 when she left us. That's almost a century old, by my calculations. And so she lived a full life. She passed on with her family and loved ones nearby in upstate New York, and probably ended up with more good friends than I have acquaintances. 

Her beautiful hands

In her memory and also as a favor to yourself, cook from her books. Read them, too, from cover to cover. They are all fantastic. 

Top photo: (c) Flora Lin, 2013
Photo with Thomas Keller: (c) Flora Lin, 2013
Photo with Cecilia Chiang: (c) San Francisco Chronicle, 2013

Mushroom turnovers

One of my all-time favorite cookbooks was written by one of my all-time favorite people: FlorenceLin’s Complete Book of Chinese Noodles, Dumplings and Breads. Now in her mid-nineties and living in upstate New York, Auntie Shen (that’s what we call her) is still as vibrant and funny and full of delight with the world as she’s always been.

I love her book because it is so reliable and so full of the things I adore eating. Very trailblazing for its time, her cookbook covers a lot more than just Cantonese cuisine, and instead travels over much of China in a quest for great things to cook and serve. So, if you have lived in places like the Mainland or Taiwan for any amount of time, or if you are a sophisticated diner, you will find many of your most beloved dishes in here.

Auntie Shen

Auntie Shen recalled her recipe for curry beef turnovers during one of our endless conversations about food. In between peals of laughter, she told me about how she made endless batches of these back when she lived in New York City, and Craig Claiborne even mentioned them when he wrote an interview with her. She included this recipe and the story in her Chinese Noodles cookbook, of course. What I want to mention right here is that the recipe right after that one is for her mushroom puffs. (Both of them are of course incredibly delicious.)

Over the years I’ve made some adjustments to these already perfect recipes in my search to make them more the way that I used to enjoy them in Taipei’s and Hong King’s dim sum parlors back in the day. No matter what else got tossed or added, I have always preserved one of Auntie Shen’s secret weapons: mashed potatoes.

Mashed potatoes

Probably a holdover from these little turnovers’ ancestral roots as Indian samosas (after all, that’s what they are), the mashed potatoes insert a lovely creaminess into the mixture and also hold things together admirably while you are crimping the pastry together. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This recipe makes 8 dozen, which seems like a lot, but I always double it, especially this time of the year when we find ourselves at so many parties, both here and at friends’ homes. That’s almost 200 little turnovers. I know. But they can be made over a day or a week, and they are vegetarian, which solves lots of guest preference problems right then and there, since just about anyone who can eat wheat can then enjoy them.

The mushroom filling

I freeze the puffs right after I shape them, and then dab them with an egg glaze before popping them in the oven a few minutes before the guests arrive. They end up being incredible holiday lifesavers, and they never fail to please.

Mushroom turnovers

Xiānggū yóusū jiăo 香菇油酥角

Hong Kong

Makes 8 dozen

  

Filling:

1½ ounces | 40 g dried black mushrooms

Water, as needed

1 medium | 150 g Yukon Gold potato

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

1 tablespoon finely minced ginger

Cut out the rounds of dough

1 medium | 150 g yellow onion, finely diced

3½ ounces | 100 g winter bamboo shoots, fresh or defrosted, finely diced

2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine

2 tablespoons regular soy sauce

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons finely minced yacai preserved vegetable or winter vegetable, optional

Freshly ground black pepper

½ cup | 60 g toasted sesame seeds

Pastry:

4 cups | 600 g all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling out the dough

1 teaspoon sea salt

¾ cup | 115 g | 1½ sticks unsalted butter, chilled

¾ cup | 120 g white shortening, chilled

About ⅔ cup | 160 ml chilled water

Spray oil

1 large egg lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water

Marbles of filling

1. Start this recipe at least 2 days ahead of time. First make the filling: Soak the mushrooms in cool water overnight. When they are fully plumped up, gently squeeze them dry, remove the stems, and chop the caps into a fine dice. Cut the peeled or unpeeled potato into 1-inch | 2 cm cubes, and boil the chunks until you can flake them with a fork. Drain the potato and mash it.

2. Set a wok over medium heat before adding the sesame oil and butter. When the fat starts to shimmer, add the garlic, ginger, and onion. Stir these around and cook them gently until the onions take on a golden tinge. Add the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, rice wine, soy sauce, sugar, optional yacai, and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Cook these together until the liquid has been absorbed and the vegetables are cooked. Remove the wok from the heat and mix in the mashed potatoes and sesame seeds. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Cool the mixture to room temperature and then chill it.

Into the freezer they go

3. Next make the pastry: Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl or food processor. Cut the butter and shortening into small pieces, toss them with the flour, and then either cut the fats into the flour or pulse them together until the fat is pea-sized or smaller, but be sure not to overwork it. Quickly toss in or pulse in the ice water to form a dough; don’t add any more as soon as you see it sticking together. Turn the dough out onto a smooth work surface. Use the heel of one hand to smear out small handfuls of dough, and use a pastry scraper in the other hand to gather it all up into a mound. Repeat this one more time to turn the fat into flake-forming layers in the dough. Divide the dough into 4 even pieces, shape these into rectangular pillows, wrap in plastic, and chill, preferably overnight, as this will give the flour time to absorb the liquid and the gluten to relax.

4. Working on one piece of dough at a time, lightly sprinkle your work surface and the piece of dough with flour. Roll the dough out until it is about 12 inches | 30 cm square. Use a round 2½ inch | 6 cm cutter to stamp out as many circles as you can. Cover the dough circles with a clean tea towel and repeat with the rest of the dough until you have about 96 pieces. You can combine the raggedy scraps as you go and use those, as well. Store the dough in the refrigerator if your kitchen is hot, and always keep the dough covered to prevent it from drying out and cracking.

 

An egg glaze makes these glossy

5. Have a few baking sheets ready and line them with plastic wrap. Set up your work area with the bowl of filling, a small spoon, a small bowl of cold water, a fork, and a damp towel for wiping your hands as you go. To wrap the turnovers, wet a finger and run it around the edge of a dough circle to help it seal tightly later on, and then set a ¾ inch | 2 cm marble of filling in the center. Close the dough over this to form a half-moon shape. Press the edge closed with your fingers, and then crimp the edge with a fork. Place the finished turnover on a lined sheet. Repeat with the rest of the filling and dough. Try not to allow the unbaked turnovers to touch so that they don’t stick together, and lay another piece of plastic wrap on top if you want to freeze two layers at the same time. Set the sheet in your freezer, and then later on pop the frozen turnovers into a resealable freezer bag.

6. To bake these, place a rack in the center of your oven and set it for 400°F | 200 °C. Line a baking sheet with Silpat, foil, or parchment paper and spray it with oil. Place as many of the frozen turnovers on the pan as you want to serve and brush the tops with the egg glaze. Bake the turnovers for about 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve hot.

Pining for fish

I've been really lucky in meeting great food people. And someone who has turned out to be especially delicious in every way has been the great Chinese cookbook author Florence Lin. Now her early nineties and still vivacious and funny, she is as much of an inspiration in person as she is on the page.

That is why, when I want some good ideas, I call her up and pick her brain. This happened again a couple of weeks ago, and she mentioned a dish she's come to enjoy a whole lot: Jiangsu's Stir-fried Fish with Pine Nuts. She briefly described it, and I went to work.

I have to admit, I am an unrepentant sucker when it comes to nuts in just about any kind of dish, and the generous proportion of nuts to fish here makes me particularly happy. But the lovely little cubes of cod are nothing to sniff at, as they are crispy on the outside, their crunchy but light coating contrasting perfectly with the delicate white meat. 

You can dress this up with fresh or dried chilies, if you like, or green onions or ginger or whatever you’re hungry for that evening. This really is a classic black dress of a dish that can be made as fancy or as simple as you like. What I prefer in this case is the gentle aroma of finely minced garlic hovering in the background as an unobtrusive bolster for the vibrantly toasty pine nuts.

Stir-fried fish with pine nuts  
Sōngzĭ chǎo yúdīng 松子炒魚丁
Jiangsu

Serves 4 

1 cup shelled raw pine nuts (see Tips)

Start the nuts in cold oil

6 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil

1 pound fresh cod, skinned and boned (see Tips)

¼ cup potato starch or cornstarch (see Tips)

½ teaspoon sea salt

4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced

6 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine

1. Put the pine nuts and the oil in a cold wok and slowly heat the nuts over medium heat (see Tips), stirring as needed, until the nuts are toasty and golden. Use a slotted spoon to remove them from the wok to a small work bowl, and leave the oil in the wok. Let them cool to room temperature while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

2. Rinse the cod and pat it dry with a paper towel. Cut the cod into ½-inch squares and place it in a medium work bowl. Toss the cod with the potato starch so that each piece is completely coated.

3. Heat the oil over high heat until it shimmers and swirl in the salt so that it dissolves. Add the cod in batches to keep the fish cubes from sticking to each other; toss the cod in the hot oil, and as soon as the cubes are nice and golden, remove them to a clean work bowl. Repeat with the rest of the cod until all are cooked, adding more oil, if necessary.

4. Drain off all but 1 tablespoon of the oil. Add the minced garlic to the hot oil and stir it around quickly to release its fragrance, but don’t let it brown. Toss in the fried fish cubes and the rice wine and stir-fry them all quickly until most of the wine has evaporated. Toss in the pine nuts, adjust the seasoning, and serve hot.

Perfectly toasted

Tips

Get really fresh pine nuts for this dish, as musty ones will just ruin it. Store them in the freezer if you don’t use pine nuts that often; they don’t need to be defrosted before using.

The same goes for the fish; frozen cod is fine, but defrost it completely and squeeze it gently once it has defrosted, as this fish tends to get waterlogged. Pat it very dry with paper towels before tossing it with the potato starch.

Potato starch is very nice here, as it provides the fish with a very craggy, crunchy crust, but cornstarch will do just fine if you don’t have it. I use a Taiwanese brand of potato starch with a smiling sweet potato and a yellow label.

Frying nuts over low heat and starting with cold oil is the secret to having crispy nuts that aren't either burned or still raw in the center. 

Red fermented bean curd "cheese" -- at last!

Before I say anything more, let me make one point: this is the most absurdly delicious fermented bean curd (aka tofu cheese) that will ever, Ever, EVER pass your lips.

Period.

I've had an indiscreet love affair with the stuff called nanru for nigh on three decades now, and most of the commercial versions are pretty good when used to make cheesy scarlet sauces for chicken or pork shank. No matter who produces it, these dishes have always turned out perfectly for me. So, if your only desire is for tofu cheese that makes the grade in sauces, then there's really no need to go to the trouble of making a batch at home.

Newly packed jar of nanru

But, if you want to taste something in its natural state that is beyond your wildest imagination, then have I got a gift for you. After 6 months of fermentation, with only occasional tastes along the way, I recently opened up the jar that had waited so patiently for my attentions and discovered ambrosia, so I soon devoured it with singular pleasure and instantly regretted deeply that I hadn't made a couple gallons of this brined wonder last March.

The magical transformation that took place in that jar is hard to relate, for bits of the cubes actually sparkled on my tongue! Fermentation was still going on in there, and as I scooped bits of the nanru into my mouth, tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide exploded on my taste buds, and that is one reason why this is the best recipe ever.

The flavor was absolutely incredible, too. Deep wine aromas accompanied each little bite, the red rice clinging to the custardy tofu and tinting it a beautiful scarlet, and each piece was spangled with darker maroon spots that were the inoculant rice causing all of this action in my mouth. I had added bits of sugar to the jar over the months, feeding the yeast, and was rewarded when the nanru was finally ripe enough to enjoy.

My late mother-in-law used to make the white form of fermented bean curd -- doufuru -- when she lived in Taiwan, and the process she relied on was pretty much the same as Andrea Nguyen described in her seminal work, Asian Tofu: squares of fresh, firm tofu are left to mold for a couple of days, tossed in salt and flavorings, and then covered with rice wine. Nature and time takes care of the rest, converting what looks for all the world like it should be avoided like the plague into a food of incomparable texture and flavor.

Golden yellow spores & blotches

But Andrea said one thing in my book that make me perk up my ears. As if throwing a gauntlet on the floor in my general direction, she noted that she had "attempted to make red fermented tofu but to no avail."

Hm, I thought, that is a challenge if I ever saw one. The thing is, Andrea probably hadn't yet encountered Fujian's Red Wine Lees, which are the key component of nanru, so her statement is more than understandable. But since I always have a fat jar of red wine lees hiding somewhere in the dank, dark recesses of my fridge, I knew that there was only one thing to do: substitute a healthy scoop of the red lees and a good dollop of its amber liquid in place of plain rice wine.

And it worked. And I'll show you how.

Making any kind of fermented bean curd is nothing less than an act of faith. I mean, look at the mold-covered square to the upper right. It looks dangerous, like it could cause severe gastric distress, if not death. So I appreciate you following me this far down the garden path. Your faith will be rewarded!

Andrea's "3S" achieved

You will find when your tofu hits the perfect state of moldiness -- what Andrea called the "3S criteria": slime, splotches, and stink -- that the bean curd actually smells pretty good, at least to my nose. There really was more of a bread-like, yeasty bloom in the air, and when I sampled one of the moldy squares (yes, I am insane), it tasted like a soft Camembert. There was nothing disgusting about it, although my husband left the room as he noticed me happily licking my fingertips.

Here is the recipe, one that more or less follows Andrea's wonderfully precise directions that she says were influenced by the work by another great lady, Florence Lin's Chinese Vegetarian Cookbook (note: this book is also completely brilliant), as they give the bean curd just the right environment to mold perfectly. The brine, of course, is my own, and is a result of lots of guesswork and good luck and memories of what my mom-in-law told me.


Red fermented bean curd "cheese" 
Nánrŭ  南乳
Northern Fujian
Makes about a pint

1 square (13.5 ounces, or so) extra-firm fresh bean curd (see Tips)
1½ tablespoons sea salt
3 tablespoons Red Wine Lees (the solids)
½ cup wine left over from the Red Wine Lees, or a neutral rice wine (see Tips)
½ cup water
Sugar

1. Wash your hands and cutting board and everything else so that there is absolutely no oil or contamination. 


2. Cut the bean curd in half horizontally and then into pieces that are more or less square. Lay a tea towel (something with a smooth weave, rather than terry cloth) in a clean rimmed pan on your kitchen counter and then place the bean curd squares on top of the towel so that they don't touch. Lay other towel on top of the squares, place a smaller pan on top of that, and the weight the whole thing down with 2 to 3 pounds of cans, pans, or whatever. This will gently squeeze most of the moisture out of the bean curd. The squares will feel relatively dry after a couple of hours. 

A tiny masterpiece

3. Have a rimmed glass baking pan ready that is (as always) super clean. Place the squares in the pan so that they don't touch each other, as this gives each side more of a chance to grown mold. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and use a toothpick or skewer to punch about 10 holes in the plastic so that the gases can escape.

4. Place the pan in a warm place away from breezes (an unheated oven is handy), and wait about 3 days until the bean curd is covered with yellowish spots, looks very moist, and has a yeasty smell (see Tips). 

5. Carefully clean a 1-pint jar and lid, and then rinse them out with boiling water; turn them upside-down and let them air dry; prepare two new bamboo skewers for handling the bean curd. Place the salt in a small bowl and put the Red Wine Lees in the bottom of the jar. One-by-one, lift each cube of the bean curd up with a very clean bamboo skewer, roll it lightly in the salt, and then ever-so-gently place it in the jar so that it lies fairly flat and doesn't break apart (see Tips). 

6. When all of the bean curd has been placed in the jar, pour the wine and water into the jar and twist on the lid loosely so that gases can escape as the bean curd ferments. Label the jar with the date and place it in the refrigerator. After about a month, add a tablespoon of sugar to the jar and then lightly reseal and return it to the fridge. After another month, add another tablespoon of sugar. By the third month, take a very clean spoon and taste the sauce; if it still needs a bit more sugar, add it. 

7. By month 5 or 6, your fermented bean curd "cheese" will be ready. Always use a very clean spoon to remove the squares, recover the jar, and return it to the fridge. It will keep for a very long time, and the sauce can be used again in your next batch or in some dish that calls for red fermented bean curd, such as the ones mentioned at the top of this page.

Tips

Use extra-firm tofu here, not firm or anything softer. The reason for this is that it will become incredibly soft as it molds, and extra-firm has been the only type (in my experience, at least) that keeps its shape relatively easily. Don't worry, though... the fermented result will have the consistency of custard.

I always recommend organic, non-GMO bean curd. Soybeans are one of the most heavily messed-with crops, and the big pesticide companies are turning them into tiny images of Frankenstein's monster. Corn, soy, and anything that is made with them should always be non-GMO (not genetically modified) for your health and for the planet's. End of speech.

If you don't have any of the wine left over from your Red Wine Lees expedition, use a neutral-flavored rice wine like Taiwanese rice wine (mijiu), as Shaoxing's flavor will fight with that of the Fujian lees.

The time it takes for the bean curd to mold perfectly will vary according to your kitchen temperature. Check on it daily, and when it's ready, proceed immediately.

If some of the squares break apart as you pick them up, don't despair. Just place them in the center of the jar where no one will see them. Push your perfect squares up against the glass, though, as shown in the second photo from the top... they look beautiful that way.

How much sugar you use depends on two major things: the flavor of your Red Wine Lees and your own palate. The sugar will also help feed the yeast and form those delightful bubbles, but don't overdo it. When it tastes exactly right, stop.

A final note on how to enjoy this nanru, as a couple of readers asked quite sensibly, "If I'm not supposed to throw it into some pork or chicken dish, how do you want me to eat it?" To which I reply, "Savor it like a great cheese." 

Good nanru is most traditionally served as a side dish with congee (rice porridge), and I love it that way. But even better is when a single cube is placed on top of a bowl of freshly steamed rice (get the best you can) or slathered inside of a split mantou (plain steamed bun). You see, just as with soft Western cheeses, nanru benefits from this contrast with starchy sweetness and welcomes a bit of blandness to play against its salty pungency.

Of course, if you are a serious addict like me, you might find yourself nibbling on a spoonful while staring mindlessly out the window, licking bits off of the spoon, letting them dissolve in a shimmer of bubbles on your tongue and lips, and then going back for more until, with little warning, the jar is empty. 

Julia Child in China: Life in Yunnan

(A continuation of the previous post on Julia Child's life in China.)

By the early 1940’s, both Paul and Julia had been transferred out of Ceylon and over to Yunnan province’s capital city of Kunming during the last throes of the war’s Japanese theater.

As the plane shook violently on the flight from Calcutta to Kunming, Julia placidly read a book while others around her sat terrified in the knowledge that hundreds of such flights had never made it to their destination, as the flight over the Hump – the eastern stretch of the Himalayas – eventually took the lives of more than 1,600 people and destroyed 594 Allied airplanes. But that didn’t seem to faze Julia; descending from the plane, she looked around and said with delight, “It looks just like China.”

Kunming, “a beautiful, beautiful town,” was in fact the place where Julia’s palate was first awakened, and with good reason: it was where she became surrounded by fully engaged Westerners, people who loved their work, who had curiosity about languages and foreign foods, and who willingly took up adventurous lives. In other words, it was 180 degrees apart from her quiet life at home among moneyed devotees of golf and parties, and so, as she recalled, “it was fascinating to be there.”

However, not only Allied personnel had converged on Kunming. By the early- and mid-Forties, Chinese either escaping the ravages of war or anxious to defend their homeland had arrived, too, including my husband’s parents. And though the lives of Julia and Paul probably never crossed those of my in-laws -- L.C. and Gloria Chou Huang -- it’s tempting to fantasize all of the “what if’s,” like, “What if Chinese and Americans had actually mingled then and the two couples had ended up sharing a dinner?”

But then again, the times were different in those days, and such things rarely happened. My father-in-law was a young fighter pilot in the China Burma India Theater. He had left his home and very cushy life as the first son in a wealthy Guangdong family to join the Nationalist air force, where he became a hero for his dogfights in biplanes against the much better equipped Japanese Zeros.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, had dressed up as a boy to escape the imminent Japanese invasion of her home town of Tianjin, traveling from that northern port by boat to Vietnam, and then walking hundreds of miles with other evacuees to the relatively safe enclave in Kunming. She was only seventeen when she arrived, but relatively unshaken by her amazing journey, she started attending the prominent Southwest Union University there.

Finding edible food was much harder for the Chinese than for Westerners, of course. This daughter of a warlord recalled how hungry she always was since the few things she could find to eat always had sand in them. But life turned a happy corner for her the following year: because she looked like a young Ava Gardner, she caught the eye of an older relative of her dashing future husband, the two were introduced, and the rest is, well, history as far as our family is concerned.

Even though sand was kept out of the plentiful food on the local American military base, nothing could change the fact that it was so awful that Julia and her friends dined in the local restaurants whenever they could.

This turned out to be opportune for Julia’s hearty appetite, to say the least. During the two years she spent in Kunming, she not only ate with great pleasure from the cuisines of China, but these dishes also started opening up new vistas in her mind and tantalizing her with unique textures and flavors, so much so that, as Julia herself wrote, she and Paul “continued our courtship over delicious Chinese food.”

As Julia began to revel in the flavors that China had to offer, a cultivated palate was created. “There were sophisticated people there who knew a lot about food,” she recalled, and both she and her future husband, Paul Child, made the rounds of local Chinese restaurants in Kunming, Yunnan province, while they worked for the OSS.

Historian Theodore H. White (The Making of a President) turned Paul on to dining in the “best eating places” there, and Julia followed suit, remembering “nuggets of chicken in soy sauce, deep-fried or in paper; always rice, pork, [hot]-and-sour soup. The duck was always good, and everyone had a good time.”

When not enjoying the many cuisines offered in Kunming, Julia was learning the techniques of a variety of cooking styles from every part of China, including the north (Beijing), southern coastal provinces (Guangdong and Fujian), and the central areas (Sichuan), as well as of Vietnam. 

“I am very, very fond of northern, Peking-style Chinese cooking,” she stated. “That’s my second favorite [cuisine]. It’s more related to French; it’s more structured.”

Although there’s no record of what dishes the young couple might have dallied over as they got to know each other better, was is known is the menu of their last meal together in Kunming in the fall of 1945, as Paul described each dish in loving detail to his twin brother, Charlie.

Just before Paul was reassigned to Beijing, and Julia went to Chungking (now Chongqing) for a couple of months to start a file system there, they ate at their favorite local restaurant, the Beijing-style place called Ho-Teh-Foo. The dishes they lingered over as farewells loomed were fried spring rolls, napa cabbage with Yunnan ham, Chinese black mushrooms braised with greens, and Peking Duck Three Ways (which has the crispy skin and then the meat served as the first two courses along with thin crepes, shredded leeks, and sweet wheat paste, and then the bones are turned into a soup with cellophane noodles, spinach, and egg).

Julia Child never returned to China after the war, but her love for Chinese food persisted. Too many obstacles existed then for any Westerner to even attempt to make authentic Chinese food, so it is little wonder that she did not pursue it. In the early 1950’s, few books and certainly fewer teachers would have been able to teach her much after her return to the U.S., as the great Chinese-American triumvirate of Irene Kuo, Florence Lin, and Grace Zia Chu wouldn’t appear on the publishing scene until many years later.

But still, it is fun to imagine what might have been if things had been different, if Julia had found someone like a Chinese Cordon Bleu to show her the way. 

Just think of it: Julia Child whacking ducks to pieces with a giant cleavers on black-and-white television, heaving great bamboo steamers around her tiny studio kitchen, wishing her audience a hearty Manyong! as she signed off, and causing America to fall in love with that other great cuisine, the one that she adored all of her adult life, the one that taught her to eat well: the foods of China.

Illustration by Carolyn Phillips, (c) 2012