Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food

UNC Chapel Hill history professor King interweaves biography, memoir, and culinary history in her delicious debut. Fu Pei-mei (1931–2004) was a cook and culinary teacher, whose long-running show on Taiwanese television led the New York Times to label her “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” She and her husband arrived in Taiwan in 1949 as refugees from the Chinese civil war. As a young bride, Fu struggled to make dishes that appealed to her husband’s tastes, and turned to neighbors and friends for help in the kitchen. She parlayed her newfound skills into cooking classes that she taught in her backyard, and in the early 1960s one of Fu’s students recommended her to a TV producer who was seeking cooking show hosts. Fu went on to host her own show for more than four decades and author more than a dozen cookbooks. King interweaves the narrative’s main biographical thread and “kitchen conversations” with people influenced by Fu’s career, including poignant sections about her own mother, who transformed from “non-cook to home cook” with Fu’s help. This tasty ode to an undersung chef satisfies. (May)