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My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen: 100 Family Recipes and Life Lessons
An award-winning food expert collects one hundred recipes learned by the author from her grandmother, in a volume that includes a wealth of options for Chinese holidays and outlines specific cooking techniques, from stir-frying and steaming to braising and stewing. 25,000 first printing.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published December 5, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 7, 2021
Bring in the Grandmother's! Very readable stories of growing up under the tutelage of a caring and knowledgeable grandmother in China/Hong Kong. Quite a few accessible recipes covering a wide swath of events and celebrations.
February 24, 2022
A masterful way of combining a cookbook with family history, which to me was the most interesting part. A great human interest story ending with a successful and happy life.
December 31, 2007
My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen is a treasure that relates historical recipes in their cultural context. In this book, Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's autobiography is interwoven with the recpies she recalls from her youth in China.
I'm a pescetarian, so unfortunately I won't be trying a majority of the recipes Ms. Lo records. Despite the self-imposed limits of my particular diet, I greatly enjoyed reading about Lo's culinary inheritance, including the peculiarities of Lo's maternal grandmother's diet. Lo's eponymous grandmother chose to eat vegetarian diets under certain circumstances such as the arrival of the New Year or the occasion to host Buddhist nuns for dinner.
One of the particular bits of Chinese dietary trivia that I learned from this book is that Lo's grandmother reports that to make up for the absence of chives, leeks, and shallots in the devout Buddhist's diet, Buddha declared that "vegetarians" are allowed to eat clams, mussels, and oysters (p 59). Even more interesting is the notion that the french fry-munching US may ultimately owe its preference for ketchup to China! Lo notes that "on the island of Amoy, there is a mixture of fish essence and soy sauce called keh chap, that is believed to have been a precursor" (p 251).
Lo attempts to preserve her native language for her English-speaking audience by transliterating and then translating aphorisms that she heard from her grandmother and other family members. She also thoughtfully includes a chapter that is a glossary of ingredients - descriptions and care instructions, along with the Chinese characters for each ingredient. (She notes that if it comes down to it, the reader can always show the characters to an Asian grocer, and hopefully the grocer will be able to point out the exact product.)
Lo also attempts to bridge the technological gap between the cookware of her grandmother's day and modern cookware in the West. (I had not even thought about the differences in wok-making and ovens in the past fifty years, but I'm glad she brought it up!)
As just an autobiography, My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen definitely stirs the reader's interest.
As for the recipes themselves ... I'll find out soon!
I'm a pescetarian, so unfortunately I won't be trying a majority of the recipes Ms. Lo records. Despite the self-imposed limits of my particular diet, I greatly enjoyed reading about Lo's culinary inheritance, including the peculiarities of Lo's maternal grandmother's diet. Lo's eponymous grandmother chose to eat vegetarian diets under certain circumstances such as the arrival of the New Year or the occasion to host Buddhist nuns for dinner.
One of the particular bits of Chinese dietary trivia that I learned from this book is that Lo's grandmother reports that to make up for the absence of chives, leeks, and shallots in the devout Buddhist's diet, Buddha declared that "vegetarians" are allowed to eat clams, mussels, and oysters (p 59). Even more interesting is the notion that the french fry-munching US may ultimately owe its preference for ketchup to China! Lo notes that "on the island of Amoy, there is a mixture of fish essence and soy sauce called keh chap, that is believed to have been a precursor" (p 251).
Lo attempts to preserve her native language for her English-speaking audience by transliterating and then translating aphorisms that she heard from her grandmother and other family members. She also thoughtfully includes a chapter that is a glossary of ingredients - descriptions and care instructions, along with the Chinese characters for each ingredient. (She notes that if it comes down to it, the reader can always show the characters to an Asian grocer, and hopefully the grocer will be able to point out the exact product.)
Lo also attempts to bridge the technological gap between the cookware of her grandmother's day and modern cookware in the West. (I had not even thought about the differences in wok-making and ovens in the past fifty years, but I'm glad she brought it up!)
As just an autobiography, My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen definitely stirs the reader's interest.
As for the recipes themselves ... I'll find out soon!
May 17, 2015
Okay, this is the most strange cookbook I ever read. The first cookbook (for me, btw) that tells you story behind it. To be honest, this book have a strange attachment to myself.
Call me sexist, but it's pity if a woman can't cook.
As a son myself, I always amazed and delighted to eat foods that my mother prepared (othing's compared to our mother's cooking, isn't it? ). Her cooking style is influenced by chinese cuisine because of working as a house keeper in Chinese family in Malaysia, that's why I feel attached with some of the recipe in this book.
My mother is also my mentor that keep telling me what to do in the kitchen while giving me some of her trick to make to food even more special. Sometimes I even spend the whole day complaining that the food took so much effort and time to do, and later make me realized that it's all her effort and time to spend to serve her family the best dishes she can make.
This book gives me that feeling. The feeling of nostalgic from your chilhood holiday celebration and it's food, the first food your parents teach you to cook (it's a bit forced to me actually, but I thanked them later and now), the travel to another country that you have no idea about, and the passion about making and eating good foods keep filling me through entire chapter. It's not only a cook book, it's a life lesson.
Like Ah Paw said, "Cooking well for someone is giving love in a most tangible way". Happy cooking and spread the happiness from it!!
Call me sexist, but it's pity if a woman can't cook.
As a son myself, I always amazed and delighted to eat foods that my mother prepared (othing's compared to our mother's cooking, isn't it? ). Her cooking style is influenced by chinese cuisine because of working as a house keeper in Chinese family in Malaysia, that's why I feel attached with some of the recipe in this book.
My mother is also my mentor that keep telling me what to do in the kitchen while giving me some of her trick to make to food even more special. Sometimes I even spend the whole day complaining that the food took so much effort and time to do, and later make me realized that it's all her effort and time to spend to serve her family the best dishes she can make.
This book gives me that feeling. The feeling of nostalgic from your chilhood holiday celebration and it's food, the first food your parents teach you to cook (it's a bit forced to me actually, but I thanked them later and now), the travel to another country that you have no idea about, and the passion about making and eating good foods keep filling me through entire chapter. It's not only a cook book, it's a life lesson.
Like Ah Paw said, "Cooking well for someone is giving love in a most tangible way". Happy cooking and spread the happiness from it!!
July 22, 2007
I've been looking for a cookbook on authentic chinese cooking for a while but have not wanted to just get one of those cookbooks with all the flashy color photography. I was wanting something that was a bit more authentic that could also teach me about how recipes could be used in different meals and the cultural importance of the different dishes. This book provides all that and more. I really enjoy it because it is all old family recipes and old photographs and stories from the family as well. The design of the book follows this theme and is really beautiful in and of itself.
The author is a professional chef who grew up in China and now lives in the US. She writes of how she learned to cook in her grandmother's kitchen in china and about the traditional means used to make these dishes. Many times, personal anecdotes, pictures, and life lessons accompany each recipe.
I trust recipes that have been passed down through generations over a flashy food network cookbook any day and to me, this is something that really makes a cookbook special and something to be treasured and used often.
The author is a professional chef who grew up in China and now lives in the US. She writes of how she learned to cook in her grandmother's kitchen in china and about the traditional means used to make these dishes. Many times, personal anecdotes, pictures, and life lessons accompany each recipe.
I trust recipes that have been passed down through generations over a flashy food network cookbook any day and to me, this is something that really makes a cookbook special and something to be treasured and used often.
June 5, 2008
I feel a little silly putting a cookbook here. I read cookbooks when I am eating at the dining room table, because it just seems terribly appropriate. But you know, its not really reading per se.
But this one is reading. I mean, its a good cookbook. No, scratch that. Its a wonderful cookbook. One of those that you drool over when you are reading, even if you don't like the main ingredient in the recipe.
But its a book about her life, and what she learned while learning how to cook, and what family means, and what does mean to have learned how to cook at her grandmother's knee, and to be able to pass that knowledge down to her granddaughter, a half a world away from where she grew up.
Its a reminder that food is not just what we need to sustain the body, but when it is done right, it sustains the soul.
But this one is reading. I mean, its a good cookbook. No, scratch that. Its a wonderful cookbook. One of those that you drool over when you are reading, even if you don't like the main ingredient in the recipe.
But its a book about her life, and what she learned while learning how to cook, and what family means, and what does mean to have learned how to cook at her grandmother's knee, and to be able to pass that knowledge down to her granddaughter, a half a world away from where she grew up.
Its a reminder that food is not just what we need to sustain the body, but when it is done right, it sustains the soul.
January 4, 2014
Half memoir, half cookbook. The author tells the story of her early cooking lessons and some important holiday specialties that her grandmother always had prepared for her. The book has a number of recipes that I will be trying this week. The one thing that I found kind of distracting throughout the book is the mixed use of pinyin and the earlier romanization system. Some of the transliterated words were instantly recognizable to me, and others were a mystery. It's not really an issue, but I did wonder about the lack of consistency.
August 4, 2009
It's a cookbook and it's a story. The writer incorporates her own biography intermixed with the recipes and stories of her grandmother. I couldn't put it down. An interesting window into how a chef is born, as well as the huge transition made by the Chinese people as their country became communist.
October 28, 2009
Combination cookbook & memoir, this book was very interesting! Recipes seem easy to do & VERY authentic (if you can find ingredients) book is also peppered with rememberances of the author & her family during years of turmoil in China.
November 25, 2011
A thoughtful recollection of comforting (though sometimes elaborate) dishes and techniques handed down across generations of Chinese kitchens.
I'll take the recipes for chung yau and ham ji yuk with me for the rest of my life.
I'll take the recipes for chung yau and ham ji yuk with me for the rest of my life.
May 31, 2009
one of my most favorite cookbooks
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews