Review by Booklist Review
For Taiwan residents, the name Fu Pei-Mei conjures up the same sort of affection that Julia Child does for American television watchers--Fu's cooking show on Taiwan TV actually began a few months prior to PBS' airing of the first episodes of The French Chef. Fleeing from mainland China to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War, Fu married and had children before determining to educate herself in the vast spectrum of Chinese gastronomy. She trained with professional chefs and launched cooking classes that became popular with wives of American military personnel. For the next four decades, Fu hosted her popular show and published three volumes of recipes in both Chinese and English. After Nixon's overtures to China set off a craze for Chinese cookery, American cognoscenti snapped up scarce copies of Fu's cookbooks to learn about real, regional Chinese cooking. University of North Carolina professor King does a remarkably thorough job of documenting Fu's life, showing how Fu defied restrictive traditional women's roles to achieve resounding success. An appealing biography for gastronomes and students of feminist history alike.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A well-researched biography of the woman the New York Times called "the Julia Child of Chinese cooking." Fu Pei-mei (1931-2004) was a chef and an author who taught countless women how to cook, and her soft diplomacy skills helped bolster Taiwan's global image. In the mid-1950s, she was a young mother struggling to feed her family tasty and nutritious meals with little or no help. The problem was, she didn't know how to cook. Raised in a wealthy family in China, Fu didn't enter the kitchen until after her marriage. Using funds from her own dowry, she hired chefs from local restaurants to teach her how to make the cuisine of China's six diverse regions. More often than not, the chefs--all male--ignored her questions and cooked the complex dishes without a word. Undaunted, Fu took copious notes and tried to make the dishes herself the next day. She shared this hard-won knowledge with other women, and her advice became so popular that she opened a cooking school. In 1962, Taiwan Television came calling, and her shows stayed on the air for almost 40 years. Her cookbooks, written in both Chinese and English, became reference staples in kitchens around the world. King adeptly tracks Fu's career as a cooking pioneer as well as de facto ambassador for Taiwan. "In the context of postwar Taiwan, Fu's television cooking demonstrations did more than teach women how to cook," writes the author. "Her comprehensive televisual survey of Chinese regional cuisines united an otherwise fractious and fragile nation, brought together by the universal Chinese appreciation for good food." King adds reminiscences by elder relatives and friends of cooking from Fu's cookbook, and these personal touches freshen the drier narratives of Taiwan's history. An appealing story of a determined home cook who taught generations how to prepare authentic Chinese food. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
