 doing things you never thought possible. That's the mark of a maker. The KitchenAid Food Processor Collection. Welcome to the British Library Food season 2020. Generously supported by KitchenAid. I'm Angela Clutton, guest director for season. I've had just the most enormous pleasure at work with Polly Russell, who is the season's founder and curator in the three years that the season's been running. When Polly and I were planning the season, one of the things we really wanted to make sure we did was highlight the work of truly significant food figures. And tonight we definitely have that with Ken Hong. Ken is going to be speaking with Fuchsia Dunlop. Fuchsia will introduce Ken, but just to say a few words about Fuchsia, she is in her own right, a complete specialist on Chinese cuisine, has written six books and this year won the Fortnum Mason Cookbook of the Year Award. Please, please, please do ask your questions of Ken and Fuchsia. You can scroll down and see where to put those questions in. Couple of other admin things before we get going. You'll also be able to see where you can give feedback on the event. You can donate to the work of the library and find the social media tags to join in the conversation online. But for now, I think all I have to do is hand over to Fuchsia. Thank you, Angela, and hello, Ken. Hello. Speaking to us from Paris. I don't think anyone really has had as great an impact on British perceptions of Chinese food as Ken Holm. He burst onto our television screens in 1984 with Ken Holm's Chinese Cookery, which was the first British TV series devoted to Chinese food. And incredibly, the book that accompanied this TV series, I think, has now sold one and a half million copies. And in 1986, Ken came out with the Ken Holm Walk, which was expected to sell modestly, but had sold more than 100,000 before Christmas the same year. And Ken is probably the reason why a survey published in 2001 found that 65% of British households owned a Chinese walk. I'm not going to go through all Ken's accolades and accomplishments because that would take up the whole talk. But just to say that, I think you've now brought out 36 books in English with foreign editions. It's something like 80. You have an OBE for services to the culinary arts. And now you split your time between France and Thailand. And I mean, really, no one is better known as the face of Chinese food than you are. So I just wanted to start by asking you, you were born in Tucson, Arizona. You grew up in Chinatown in Chicago and you started your career in California. So how was it that you became the face of British Chinese food? Well, you know, it's one of these stories that actually this is funny, Fuchsia, because the Chinese film production company actually wants to do a film about it. Exactly. How does one, you know, born in Arizona, grew up in Chinatown. I did not speak English until I was six years old, speaking Cantonese. And how did I want up being on BBC and British television? And to make a long story short, when I did my first book, about two years after I met a woman named Maddojafri and she had just done a series with BBC that was big hit on Indian cookery. And she said, BBC has been searching for someone to do a series on Chinese cookery. And they've been searching for two years and they haven't found the right person. And I think why I sort of fitted the profile was because what I was doing was not just being a cook or chef, but also I was teaching cooking. I was teaching at the California Culinary Academy about Chinese food, explaining as you do. I'm one of your biggest fan Fuchsia, by the way she's, her books are the Bible for me. I have to give you back to Acolytes because I'm your biggest fan. And the thing is to explain to people about something which is so different from their experience. I think for example, when I first wrote the book for the series, I was told, Ken, the amount of meat is so small that you're putting in a recipe for four. And it's because as you know, Fuchsia, we use sort of, if you will, meat to garnish our vegetables. I mean, what makes actually real Chinese cookery so healthy is the amount of protein that we use to veggies is outs, I mean, outsides, right? I mean, it's small compared to the amount of vegetables. And it's because that comes from a long history because we did not have a lot of access to meat, but also our food is very flavorful. And as you know, you're an expert on this and also how the history of Chinese food because of its land mass and its history, how it's so diverse. It's almost as, I mean, if you think about France, France has maybe about eight regional cooking. But if you think about China, which is much grander and bigger with a longer history and each region, I mean, I remember when I first read your book on Sichuan cooking, I mean, it was so fantastic because even though I knew something about it, I learned so much about it because it's entity in itself. And that sort of history, I think about Chinese cookery is what is so fascinating about, just like China, right? As you know, I mean... But casting back to the beginning of your career. So I mean, that was like three or four decades ago. That's the time when, you know, for most British people, Chinese food, the only Chinese food they would have encountered would have been the local takeaway and serving... But they would also have served fish and chips. Yeah, yeah. But where you'd have a very simplified and sort of adapted form of Chinese food. And I was very amazed actually reading your autobiography, Ken Hong, My Stir-Fried Life. And there's a photograph in that of you with your TV crew in Britain in London in the 1980s. And they're all sort of white British people and they're all holding chopsticks as if they're doing something really extraordinary that they've never done before. And I just wondered, you know, when you first came to Britain, what were your impressions of Chinese food here and British perceptions of it? And also, could you get the ingredients you needed for Chinese cooking here? Well, it was very difficult. I remember when I first came to Britain, it was in 1971. You weren't even born yet, I think, hardly. And I remember I was staying with friends that I had met in California at university. And as a thank you for them putting me up sleeping on their sofa, I wanted to do a Chinese meal for them. And just finding the ingredients was very, very difficult. I mean, I went to Chinatown, things were not in abundance. And you must remember, Fusha, in 1971, China was not really open yet. And so a lot of some ingredients either came from Hong Kong and even then was a very small thing. And to tell you the truth, even I had come from California. I was shocked at sort of supermarkets in the UK because the amounts of variety were very, very small. And I remember seeing carrots at Tesco. They were shriveled. Everything in California was the beginning of the organic movement. And we had such abundance of food. And so it was a rather shock. And then I saw Chinese food in Chinese restaurant, chips and curry. I said, what's that from? But I realized that the Chinese are very smart because in order to survive, you have to be open to everything. I mean, Fusha, I bet when you first saw curry and chips, as you know, that's not Chinese. They hardly even have potatoes in China. I found out recently, reading a book by Barthie Price about Chinese food in Britain, I think, was that a lot of Chinese takeaways actually started out as fish and chips shows. Yes, I know. I mean, even fish and chips, I mean, that's something I discovered when I came to Britain. So I try to fill in love with it. I thought it was wonderful. Yeah. But just so you were trying to bring Chinese food to people who really didn't know very much about it. And you very much made Chinese food approachable for British people, taking it into their homes with your TV series, with your recipes, even with a series of ready meals and, of course, your blocks. But I wanted to be authentic without compromising, without anglicizing it. But at the same time, I looked for things to make it accessible, too. Because I think if you make it so foreign, so complicated, that people say, oh, my god, this is not for me. Then they will never cook it. And I think people really understand Chinese food when they cook it themselves. And they say, wow, I can do that. And it's just as good. It's even better than my takeaway, right? I think in your books, you teach that, too, that people can actually make Chinese food in their home. Yeah. But I think you've just sort of highlighted something. There is always, I think, when you're writing about and presenting a cuisine that's foreign to your readers, to your audience, there's always a sort of tension between trying to introduce the real and authentic cuisine and not frightening people, making it approachable and familiar. And you tell a very funny story in your autobiography about how you were teaching a cooking course in California and you were asked to do a serious Chinese cooking course. And you started by slaughtering a live chicken in front of a stock of Americans. And then afterwards, the person who hired you to run the class said, well, Ken, we didn't mean that serious. I wondered how you sort of, your career, you'd struck this balance between trying to promote real Chinese food, but at the same time, steady on that. Yeah. Can you imagine me bringing a chicken in BBC Studio Live? Well, you know, when I first taught cooking to chefs, I thought, well, they need to know where a chicken comes from. I mean, this is how I learned how to cook. And I don't think you really can know about food when you don't know it from A to Z. Do you agree with me? Yeah. I mean, things don't come wrapped in cellophane and wrapped already cut up for you like that. I think you have to know. And also too, I think when you know where it comes from, you respect the food even more, right? And you don't waste anything. That's another thing. And that's something I wanted to show because you take the chicken from its initial concept. And I mean, I think the only thing that I couldn't do anything with was with the feathers because I don't know how to make pillows. I mean, but also too, I think it's very, very important especially in these days to talk about waste and not wasting anything. And that's what I love about the Chinese concept too. I grew up not wasting anything. And I think we're coming back to that now. Yeah. And just talking about who were your sort of greatest culinary influences because you really, you started cooking very young, didn't you? When you were really a small boy with your uncle's restaurant. And it's my uncle because my father passed away when I never knew my father because he passed away when I was eight months old. And, but my uncle became my sort of my surrogate father and he had a very successful restaurant. He was really in, he was a foodie. And even though he didn't, he knew how to cook. He didn't actually cook himself, but he knew how to run. He was a good businessman too. And he really knew how to run a restaurant. And he knew about food. And we're talking about the 50s and 60s when China was not even open and he would travel to places like Hong Kong and Taiwan and recruit chefs and bring them back to Chicago, Chinatown to make really genuine Chinese food. I mean, we had Hunan dishes which nobody ever heard of in those days. And my uncle was really, very good. He was a real foodie and he taught me a lot and about business as well. He was a good businessman, but he also was a real foodie and he loved food. He loved to eat, even though he's skinny. He'd love to eat and he knew about food. Right. But you grew up and you said that you didn't speak English until you started school and you grew up in this very sort of closed Chinatown community, which kept themselves, people kept themselves for themselves. And one of the sort of perennial theme in the accounts of people growing up Chinese in America and in Britain is the struggle to fit in and sort of self-consciousness about their Chinese identity. And particularly this theme that comes up again and again is of having to put up with their classmates at school teasing them because of the smelly foreign odd food in their lunchboxes. And I just wondered, was that your experience too? Yes. It was interesting because Chicago was, I mean, really cold and horrible weather. And I always had the last laugh because I grew up very poor, but my mother used to make me rice with a little bit of Chinese sausage and veggies in a thermos. And so during the dead of winter, where all these American children were eating cold bologna sandwich, I would quietly open up my thermos and you could smell the aromas. That's something that she's stir fried in a wok and put it in. And I was happily eating out of my... And I started, actually I started a business of trading things. I wanted to see what they think tasted like. And I thought, no, that's horrible. So I got my revenge that way in the future. But you're right. It's difficult for people like me to fit in because just look at my face. I mean, I sympathize with my fellow students who are black as well because we suffer the same sort of taunting and unacceptance, if you will, of who we were. And of course, you learn English very, very quickly because you have to stand on your feet. And it was a struggle. I mean, it's interesting. It's ironic, I feel more British than I feel American because maybe because I grew up there. I didn't feel American. And people's, even when I started doing my first book, I mean, people said, you can't be American. And I think that's something I, it's interesting. I've never, I mean, even before I was known in Britain, I'd never experienced that in Britain. Right. You said it seems to have been kind of a watershed moment for you when you went to Hong Kong for the first time in 1980. And you say in your book, but it was like coming home. And not only that, I spoke the language. Everybody looked like me. And it was really interesting, Fuchsia, because I would speak at Cantonese that was rather archaic because we were cut off for such a long time. And people would ask me, when did you leave Hong Kong? No, I said, you know, I wasn't born in Hong Kong because my Cantonese was very rustic. Imagine, I guess it's like British that went over 30, 50 years ago. And then when they come back to Britain, there are things you don't say anymore. Words become different and language changes. And so it was interesting. I love being in Hong Kong. And what was the food like? I mean, was it like the food you'd grown up with in America or was it completely new to you? It was. Actually, I first came to Hong Kong in 1980 and Hong Kong was really on the cusp of, you know, really exploding economic-wise. French chefs were coming to Hong Kong to see things. Chinese chefs were open, exploring things. And I was sort of bowled over by the quality of cooking because, you know, really in Hong Kong, there's nothing to do except shop and eat. So eating better be good. There's only so much things you can buy, but you can eat all the time. And I was just amazed at the quality of cooking and how the Chinese chefs in Hong Kong were open to discovering Italian, because they were cooking in hotels that would have French chefs as guests, Italian chefs as guests. And also Hong Kong chefs were becoming quite cosmopolitan which Chinese chefs are becoming now too because they're open and they travel. I mean, people like Da Dong in Beijing, they're aware of something outside of their own country. I just want to take at this point a reminder to everyone listening to this that we'll be taking questions at the end. So please, if you would like to send in a question, scroll to the bottom of the page and send it and then we'll come to the questions later. And back to you, Ken. So I think it was, it was in 1988 that you went to mainland China for the first time. Well, 1983. 1983. It was interesting because a group had hired me in Hong Kong from America and I to do a cookery class and then I went with them to China. It was really quite amazing because the restaurant I went to, if you show was like something out of the Middle Ages in Europe. This local restaurant, I went to had bones on the floor. I don't know if you're too young to see all that, but they had bones on the floor where people would eat and they'd throw the bones on the floor. So when you walk, it'd be crunching. I've done a bit of bone throwing myself, Ken, in my time. But I was shocked at the sort of lack of quality of cooking in China. And actually when I first went to China in 83, then I went back in much longer time in 88 and 89. I thought, I mean, this is amazing. I went to a place in Beijing that was famous for Peking duck. And I said, I wasn't even born in China. And I make a better Peking duck than they do. How is that possible? And I think because people didn't care about their cooking, it made me sad. They were, it was run like a state restaurant. So they didn't really care if the clients were happy or not. The quality of cooking was not there. And also the service was, I mean, abysmal. I mean, I think that's fairly typical of most state-run economies and people who visited China in that period. And also the Peking Union will testify to that. Yeah, it's funny because actually, although I was in Sichuan later than that. So in the first time in the sort of early mid 90s, but although the service wasn't great and certainly restaurants weren't as smart as they are now, the food was fantastic. But I think I suppose when you were first there, China was coming out of this long period really of poverty and isolation and sort of finding it's... I was able to find good restaurants, but you had to really look for them for people who cared. And mostly there were family-owned restaurants, as you would say, rather than sort of the state affairs. And it shows that that doesn't work. When you went back in 1988 and you were researching this book, The Taste of China, this time you were really trying to look at Chinese food in its regional and cultural context. And I just wondered, you know, travelling around the country, what that was like for someone who'd been brought up on mainly Cantonese food? It was a revelation because I learned so much and actually I was quite humbled even though I had written about... did a lot of research about Chinese food to actually... I mean, see certain things like in Yunnan where they made almost 30 courses out of one goat. I thought, wow, that's amazing. You know, I defied, you know, all these great chefs to do something like that. And it was very, very good. And it was nice to know that some things still existed. And so when China started opening up and exploding, you could see, I mean, now the food in China, as you know, Fuxia, is pretty, I mean, really fantastic. Yeah, but I think it's also just sort of remarkable how Chinese food in America and in Britain has changed because when you were growing up and also when I was growing up, I mean, the only food that was widely available was based on Cantonese cooking. The vast majority of emigrants from China had been from Hong Kong and the Cantonese South. But of course, China is a vast country with this extraordinarily diverse regional cuisines. And, you know, in the last sort of 10 years or so, we've seen this incredible blossoming of restaurants like Sichuanese, Hunanese, Dongbei. And it's totally changed the Chinese food landscape. And I just wondered, Ken, do you think that people in Britain, people abroad generally are finally getting a sense of the vastness and diversity of Chinese cuisine? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think if you see Chinese food, I mean, we're fast-forwarding to now. It's another world. I mean, thanks to people like you, not only your books and also the exposure and opening to China has woken up everybody's consciousness about what real Chinese food is about and how vast it is, just like China is. Yeah, but I think one of the weird things about Western perceptions of Chinese food has been the idea that while it's really delicious, it should be cheap. It's a crazy reduction of one of the world's greatest cuisines, greatest culinary cultures to a sort of cheap, predictable takeaway menu. And you yourself, you've personally done a great deal to raise the status of Chinese food. You've cooked for presidents, prime ministers, and film stars, and you've worked with many outstanding chefs from all kinds of different culinary traditions. But I think it's still quite a sticky stereotype. But one great change since you started your career and even more recently is that, you know, China is no longer isolated from the outside world. And in recent years, there's been this rapid development, growing wealth, you know, more Chinese people from different regions living abroad and also sort of growing muscle on the international stage. And I wondered how much you think it's, you know, the rise of China and the opening up of China has affected Western sort of perceptions of Chinese food and its status and its value? Well, it's like everything. When, you know, China sort of woke up, I think people also woke up to not only the Chinese economy, the Chinese people, but to its cuisine and that it's not stereotypical, as you say, just actually it was Cantonese food, but even bad Cantonese food. I mean, I was able to see that when I first went to Hong Kong. I said, I mean, some of the food that was in America was just, I mean, nothing like what was in Hong Kong. And subsequently, when I traveled throughout China, it opened a new world to me. And I think because of all this traveling between the West and China, there are many Westerners who travel on business. They go to Wuhan, they go to Hunan, they discover, because as you know, the Chinese hospitality business, doing business is always constantly feeding people and showing them their cuisine. And so that I think has been a good ambassadorship for Chinese food. And a lot of people have come back to me and says, Chinese food is not like the Chinese food we know, which is good. Yeah. And another really strange kind of contradiction, I think in Western attitudes to Chinese food has been that, you know, few cuisines globally have been as much loved and as ubiquitous as Chinese. But at the same time, there's always been this undercurrent of racism and suspicion about it. You know, in the early days, there were all these stereotypes in American Chinatowns, Chinese people eating rats and things like that. And, you know, in many ways, it seems that we've left all this behind. But then I've been shocked with the coronavirus pandemic this year. There was this sudden eruption of really ugly stereotypes about Chinese wet markets, which as anyone who knows China knows is basically just a fresh produce market and usually not selling many exotic things at all. And yeah, just this sort of negativity about Chinese food. And I wonder after all these years, I mean, does this make you just feel really weary at times? Well, I think it's a battle that we've always fought. I mean, I think people also need to understand that, you know, China is an ancient culture. There's a lot of things they've believed in, that things are good for you because you eat that, even though it's not true. It's just full of misinformation just like in the West. And that this is something that the Chinese will have to deal with. They're going to have higher, have to have higher sanitary standards. You know, it wasn't so long ago that all kinds of things were spread in the West. I mean, 100 years ago, you know, sanitary conditions, people were constantly getting sick because their food wasn't clean. It wasn't hygienic. And that sort of thing. And that's, I mean, you think that China in 40 something years, they have come very, very far. And yet there's a lot of things they still need to deal with, which they will deal with. And it's just like in the West, if you, you know, in America, this guy named Sinclair wrote about the horrific things of slaughterhouses in Chicago. I mean, it was a book that catapulted sanitary conditions. And this is how things change. And we need to fight these stereotypes as well. I think as people say that, I mean, we're all on one planet together. And we need to help each other. We need to share things together. And we need to learn from each other. And let's make this a better world. That's what I'm getting at is that I think, you know, there are legitimate concerns about practices in some Chinese markets. I think Chinese will be taking that on board. Yeah. And I, and I, and also, you know, there is a problem with a minority of people with lots of money wanting to eat exotic herbs. But it is a minority thing. And I do feel that, you know, sometimes, you know, we're all guilty of, of crimes against the environment and also cruelty in Western slaughterhouses. And you've just said, and I just, I feel that the racial stereotyping actually goes against working together to solve these problems. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it doesn't help to blame. Certain people for something that happens. I think when something happens, they said, okay, let's work together. Just find out what the problem is. And let's work on it. Yeah. And you're absolutely right. And it's, it's a silly thing that we humans are guilty of. I think we're all guilty of things like that. And Chinese food is delicious. As we know. You know, you've been looking, I mean, particularly Hong Kong is a place that's very close to you, but the food scene has changed dramatically in the last sort of 40 years or something. Would you like to say a bit about that, about how it's changed, do you think, and people's relationship with food? Well, you don't. People brag about food and about where they eat in Hong Kong. They love to share. I ate that, you know, Bo innovation, that sort of thing. And Michelin star restaurants. It's sort of bragging rights. But at the same time. I think people in Hong Kong become much more sophisticated. For instance, it's interesting future. The wet markets in Hong Kong. I mean, it has really changed. I remember when I first did cookery classes there in 1980. The wet markets were like in China, and since SARS. In the early 2000s, all of that has. They've cleaned that all up in China. I mean, in Hong Kong. And I think that people are learning lessons. I mean, we, we have to evolve as when things happen. Okay. This is not to be done. We'll have to change this. I think people in Hong Kong are very aware of this type of problem. And this is why they crack down on it. Really quite quickly. I mean, we're in face masks, social distancing. And also it helps it in Asia. There's none of this kissing and hugging and even shaking of hands. There's a, there's not that kind of contact, you know, that's, that's reserved for intimate things, not for people that you know, and perhaps that's helped to, it's interesting how all of Asia has handled this crisis. And maybe we can learn some things from it. And you know, you were just saying earlier that you had some quite negative impressions of Chinese food when you were first there in the 80s, but you, you went back to do this, another big BBC series with Ching He-Huang exploring China in I think 2012. And I wondered what your impressions were of China travelling around different regions then, you know. Well, it's interesting. I was bold. And what I meant by bold over about how the quality of Chinese food had just like China, how China has changed. So has his food. Upward, in other words, quality. You had people cooking Chinese food of really for the first time I saw, you know, Michelin quality Chinese food. In Sichuan as well as in Beijing, how people really cared about what they were doing. But these are all again private businesses. So, you know, for that making money is good. Capitalism is good for food. I think it's helped really Chinese food to come up to world class levels in China. And I was astonished at also the variety of foods that were available in markets that I didn't see in the late 80s. And the effect of even like 30 years was just, I mean, simply amazing. And we had a lot of fun. We drank a lot of baju. And it was interesting to have also to see the Chinese drinking wine, Western wines. And I thought, oh, see, that's good. They're learning things from us as we are learning things from them. And when you see China just opening up like that to the world, it's improved their food, even though, because they're learning about quality, that quality really counts and makes money. It's a powerful incentive. One thing that you said earlier about the proportion of vegetables eaten in Chinese cuisine, because that's another really, I think the most bizarre of all the Western stereotypes of Chinese food is that it's unhealthy. And there's this idea that's grown up that Chinese food is a bit junky, that it's full of MSG, that it's all deep fried. And as you know, nothing could be further from the traditional Chinese diet, with so many vegetables. And I wondered, this is something I really hope will shift. And I hope that people will recognize that China is really a source of inspiration, information about how to eat healthily and well. It's interesting, Fuxia, that you said that. Because for instance, breast cancer for women, was almost unheard of in China before. Why? Because they were not eating a lot of red meat. And it has started to come into China and has risen an obesity, which I mean, he never saw anybody obese or having all these health problems that we have in the West. And it's because it's rising wealth in China. As you know, like Chinese are eating so much more red meat now, which is not their traditional way of eating. And it's really unhealthy. And I think there's a movement now to go back, as you said, to its original source of eating less meat, especially red meat and eating more vegetables, going back to traditional style, which is, I mean, this is how I grew up. I mean, I couldn't believe the size of the steak in America. I said, this is for a village, a Chinese village. I mean, it was huge. And I thank God I grew up that way because I was never a big meat eater. And I find that all my friends in my age group are doing the same thing. They're eating less and less meat simply because it's healthier. And it's the traditional Chinese method. Is that something that you've consciously tried to promote through your work? Oh, absolutely. Trying to, without sort of proselytizing, as you know, it's sort of preaching. I think you try to show that, for instance, as you know, steam fish could be so wonderful. And it's so healthy. And it's so lovely. You don't need to fry it. Frying is good. I mean, I love my fish and chit, but steaming is also fantastic. One of the funny things about Chinese culture, I think, is that while people take food extremely seriously to the point of obsession, that actual cooking is traditionally a very low status profession. And it's something that, you know, a few Chinese parents want their children to be chefs. Your own mother brought you up in really quite tough conditions on her own after the early death of your father, and you were her only child. And you say in your book that, you know, your mother really couldn't understand why you wanted to cook. And she used to ask you why you didn't become a dentist instead. And I just wondered that, you know, at what point in your glittering international career did she maybe accept that you'd made the right choice? No, you know what happened. I think it was in 2000. My mother used to say, you know, can you really have to get a real job? In other words, you know, stop this cooking stuff on television and things like that. So she said, that changed in 2000 because I had cooked for the Chinese president's first visit to the UK, to England. And there was a photo call. I cooked at number 10. After the, of course, the first meal is also always given by protocol by the queen. And I cooked at number 10. And the next day there was a photo call and it hit the front pages of all the Chinese papers. So when I went to see my mom next with a month later, she said, maybe you should continue cooking. Not a bad thing. Because she, she had face for the first time, you know, that I had the status. You know, it's Chinese mother. It's like a Jewish mother. You know, you're doing good son. Okay, continue now. But I had to take that. I mean, this is after I've been cooking for God knows how long teaching for 20 years. It took that to convince my mom. But it's interesting that you were saying that cooking is considered a low status because of when my book was translated into Chinese. I mean, they couldn't understand why someone like me had this kind of status in the West. Because it was not, as you said, regarded highly funny as she can, because since my own book was published in Chinese last year and I did a book tour and the question that came up again and again was that Chinese people just could not understand that my parents were able to accept that they sent me to Cambridge. And then I wanted to be a cook. Very happy about it. I think there's Chinese genes in you. Anyway, I'd like to go to some questions. From my audience now. And there's one from Hannah, a question for both of us. But what Chinese food do you most crave and feel nostalgic for? That's interesting. I'm crazy about Sichuan cooking because that's a very uncanty side of me. I do love spices a lot. In fact, I like it so much that I travel with a spice kit of chilies and Sichuan peppercorns and oil and things like that. But my two favorites are Sichuan and Cantonese. I mean, I love Cantonese for its purity, for, I feel, cleanse when I eat like a steam fish. It's so, it seems so plain and yet it's so nurturing and wonderful to me. And how about you? Well, I mean, it would have to be Sichuanese as well because that would take me back to falling in love with Chinese food and that life-changing first year in Sichuan. So I think, yeah, I would have to be Yuxiang Qiezi, fish fragrant aubergine, which is just the most gorgeous dish. And it just takes me back to those early days of eating in these little restaurants around the university and deciding, I want to learn to cook this. So another question, Ken, from Carlotta. What do you think about the whole debate about cultural appropriation? Well, you know, the thing is we're living in one world. And I think it's good that we learn things from each other. There's no such thing as, you know, what is authentic and what we learn things from each other. And I think the whole thing is, does it taste good? Right? I mean, I bet future, even though you wrote a book on Sichuan cooking, I bet sometimes when you cook a dish, you add your own little touches that is a future touch, right? Which is, you know, maybe not Chinese, but who cares if it tastes good, right? I think we give too much a thing about this is Chinese. I mean, we're of one world. I believe in globalization. I think this is how we're going to survive and how the planet will survive. We need to share with each other. Okay. A question from Adrian. This is quite a nice question. I mean, I think we're going to have to think about how we're going to be able to meet in real life now, which Chinese dish would we cook for each other? I'm going to jump right in and say, well, I'll obviously have to cook you a Sichuanese meal. And actually I wouldn't make you a Peking duck. I always think that Peking duck is so, I mean, it's such a wonderful thing. I mean, I cooked, God knows how many thousands of Peking ducks I've ever cooked. And I still think it's a pretty wonderful dish. I think a very complicated dish. So to cook for me, it's going to take you a couple of days of work while I can rustle you up. Yes. This is a question from Mary Gibson. So she has a new kitchen and she's put up a personal cooking hall of fame with people who inspired her and including you, so she's asking who are sort of inspired, figures of inspiration for both of us? Well, for me, you, definitely. I remember first reading your Sichuan book, I was bowled over. I said, I said, I have to meet this fuchsia. I think Dia Smith has been really wonderful on how she taught cookery at the very beginning. I remember BBC showed me a tape when they auditioned me. They said, we'd like you to be like Dia, I said, no, I don't think so. I think Rick Stein is really fabulous about how he opened up a whole world of cooking. And there's so many, many, I think young people like Qing, what she's doing now, trying to make also food more modern accessible, Jamie Oliver. I remember when he called me Mr. Home. It was just a kid. And I think there's so many people who are doing food. And of course, my good friend, Mary Berry, who I said, if I had to come back, I'd probably want to come back as Mary Berry. And she says, I want to come back as Ken home. There's so many people. I think it's about passion. And that's what I loved about your book, because you were passionate about something, even though you didn't grow up in it. It doesn't matter. You were passionate and you fell in love with it. And you told the world about it. And that it's about love. It's about love, right? Yeah, some of the people in China who have inspired all my work have been chefs like Yu Bo, who I think you've met, and Lan Gui Jun, and also Dai Jian Jun, who's the owner of a remarkable restaurant, a sort of Chinese ship and ease in Hangzhou, called the Dragon Well Manor. And these are people who are passionate about their culinary heritage because you were saying earlier that for historical reasons, China had all these very difficult decades and is sort of recovering, has recovered its food culture. And these people who are so committed to their heritage and who are absolutely insistent on finding quality ingredients and on restoring the dignity of this great culinary culture. And also there are sort of historical figures. I think, Ken, you were talking about quality of ingredients and these values which are so important in, for example, modern Californian cuisine. Yes, yes. Which actually were important in China 2,000 years ago and have been so much part of the culture that values food, but then have sort of got lost in the 20th century with the revolutions and so on. In political turmoil, I mean. And so it's just that I just find it so inspiring that there are people who often in quite difficult, not very encouraging circumstances, dealing with pollution and with rapid social change and the development of the countryside, but who are really trying to hold on to this amazing culinary culture. Ken, are there any favorite Chinese ingredients that you still can't get outside China? No, I think you can, I think you would agree with me if you say you can get anything these days because I think the opening of China now, in fact, more and more ingredients are widely available. I have a house. I go to a country house in southwest France. It's in the middle of nowhere and they open up an Asian market stock full of Chinese things. I couldn't believe it. I said, this is, I mean, remarkable. Before you used to have to go to a big town to get Asian, I mean, especially Chinese ingredients and they're available everywhere now. And well, that's what globalization is about, availability. You agree? I have to say that in some senses, yes. So for example, like in my neighborhood now within about within about 100 paces of my front door, there's a little Chinese shop run by a Fujianese guy which has all the basic seasonings for Chinese cooking. And so there are Chinese supermarkets, not only in Chinatowns now, everywhere. So you can get this huge and more regional ingredients. And in America, you've got the fantastic Mala market doing online sort of special ingredients like real PCN, Sichuanese chili bean paste and Sichuan pepper. But I have to say there are the things that I miss are the more sort of very seasonal local fresh vegetables. Exactly. So then you have to grow it. Now I don't have a garden, but things like in Hunan, Sichuan, they have this kind of variety of brassica called, it's like rape shoots, the rape plant, Taipai, Hong Taipai and these little shoots that grow in the winter and they have a little bit of bitterness and they are so delicious. And apparently I crave them because I can't get them at home. You know what you do, Fujian, you bring seeds back and you have a friend or somebody grow for you. This will be my plan. But while at the same time as someone who cooks a lot of Chinese food at home, of course I value globalization and the availability but I think also there is something wonderful about the idea that with some foods you just have to be there in the right place. I agree with you. I think we need to go back to eating locally and seasonally and what I mean by that is when asparagus comes in season we need to eat it. And then we should not be eating it in December, for instance. And tomatoes are the same thing. I mean why are people eating tomatoes in December? Especially when you live in Europe. That's ridiculous. That's very much part of your life in France, right? Yes. This is what I love about actually when you're in rural areas you eat seasonally and when it comes it's very cheap. You just eat like six weeks of asparagus and then you have enough of it for next year. Very nice question here from Jenny Linford. Oh yes, I love it. The writer, a very well-known writer from Jenny Linford who says thinking of the Chinese diaspora around the world which countries do you think offer impressive examples of Chinese cuisine that really do reflect its rich diversity and high standards? That's a very interesting question. I think Canada is very good. I've never been there. The Chinese food I think in Canada is actually I think better than in America simply because they refuse to compromise. And of course the Chinese food in Asia, what I mean by that is when you have Chinese food in places like Malaysia is really very, very good in other countries. Even the Chinese food in Bangkok is fantastic, surprisingly enough. And it's because people want the real thing. They don't need to compromise because people in Thailand already have a great cuisine, their local cuisine. So when they eat Chinese they want the real thing. They don't want a doctorate to Thai taste, which is good. I feel like I think we're heading that way in Britain because a lot of the customers of the new generation of Chinese restaurants are actually Chinese and they come over to study or to live in Britain and they don't want to eat adapted Chinese food. They want to eat the food they like at home and I think that Chinese restaurants no longer have to tailor things to please old-fashioned British palates. They can just go for it. I agree with you, Fusha. I think the level of Chinese food in the UK and Britain has been, I've seen a change over the last almost 40 years. And it's really quite amazing. And not just in London, I mean just going elsewhere. I mean, just going to places that you wouldn't think have great Chinese food like Newcastle. And actually you can stumble upon really great Chinese food. Yeah. A question from Polly who's running the British Library food season with Angela Cotton. She's very curious to know which is each of our favourite regional Chinese food. Well, such one. I mean, I think you can get really good Cantonese food now in Britain. I don't know about you, Fusha, but I think there's some Hunan is very good. Yeah. London. I think we're living in lucky times for that. Don't you think? Yeah. I mean, I think certainly in the diversity, but I do find it quite hard to choose because I find, you know, I'm trying to go always to new places in China and to go back to places. And I find that literally everywhere I go in China, there's something stunningly interesting and delicious and seductive about the local cuisine. And it's all fascinating. But, you know, Sichuanese cuisine is my first love. And I do have this nostalgic attachment to it. And that's what led me into Chinese cuisine as a young student. And I've also, I don't know about you, but in recent years, I've got really entranced by the more delicate cooking of the Jiangnan region. So Hangzhou, Shanghai, this area, which I did a book about it, Land, Fish and Rise. And that's a cuisine that you don't really see much abroad and that is quite hard to replicate because a lot of it's about local fresh ingredients. But yeah, there's so much to... There's still a big world of food out there. We're going to have to wind up. I just maybe have one more question. This is from Jill Norman, who's a very... Oh my God, yes, Jill. She's the editor of the book of David among many other things. So Jill says she's interested in cooking in China in the 1980s and she was there at about the same time as you can and had some very poor meals and some very good meals cooked by old chefs who'd been sent to labor in the countryside and had recently returned to reopen good quality restaurants. And she just, she wonders to what extent did the cultural revolution account for the decline in good restaurants? Well, I think the cultural revolution has its good and bad side. The good side was to show that it wasn't working. That's the good side. And the bad side was that it pulled everybody down to a mediocre level. And that unfortunately happened with food. So I think the China that you see today is a result of the cultural revolution. I mean, they tried something. They knew it was a disaster. It didn't work. And they totally reversed the whole thing. And thank God because now the China that we see today is actually... I've read a lot about this because my own family suffered a lot during the cultural revolution. And so the good side of it is that we know that it results in bad food. Okay. Well, at that point, we could go on and I'm sorry, I haven't managed to get to everyone's questions, but thank you for sending them in. And we'll hand back to Angela. Angela, I think you're there. You're going to pop up. I am here. Thank you so much. If you share it, Ken, that is just the most joyous, gorgeous, insightful, clever, everything session. As well as having so many questions coming in, we've also had so much love. Just so many people saying how much they love the work of both of you, but how absolutely fascinating people have found this session. So huge thanks from everybody who is watching. And thank you also to KitchenAid absolutely for supporting the food season all the way through. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. We have Melissa Thompson who is leading a terrific session about British food stories. On Friday, we are talking to Bar market and others about how our relationship with food and where we get it and how we get it has changed through the COVID experience. And then next week on the 20th food season wraps up with Tom Carage talking with us from the hand and flowers. Thank you for joining us. We will be back with a great session on the next week. Don't forget to click that great button on your screen. But for now with final massive thanks again to future and 10. Thank you and good night from the British Library of Food Season.