Let's Wok Around the Clock

[Stinky The Clown]

Sorry for that title! I'm just unable to resist the corny! :silly:

Among the shower of gifts I've gotten from Sparkly for my birthday was this little gem of a book, The Breath of a Wok, by Grace Young and Alan Richardson.

As many of you know, I've bemoaned the fact that, while I can follow an Asian recipe with the best of them, I simply don't understand the philosophy - the soul - of Asian cooking. This book seems to be the one that will lift some of the mystery for me.

I just spent the last two hours doing a quick perusal of it. Reading the captions of the many pictures and some of the introductory texts, it appears to be a book that speaks not only to recipes, but to the "whys' and the traditions. Even the seasoning of a wok is explained in great detail - discussing methods similar to those we use to season cast iron, to a delightfully strange and mystical (and amazingly widespread) method involving chives and pork fat.

There are almost no 'staged' pictures involving the use of painted on grill marks and hair spray applied by a team of food stylists. The pictures were taken where people were interviewed. Common people. People who operate the ethereal dai pai dong (cooked food stalls that are so portable that when they close for the night, they literally disappear, everything about them packed onto a motorcycle and taken to the operator's home for storage). People who make woks by hand in Dickensian surroundings. People who work 12 hour days in incredibly hot restaurant kitchens - kitchens far hotter than those in most western restaurants. Ordinary people who cook in woks simply to feed their families in home kitchens around the world, kitchens that range from high end American kitchens to very humble kitchens in Mainland China.

A wonderful book. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to not only learn about Chinese cooking, but also wants to get a feel for the soul of it.

What a wonderful book. A cookbook like no other I've seen.

[Warpy]

1. I'd suggest an addition

called "Food in Chinese Culture" by K. C. Chang. It's probably out of print by now, but worth looking for used via Amazon. It's all anthropology, no recipes, but it's a fascinating study of how and why Chinese cuisine came to be the way it is.

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

2. Sounds like something my son

the JWU graduate would enjoy !