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YOUTUBE Cecilia Chiang, 1920-2020 |
The chef and restaurant owner who brought authentic, high-end Chinese food to America has died. Cecilia Chiang was 100 years old.
Her granddaughter, Siena Chiang, told CNN that her grandmother died in her sleep Wednesday (Oct. 28) morning at her San Francisco home surrounded by her family.
Chiang was a culinary celebrity on par with Julia Child, who she taught how to cook Chinese food.
What Child did for French cooking, Chiang did for Chinese cooking.
Cecilia Chiang was born in China and fled the Japanese occupiers during World War II and then fled the Communists as they gook power. She wound up in San Francisco where she encountered the American version of Chinese food -- chop suey.
"They think chop suey is the only thing we have in China," she said with a laugh. "What a shame."
The American concoction -- legend has it chop suey was invented by Chinese cooks in the fold fields during the 1949 Gold Rush where they put whatever they was available into one dish -- was far from the high-end cuisine that she grew up eating in China. She vowed to bring real Chinese dishes to America.
She opened the Mandarin in 1961. With 300 items on the menu, it was a restaurant that would redefine Chinese food in America. Chiang is credited with introducing the regional cuisines of China and the complicated dishes that was eaten by the rich.
"I never cooked in my whole life before I came to this country, because in the old days the girls were not supposed to go to the kitchen," she said in a 2013 interview with the Wall Street Journal. She came from a wealthy family so, she says, "I never cooked, but I knew exactly what the food should taste like and look like. I have a very good palate and good memory. And that became the recipes."
Cecilia Chiang was born in China and fled the Japanese occupiers during World War II and then fled the Communists as they gook power. She wound up in San Francisco where she encountered the American version of Chinese food -- chop suey.
"They think chop suey is the only thing we have in China," she said with a laugh. "What a shame."
The American concoction -- legend has it chop suey was invented by Chinese cooks in the fold fields during the 1949 Gold Rush where they put whatever they was available into one dish -- was far from the high-end cuisine that she grew up eating in China. She vowed to bring real Chinese dishes to America.
She opened the Mandarin in 1961. With 300 items on the menu, it was a restaurant that would redefine Chinese food in America. Chiang is credited with introducing the regional cuisines of China and the complicated dishes that was eaten by the rich.
"I never cooked in my whole life before I came to this country, because in the old days the girls were not supposed to go to the kitchen," she said in a 2013 interview with the Wall Street Journal. She came from a wealthy family so, she says, "I never cooked, but I knew exactly what the food should taste like and look like. I have a very good palate and good memory. And that became the recipes."
"[Cecilia] has this taste memory that goes back to a time that there aren't a lot of people alive who remember the food of that China," said friend, food writer and longtime editor of Gourmet magazine Ruth Reichl in the Wayne Wang-directed documentary Soul of a Banquet. "Cecilia is the history of China in almost the last 100 years."
She loved eating out at restaurants and was friend and mentor to many of the celebrity chefs that established their own restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Thanks to her, Chinese restaurants have widened and specialized in their fare. Bay Area diners are now familiar with the intricacies of Szhchuan, Cantonese, Hunan, Fujian and Shangdong cuisines.
Food icon, Alice Waters, who founded world-famous Le Panisse said of her friend's passing: "She was my dear friend and mentor, advising me in all ways like an older sister. I went to France with her in the 70's and to China with her in 1983. Both trips were a revelation to me about her taste ,determination and friendship. I will miss her dearly but I know her spirit will always be with me."
Her legacy lives on. Her son Phillip, bought the Los Angeles Mandarin and established P.F. Chang franchise and a son of one of her chefs founded Panda Express.
“I think I changed what average people know about Chinese food,” Mrs. Chiang told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2007. “They didn’t know China was such a big country.”
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