Born into a wealthy family and raised in a palatial home in Beijing, Chiang's life changed forever when the Japanese took over China and she was forced to flee, with one of her sisters, to Free China. A few years later, she fled again, this time to Japan with her husband, to escape the Cultural Revolution and the onset of Chinese communism. A visit to another sister in San Francisco launched this culinary pioneer's accidental career as a restaurateur, when Chiang bumped into friends who needed money to start their own restaurant. Chiang paid $10,000 to a landlord so her friends could lease a retail space. When these friends got cold feet and the landlord refused to return the money, she was left with a dilemma; return to her husband and children and explain why they had lost an incredible sum of money, or open a restaurant herself, and see what she could make of this financial mess? Chiang chose the latter, and thus, The Mandarin--a restaurant that forever changed the American perception of Chinese food--was born.



NAC: When you first came to the U.S., what were your observations of the American palate, and how it differed from the Chinese palate? How have palates changed?

CHIANG: I thought they were quite different.  When I first came the States, Americans thought that all Chinese food was chop suey!  And everything had sweet and sour sauce. 

I just came back recently from China, and the food is changing quite a bit now.   They used to serve a lot of banquets and formal dinners in restaurants.  Now, they're changing to smaller plates.  And food is not as oily as before.  There are more vegetable dishes.  People are more conscious of calories and cholesterol. People just like simple, good ingredients with natural flavors.

Since China opened up, a lot of American business people started to fly back and forth to China, and they really changed their taste.  Now, they know Chinese food much better than before.  They know how to order now, know what dishes are supposed to taste like.  I think it's a big change.

NAC: Is it true that you never formally learned to cook?  What were some of your biggest challenges in the kitchen, and how did you pull it off?  Did you develop recipes by trial and error, or did you draw on memory to do so?

CHIANG:  I never did learn!  I started to cook when my children came to live with me in the U.S. 

I grew up with servants and cooks.  When the kids came here, I had to feed them!  I started to cook, and I just remembered what I had when I was a child, what my mother used to cook.  I just tried to remember what it looked like, what it tasted like.

I found it very difficult when I first started.  Chinese dishes need a lot of chopping and cutting. The first time I held a piece of pork, it was so soft, I didn't even know where to start!  When I bought meat here in San Francisco, everything was fresh, not aged [as I was used to].  I learned later that putting meat in the freezer to get it hard, means it would cut much easier.

The first time I bought a fresh piece of fish, it was from the tank.  It was swimming!  I didn't know how to hold the fish!  To remove the scales, everything, it was really hard.  And scary!  But you do it so often, then you learn.  It's not easy, but you learn little by little.  The more you cook, the more you get to know step by step. And it gets much easier.

NAC:  How did you choose the recipes for "The Seventh Daughter"?

CHIANG: This book had about 75 recipes, and I chose the simple recipes, for people who have never cooked Chinese.   I used some traditional recipes, and some are just my own dishes.  I made it very easy.  The recipes really work, because they're simple, and easy to follow. 

Just in the last couple of days, I've met some friends.  One of them, her daughter is only 15.  She did a few recipes and she said that it's very easy to follow.  She did spicy eggplant, a shredded vegetable salad.  She showed me pictures of the food in her little digital camera! 


NAC: This issue of New Asian Cuisine is all about Lunar New Year.  What are your favorite dishes? 

CHIANG: In Northern China, the first thing you do in the morning on New Year is eat dumplings.  Because the shape of the dumplings is like the shape of coins.  The Chinese people are very superstitious.  That is a good start to the New Year.  You eat a lot of dumplings, you'll have a lot of money, you'll get rich!  You have something sweet, too, usually dried dates with lotus seeds in a sweet syrup sauce.That's all for good luck. 

New Year's rice cakes, that's a must, for dessert.   And then dinner always ended with a whole fish.  The fish is also for good luck.  When you go to a restaurant, or go to a friend's home, and you see that the fish is being served, then you know that there are no other dishes, and dinner is over.

NAC:  What advice would you offer to someone who is thinking about opening a restaurant?

CHIANG:   The restaurant business is very hard, with long hours.  You don't just have to know the food--you have to know how to deal with people.  In the U.S., you have to do a lot of publicity and promotion.  There's a lot of competition in this country.  So you have to know how to promote and market yourself.


NAC:  Have you been back to Beijing?  How has it changed? 

CHIANG:  Firstly, they just spent tons of money to prepare for the Olympics.  In China, they have nothing but people.  Cheap labor!  They worked 20 hours a day and they didn't mind at all.  They've got the village finished already. 

Beijing has lost its character.  They tore down all the old buildings, put up high-rises.  It's not very good looking.  There are too many people.  It got too commercial.  There used to be little alleys where you'd have rickshaws going in and out of in the old days.  That was the typical Beijing.  It's all torn down and modernized.  In the east part of Beijing, where they have the Forbidden City, and the palace, near Tiananmen Square--that part still has the old character. 

Most of the old places, they're just torn down.  It's very sad.  Really very sad. Also, there are too many cars.  The pollution is terrible.  All of the bicycles have disappeared, because bicycles are too slow.  People have much busier lives now, and are making more money.  During the Cultural Revolution, people think they don't have a future, "maybe tomorrow, I won't be here".  Right now,  young people want to enjoy every minute of their life.  Whenever they make money, they spend it.

When I was there, I talked to some of my relatives.  They said it was about time--we should enjoy our life.  We've had such a sad period of time.  We didn't have any food.  Nothing.  You can not believe how poor people were.  My relatives, of their clothes had patches.  They [the government] rationed one yard of fabric per family year.  You got either black, blue, or gray.  My father got 2 ounces of cooking oil a month.  A little bottle of milk a month.  No white rice either.  You got millet or corn.  You cannot believe it.  My father died at age of 97.  He could have lived longer if he'd had enough food.  When he died, he weighted 85 pounds.  People just starved to death.  It was very sad.

In the countryside, there are still a lot of poor people, a lot of homelessness, but those are the places that tourists don't go to. 

So, yes, right now, people want to enjoy their lives, because they say that policy could change overnight.  But I hope it's changing for the best.


Cecilia's Favorite Restaurants & Grocery Stores

Favorite Restaurants	Grocery Stores
S&T Hong Kong Seafood Restaurant 2578 Noriega St San Francisco, CA 94122 (415) 665-8338	99 Ranch Market (these are all over the U.S.) www.99ranch.com