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Chef Martin Yan Brings Chinatown Cooking to the World

By May Chow | AsianWeek Staff Writer

“Look at this, woooow! Cut it up: one, two, three, four. Very easy, you see!”

If you recognize these exclamations, you’ll know that they’ve become signature outbursts of celebrated chef and television personality Martin Yan.

For 24 years, Yan and his toothy grin have diced, sliced and stir-fried their way onto television sets throughout United States and some 80 other countries. Whether deboning a whole fryer chicken in 18 seconds or cooking his mother’s recipe for eight-treasures rice, Yan has found a grand recipe for success.

He blends acrobatic cutting techniques with Chinese cleavers, cooking talent and humor to make a show that has caused woks and ginger to appear in households across the world.

Yan is now hosting a new PBS series that takes viewers on a culinary tour of Chinatowns around the globe. Yan has also written and published a companion cookbook, Martin Yan’s Chinatown Cooking, to accompany his television show. The book has 200 recipes from 11 Chinatowns around the world.

“With this book and show, I attempt to introduce people about the food and culture of the Chinese,” Yan said. “I also wrote a guide about Chinatown for people. Many people only see the surface of Chinatown, but I hope with my book they can see through it and look at the history and culture of Chinatown and the importance of this community where people help each other out.”

On Feb. 7, Yan addressed a small gathering of fans at the Chinatown Historical Society building on Clay Street. Attendees were treated to dim sum, wine and Yan. He was also present to autograph books and offer Chinese New Year greetings to old friends.

The glossy photographs in Yan’s book show scenes from Chinatowns in New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, Yokohama, Sydney, Honolulu, Singapore, London, Macau and Melbourne.

“The readers will get a glimpse of each Chinatown and see the similarities and differences of each,” Yan said. “People can read about each Chinatown, cook recipes that are famous in each Chinatown.”

Yan offers a recipe for Triple-Decker Egg Fu Young in the San Francisco Chinatown section. According to Yan, San Francisco claims to be the original Chinatown on the West Coast.

Manhattan’s Chinatown is home to some 350,000 inhabitants, and for that chapter Yan provides a recipe for the crispy-skin delight, Peking Duck, which is adapted from the 42-year-old Peking Duck House restaurant in New York.

Yan said the variety of recipes and the collection of stories he’s accumulated from working on this book will carry him on for a lifetime.

“This book took us four years to complete, and I dedicate this book to the immigrants who built these Chinatowns,” he said.

Master chef Julia Child also recognized the importance of this book and wrote her first-ever introduction to a cookbook. In her introduction she writes:

“Martin cooks and eats with engaging gusto, and he is certainly the premier exponent of Chinese cuisine. He has been researching this ancient art for years, he knows both its classical and modern versions, and equally important, he knows how to teach. Thanks to this seminal book you are holding in your hands, we now have the best of all China and Chinatowns to savor. How lucky we are to have him here with us.”

Yan said he is honored to have Child write such a profound introduction to his book. He speaks highly of her but still jokes about their cooking skills.

“I can still debone a chicken faster than Julia Child,” Yan chuckles. “It takes me 18 seconds, it takes her years.”

Born in the southwest province of Guangzhou, China, Yan started cooking when he was 12 years old. His mother’s cooking had a lot to do with Yan’s affinity for the culinary arts and even today has a huge influence on him. After earning his diploma from the Overseas Institute of Cookery in Hong Kong, Yan went to Canada and then to the United States.

He received a masters of science in food science from UC Davis and taught Chinese cooking for the University of California extension program. Yan has received a handful of prestigious cooking awards and honors for his show, including the highly touted James Beard Award, and received a Daytime Emmy Award in 1998 for best cooking show.

As regards to rumors that his accent is fake and for entertainment value only, Yan said that people don’t understand that sometimes even when you’ve spoken English for a long time, you just can’t shake your accent.

“I was born in China and only learned how to speak English when I was 16 years old,” says Yan. “For many people the accent will stay, even those that speak English perfectly, and uses proper grammar and words.”