Michelle T. King’s relationship with Fu Pei-mei began in childhood, with the constant presence of Pei Mei’s Chinese Cook Book in her parents’ kitchen. She did not realize the extent of Fu’s impact or fame as the host of a beloved, long-running cooking show in Taiwan until years later. In Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food, this personal connection with Fu allows King, a “Chinese American by way of Taiwan” (how King depicts the complexity of her cultural identity), to illuminate the often misunderstood nuances within the relationship between food and “a people like China’s—riven by decades of war, dislocation, upheaval, and migration.” As King states, food is not simply a comforting taste of home, but “a fickle mistress: a poor approximation of a beloved dish may simply remind you of everything you have lost.”
King weaves history lessons, personal anecdotes and firsthand interviews into the thoroughly researched Chop Fry Watch Learn in order to paint the extent of Fu’s legacy. It’s a tremendous undertaking, which King tackles head-on as she cycles through a vast number of subjects, ranging from historical Chinese attitudes towards food and the women cooking, to the complicated relationship between Taiwan and China throughout the 20th century, to the muddiness of diaspora identity, to broader ideas surrounding domestic labor, feminism and globalization. King argues that food binds it all together, and readers are sure to find her diligent biography compelling.
