nwasianweekly.com
Mar. 18, 2006

(Photo by Pat Tanumihardja)
Pictured here are covers and illustrated pages from various historical Chinese and Japanese American cookbooks in the Wing Luke Asian Museum’s collection.

Dinner's centerpiece: vintage Asian cookbooks

By Pat Tanumihardja
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

One Thousand Secret Recipes for Daily Use.
300 Easy to Make Family Style Chinese Dishes.
Guide to Year-round Homestyle Cooking.

These titles may sound like modern-day cookbooks you can purchase at the bookstore, but they are actually Japanese and Chinese cookbooks that date back 70 to 80 years!

They belong to the Wing Luke Asian Museum’s historical cookbook collection, which will be spotlighted later this month at a benefit dinner called “Endangered Treasures: Far East Meets Pacific Northwest.” To be held March 31 at 7 p.m. at The Triple Door in downtown Seattle, the dinner is part of the annual International Association of Culinary Professionals’ conference, which is being hosted locally this year.

Since 2002, IACP, a not-for-profit that provides continuing education for members engaged in culinary education, communication, food production and the preparation of food and drink, has been raising money to support historical cookbook collections around the world. “It is a running way to raise money for cookbook preservation and restoration for important archives,” says Paul Swanson, co-chair of the dinner committee.

Part of the dinner proceeds will go toward preserving Wing Luke’s cookbook collection.

“Cookbook archives are not a big thing on people’s benefit lists, but they’re really interesting historical items and they tell a lot about our sociology,” explains Swanson.

However, the interest in historical cookbooks is growing. “I’ve noticed a trend that more people are getting interested in it because it’s dawning on people that cookbooks are a road map to where we’ve been,” Swanson says. A cookbook collector himself, he acknowledges that Wing Luke’s cookbooks are historically noteworthy.

Bob Fisher, Wing Luke’s collections manager, considers these cookbooks to be cultural artifacts of Asian American history. “They trace the evolution of cookbooks … and document the way food was prepared at a certain period in time and how people ate,” he explains.

Wing Luke’s historical cookbook collection is currently very small (there are only six cookbooks, the oldest dating back to 1914), but Fisher would like to see it grow. “We rely on donations, so I take what I can get, but I’d like to build an endowment for the collection,” he says.

Though few in number, the cookbooks are no less fascinating. The Chinese and European Cookbook, published in 1917 and written by Wong Chin Chong, was likely printed for Chinese domestic servants who had to learn how to make Western dishes, like roast beef, for their Caucasian masters.

The Chinese Cookbook for the American Cook (1936), by M.M. Sing Au, demonstrates the American cook’s growing interest in Asian cuisine. Classic Chinese American dishes like chop suey and chow mein fill the yellowed pages, together with more traditional recipes for bird’s nest soup and mustard cabbage with pork. Some unfamiliar ones, such as yaki udzura (broiled quail or pigeon), particularly stand out.

The Wing Luke’s historical cookbooks were used as inspiration for the “Endangered Treasures” dinner menu, but the menu also comprises of classic recipes drawn from modern sources. “The recipes from the early cookbooks were pretty spartan and open to interpretation, so … I went to newer cookbooks because … the irony is, they were more concerned with authenticity,” says Swanson.

“The menus from that era (early 20^th century) were pretty hackneyed, just assuming that people would want chop suey, chow mein, etcetera,” he explains. “I tried to cross-connect through multiple sources and factor (them all) in.”

Working with chefs at The Triple Door, Swanson developed two tasting menus that reflect the culinary traditions of the Chinese and Japanese immigrants who lived in the Northwest in the early 1900s. The Japanese “zensai” tasting menu was developed on the washuko principle of injecting harmony and balance into a meal. Items like burdock and lotus root chips (yasai chippusu), maki-zushi (maki sushi rolls) and sake no saiko yaki (miso-marinated broiled salmon) feature prominently on the menu. 

The Chinese/Cantonese tasting menu is inspired by, and a tribute to, the people who came from China, largely from Guangdong province, in search of Gum Sahn, or the Golden Mountain. With a sumptuous selection of dishes — including soy-dipped red radish fans and maltose-glazed cashews, eight-treasure lucky duck, shrimp with lobster sauce (har lung wu) and walnut soup (hup tul woo) — this menu is a mini-banquet.

About 250 people are expected at the dinner.

Swanson hopes that the dinner menu will challenge people’s preconceptions of Chinese and Japanese cuisine, but diners may get even more than they bargained for. What better way is there to, literally, get a taste of history? 

Tickets to “Endangered Treasures: Far East Meets Pacific Northwest” are $135 per person. To register, visit www.theculinarytrust.com/html/annual_conference_news
.html or call Trina Gribbins at 502-581-9786 ext. 264.

If you have a historical cookbook you would like to donate to the Wing Luke Asian Museum, contact Bob Fisher at 206-623-5124. 

Pat Tanumihardja can be reached at scpnwan@nwlink.com.

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Northwest Asian Weekly • P.O. Box 3468 • Seattle • WA  98114
Tel: 206.223.5559 •  Fax: 206.223.0626 • Email: scpnwan@nwlink.com
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