August 21, 2024 • 32 mins
Through her many ventures -- including restaurants, a cookbook, kitchen inventions, and television programs -- Joyce Chen strived to educate and delight people with Chinese cusine in the 1960s and '70s. Anney and Lauren dig into life and legacy of Joyce Chen.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to save her prediction of iHeartRadio. I'm
Annie Resa.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm more in vocal bum And today we have
an episode for you about Joyce Chen.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, yes, and I'm really glad to have done this one.
I had heard her name and I knew vaguely about her,
but that was it.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah. Yeah, me too, which, as it turns out, I
sort of deeply regret. And so it was really interesting
doing the reading and the watching for this one.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, was there any particular reason she was on your mind, Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
She's just sort of one of the personalities in American
cookery that gets talked about, and so I was like, yeah,
I don't know about that, lady, let's look into her.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yes, and here we are, Here we are.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
You can see our Julia Child at the for lots
more about the contemporary world of cooking television that Chen
was part of, and our General Sow's episode for a
bigger conversation about the growth of Chinese American restaurants from
the night in like around the nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, yes, yes, I found a really interesting deep dive
into that and how Joyce Chen played into it as well,
And I really recommend it once we get to that section,
maybe I'll call it out. But it's a lot, It's
bigger than we're going to get into here. But yeah,
we play a pretty big role in it. Yeah, yeah,
(01:40):
which I guess brings us to our question. Sure. Joyce Chen,
who was she?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well? Joyce Chen was a Chinese American cook, restaurateur, writer, educator, personality,
and businesswoman who was working in the late nineteen fifties
through the nineteen eighties. She had a brief cooking show
on PBS, and through that and her cookbook and restaurant
and brands, she did a lot to introduce and familiarize
(02:10):
different styles of Chinese and Chinese American cooking to the US.
Though she was successful during her lifetime and a local
celebrity around Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was working, she didn't
achieve the lasting popularity that some of her food edutainment
colleagues did. Like she was very much ahead of her
(02:34):
time and also working within the constraints of her time,
and she had such a passion for food and for
the soft politics of making the fine flavors and techniques
of the fancy Chinese cuisine that she had grown up
with available and approachable to Americans. Just an incredibly savvy
(02:57):
and tenacious human personal and joyful about cooking. She's She's
the kind of personality who I wish had had more time,
and who I wish was spoken more about, because I
think she had so much to offer. For a little
bit of an idea of her voice and philosophy, I
(03:21):
suppose here's a line from the long introduction to her cookbook,
in which she wrote, you are the one to make
the dishes successful. If anything goes wrong or right, there
must be a reason. In some things, the reason for
failure is beyond our control. But in cooking, success is
always under our control.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, some of my more spectacular failures come to mind,
but she was correct. That was on me. Definitely on me.
But so were the successes. Yeah yeah, Well what about
(04:04):
the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Don't eat dead people as a general rule, don't eat
living people, don't eat people.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Here you go, Oh my.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Do appreciate different forms of cuisine?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I think the whole is going to be for Laura. Okay,
let's move on.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
To a number one number. Yeah, so I said, long
introduction to that cookbook, And to specify here, she doesn't
print a recipe in her cookbook until page sixty five.
Everything before that is this introduction to everything from Chinese ingredients,
(04:51):
to cooking methods, to regional cuisines, to tea service to
just like general ideation of what makes a good in
Chinese cultures. So yeah, really fascinating.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
I love that because a lot of times if you
can get some of those foundational things, just an understanding
of what ingredients will work well here and over here.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And maybe what substitutions can happen, and just why she's
going to ask you to do certain things in different recipes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, as always, listeners, if you have fond memories of
this cookbook, if you have this cookbook, please let us
know because we're big fans.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Oh yes, yeah, it's called the Joyce Chin Cookbook.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So there you go, yes, which we will definitely talk about.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Oh history, Oh yeah, and we are going to get
into that history as soon as we get back from
a quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So. Joyce Chen was
born into a pretty well off family in Beijing, China,
on September twelfth, nineteen seventeen, and her birth name, which
I'm going to attempt not to Butcher was YAOJIAI. You
can please let me know if I got it incorrectly.
(06:26):
Her father was a city executive and railroad administrator with
enough money to hire a chef for the family that
took care of pretty much all of their meals. Chen
discovered a passion for cooking when she was young just
through watching this chef and other people in the household cooking.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, her parents hosted a lot of parties and encouraged
her to be involved in household management, including cooking. Chen
later said, whenever I entered the kitchen, my mother never
forgot to remind me that I should learn how to cook,
so I wouldn't eat raw rice in case I couldn't
afford a family cook in the future. That said, she
(07:02):
definitely like had maids do the prep and the cleaning
when she cooked.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
But yeah, it's pretty solid advice now. Right by the
time Chen was eighteen, she was hosting her first professional dinner.
She was also the lead in White Snake for the
Beijing Opera, which is a line I cut out and
then put back in several times because I was like,
it's not related, but it's so cool, but it's not related.
(07:29):
But it's really cool.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, it's pretty cool, and it does show her drive.
She was a very driven individual, which speaking of she
spent some time working as an insurance broker, which was
pretty rare for a woman in China at the time.
And then, in response to the Chinese Communist Revolution, her family,
husband Thomas, and children, Henry and Helen, moved to the
(07:53):
US in nineteen forty nine, settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Thomas was a fine art importer, and Chen became a
housewife with kind of a lot of time on her hands,
which she often spent cooking.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yes, and since they were near big universities like Mit
and Harvard, Chen would often run into students from China
who were feeling homesick for food from China. Whenever her kids'
school had an event that called for food, she would cook,
and her meals were really popular among the kids and
families that tried them.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah. So, by this time, in the early nineteen fifties,
the family had a third child, Stephen, and all three
kids went to this private school that was part of
what's now the Buckingham Brown and Nickels School in Cambridge.
The story goes that there was this annual fundraising event
for scholarships to the school called the Buckingham Circus, and
(08:49):
families realistically at the time, moms would make baked goods
or whatever to donate, and so chen Like dropped off
these pumpkin cooks and these egg.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Rolls right and in popular family lore, the egg rolls
went like hotcakes. And at first chen believed that they
had been thrown away.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
She was afraid that like the moms had been embarrassed
by them and like put them under the table or
just tossed them. But yeah, the story goes that one
of those other moms said that, you know, they had
sold out in the first hour, and so chen Like
rushed home to make another batch to bring back.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yes. And so seeing this, Chen leaned into her passion
for cooking and opened the Joyce Chin Restaurant in nineteen
fifty eight. It had two hundred and fifty seats with
tables covered in white tablecloths, It had an event space,
and it offered takeout. She co ran it with her husband.
It was the kind of place you might go for
(09:46):
like a nice meal, like like a graduation dinner, and
where also the restaurant tour would come around to each
table and interact with the customers, and she really wanted
to introduce people to cuisine that might be new to them,
frequently offering Chinese and American dishes, sometimes in a buffet setting,
so people could sample things they might not otherwise order.
(10:10):
Her menus were in Chinese and English, and the dishes
were numbered for ease of ordering. Over time, some of
the American dishes were dropped and replaced with more traditional
Chinese dishes as those dishes became popular. By some accounts,
the line was out the door and the restaurant played
upbeat music to move things along. I heard it was
(10:32):
the chatcha Wow Yeah, I read like eat quicker, let's go.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah okay. So at this time, most Chinese restaurants in
America were working class joints, serving mostly Cantonese inspired foods
and a lot of cheap lunches. Americanized dishes like Chop
suey and chow main had been served in military mess
halls during World War Two and in school cafeteria after that.
(11:01):
There had been a wave of more like upscale, flashy
Chinese American restaurants that got their start around the nineteen thirties,
often incorporating nightclubs, and they really thrived in places like
Hollywood in the nineteen fifties. And of course there was
that a post World War II trend of like kitchly
approachable Pan Asian tiki restaurants and cocktail lounges. There was
(11:24):
also a smaller trend of restaurants opened by like fairly
bougie Chinese immigrants who had fled Communism and who were
aiming to entertain the intellectual, well to do demographic that
they themselves were or perhaps had been a part of.
And Chen, it seems, set out to create something a
(11:47):
little bit in between this, like upscale and approachable, personable,
educational and incorporating dishes from several different Chinese cuisines. And
this place was a big deal. She had customers from
the President of Harvard to Henry Kissinger, to James Beard
to Julia Child, who remember was also based in Cambridge
(12:11):
by that time.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yes, so the restaurant was successful, and it gave her
room to grow as a chef. In nineteen sixty she
started offering cooking classes, and two years later she published
a cookbook full of not just recipes but tips around cooking.
Cultural notes about the importance of tea, How to use chopsticks,
How to Cook rice. The ford was written by doctor
(12:35):
Paul Dudley White, who commended the recipes for being healthy
in part because she avoided additives and things like red
dye number two.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah. Dudley White was a prominent cardiologist at the time
and a regular at Chen's restaurant.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
The book was self published, in part due to Chin's
insistence on using color photos. It was a later commercially
published and was reprinted to the eighties. According to Atlas Obscura,
diners purchased six thousand copies before it was even published.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Oh wow, Oh that's great. And yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
A lot of her recipes, especially these earlier recipes, were
about meeting American taste halfway. The recipe for egg rolls
in the first edition of the cookbook calls for one
half pound of good hamburger.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah. That was to be mixed with sugar, pepper, sherry,
brown gravy, and a little bit of cornstarch to thicken.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And it wasn't only a taste or familiarity thing, but
it was also taking into account access to ingredients, what
people could get.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah. Yeah, Like the recipe description notes, this is not authentic, right.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
She also helped popularize dishes like potstickers by calling them
Peking ravioli, which, like.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
All of this might sound a little bit weird or
maybe be a little pandering or even condescending today, but
it's important to note that when this book came out
in nineteen sixty two, you know, right, there were Chinese
American people and restaurants in the United States, but there
had been one hundred years of really xenophobic, racist, and
(14:21):
pervasive messaging about Chinese people in America. And yeah, you
can see our episode on General So's for more on this.
But like, basically during the Depression after the Civil War,
there was this pushback against Chinese immigrants that resulted in
our first ever anti immigration act wou go US, the
Chinese Exclusion Act of eighteen eighty two, which was not
(14:41):
repealed until the Civil Rights Movement changed stuff in nineteen
sixty five. You know, I think Chen was just excited
about sharing this cuisine, this huge part of her home culture,
and was trying to make it right, personable and approachable
and definitely on the less pandering, more interesting side. Her
(15:08):
recipes included a mind for the busy modern American middle
class household. You know that that servantless household that Julia
Child talked about, where a housewife was expected to make
things like nice and novel under a limited timeframe. Chen
included a lot of insight on shortcuts and like pre
planning in order to make cooking easier in practice and
(15:31):
sort of effortless in appearance.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
M hm. And so her second restaurant, the Joyce Chin
Small Eating Place, opened in nineteen sixty seven, and not
only that, she launched her PBS cooking show, Joyce Chen
Cook's first broadcast in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US.
She was the first woman of color to host a
(15:55):
nationally syndicated cooking show in the United.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
States, and she would be the only one until into
the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
YEP.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
It was a half hour program And from what I understand,
what happened was Julia Child was a fan of Chen's restaurant.
So when the PBS local affiliate that Child was on, WGBH,
expressed an interest in expanding their cooking show repertoire, Child
recommended talking to Chen, and so her producer Ruth Lockwood
(16:25):
reached out.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Right. So over the course of filming, twenty six episodes,
Chin met Child. Their shows were filmed on the same set,
and they became friends. Notably, the decor was swapped out
for stereotypical Asian set pieces for Chin show.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah Asian and sort of quoty, yes, sort of. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yeah. The show was not renewed and many have speculated why, which,
by the way, WGBH has several resources about this, and
that's where I was the thing I mentioned at the
top about a really in depth dive.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, yeah, that's where I got the thing that I
was just talking about about Chinese restaurants in America. So
there's lots more there.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yes, So if you're interested, that's where that's where that
resource is. So many were wondering why it didn't get renewed,
and the main consensus seems to be that non Chinese
Americans weren't ready for a Chinese woman leading her own show.
Others wondered if it had to do with lack of
sponsors or conflicts of interest with her businesses.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yeah, yeah, although I would say that the lack of
sponsors is probably related to that first thing. Honestly, like,
I've gotten the feeling that the producers of this show
didn't really give her what she needed to thrive, or
like we're expecting too little of her, or like they said, hey,
(17:56):
we hope that the show is going to reach a
lower income demographic. Then shows like Julia Child based on
this perception that Chinese cooking is low class cooking and
that's not what that's not what Chen was doing, or
you know, maybe they were expecting another like really breezily
dynamic hit along the lines of Julia's show, but you know,
(18:18):
like Child was lightning in a bottle, and Chen's flavors
and recipes were even less familiar and furthermore, like her
native language was not English.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yes, and she did get some criticism for her accent
being too.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Thick, like the producers would like add these illustrated cards,
like writing out words that she was having trouble pronouncing,
which I think is really condescending, but she was working
on it, man, like she had a voice. Coach Lockwood
would go over lines with her anyway. The show nonetheless
did win a Reader's Digest Educational Television Award that year,
(18:59):
and it was in reruns through nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yes, Yes, stepping back a bit in nineteen sixty six,
she and her husband divorced and she took over primary
care of their children.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Yeah, the youngest was about fourteen at the time, and
the two older siblings were about eighteen and twenty two,
and they started helping in earnest at the restaurant. After
Thomas was out of the picture the business in general.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
She opened up two more restaurants in nineteen sixty nine
and nineteen seventy three. She expanded into other things too,
like patenting what she called the Peiking Walk, which was
a flat bottom stirfyprian with a handle in nineteen seventy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
So the thing about walks is that traditionally they have
a curved bottom, which makes it impossible for them to
sit on an American stovetop. And you know, you can
fix this with a ring that you set down over
the burner. But this pan was meant to allow Americans
to easily adopt sturfrying techniques in their kitchens.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
In nineteen seventy one, she released a line cooking utensils.
In nineteen eighty four, she started selling Chinese cooking oils
and sauces.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah. The cooking utensils included bamboo spatulas and also kitchen shears,
which were not common in American kitchens at the time.
She got a patent for the shares. I think the
bottled sauces were the first Chinese sauces marketed to American consumers.
She also opened a retail store, Joyce Chen Unlimited, and
started a line of frozen foods.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yes, and the issue of access to ingredients was facilitated
by increased trade with China after President Nixon's nineteen seventy
two trip to the country, which gave Chen easier access
to some of the ingredients and items that she wanted
to use.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Or that she wanted other people to use.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah. Yeah, that she wanted other people to use. Yes.
Not only that, she successfully secured permission for her, her
son Stephen, and her daughter Helen to visit China that
same year. She got the production team show to teach
Steven some basics on filming, and Stephen got all kinds
of footage of their time there, later used in the
documentary slash travel Log. Joyce Chen's China first aired in
(21:12):
nineteen seventy three, and it was really powerful during a
time when China had been so vilified in the US
for so long. Throughout her time in the US, which
I feel like we've been saying throughout it was really
important to her to educate people about China and combat
anti Chinese prejudice. As part of that, she was a
(21:33):
founding member of the Greater Boston Chinese Cultural Association.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
In nineteen seventy three, Time magazine ran a profile on
her with the title Fortune's Cookie. M Yeah, yeah, so
mixed feelings about that one. But she was said to
be a millionaire at that point, so definitely a popular figure.
(21:59):
She did injure her hand in a kitchen accident in
nineteen seventy six, like a gallon jar dropped on it,
and so she began stepping away from her work around
that point.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Right, And then in the early eighties she was diagnosed
with multi infarked dementia and she died on August twenty third,
nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, these days people think it was probably Alzheimer's, but
that was a little bit more difficult to diagnose at
that time.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So she was posthumously included into the James Beard Hall
of Fame in nineteen ninety eight. That same year, the
last of her restaurants closed.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, Helen. Her daughter, Helen A. Cookbook author and cooking
instructor in her own right, wound up having to sell
the Joyce Chen Cookwear company to a corporation in two
thousand and three due to profit difficulties. There is still
cookwear being sold in her name, but Helen doesn't really
have anything to say about it. According to an interview
(23:00):
that she did with Food fifty two, Henry had been
running the retail shop, but it closed after his death
in two thousand and seven. Stephen still runs a company
that sells spices, sauces, and frozen dumplings called Joyce Chen Foods.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
In twenty fourteen, Joyce Chen was featured on a US
S Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
This was part of a line of commemorative stamps called
Celebrity Chefs Forever. They featured five chefs, Julie Child, James Beard,
Ada Lewis, and Felipe Rojas Lombardi alongside Joyce Chen. Jen's
show was digitized for the first time that year. In
twenty fourteen, so eleven of the twenty six episodes are
(23:46):
now online. And I'm bad at remembering to put links
up on social, but I'll do my best with this one.
It is on that PBS station's website. Of exhibits of
important stuff from their history. The url is openvault dot,
WGBH dot org.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, yes, and a lot of sources. I was reading people, unfortunately,
But the truth of it was that's how they discovered
George Chen was his stamp. They were like, who is this?
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Did I not know about her?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, she's up there with these other people who I
do know. Why don't I know her? Sure?
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Exactly, And so there was a lot of the show
coming out. I believe the documentary got some more publicity
after that. So stamps Stamp Show, and then Carrie Clicker's
picture book Dumpling Dreams How Joyce Chin Brought the Dumpling
from Beijing to Cambridge came out in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah. I think she was also inspired by those stamps
and she was like, oh, who is this? And then
she was like, oh, this person is really cool, and
so she did a yeah, a kid spock about her.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
She did, and it does show the despite the sad
fact that so many of us didn't know a lot
about her, it does show her lasting impact and especially
in and I would love if listeners write in about
this in Cambridge, like in that area in Boston, and
I even found a really fascinating article about Boston Chinese food.
(25:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it was just I would love
to know more. I would love to know more about that.
But she was a part of that. She was a
huge part of that. Oh well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, I write like like unfortunately, like that is what
we have to say about Joyce Chen for right now.
But I yeah, I didn't know that these episodes existed
until we started doing this reading, and so I'm looking
forward to watching the rest of them.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yes, yeah, And I'm very happy that it seemed she's
getting more recognition. I'm sad it happened after she died,
but I'm glad she's getting more recognition. And there is
a lot for you to look into listeners if you want. Yeah,
there's a lot out there. But yes, that is what
we have to say for now.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, And
we're back with listeners giving up the flowers.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Oh yeah, too late, unfortunately, but still that's still given Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
But still okay. So this is fun because we've got
some more potato salad messages. But also we have we
got a slew about hollow holloway.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Oh, I was counting on yall, and you've pulled through.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yes, they have pulled through. But starting with potato salad,
Sarah out, I'm writing to tell you I married into
a family that makes mashed potato salad made truly with
mashed potatoes. I grew up on German potato salad, so
had to get the recipe from my spouse's mother to
make what my spouse wanted for their birthday the first
(27:30):
year we were married. Imagine my surprise when it called
for potato flakes. But our kids love it as much
as he does. It's all that's made in our family now.
So yes, it exists. And I'd say it's Scottish slash Irish,
which is the heritage of his grandmother who originally made
it for her family. Oh he kid. This is so.
(27:54):
I am loving the wide range of potato salad experiences
and recipes getting fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, I love I love that right. Everyone's like, yeah,
of course I make a potato salad. What do you
mean you make it like that. That's not what I
want at all.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
What are you talking about? I love that you had
to you had to learn he's got a specific potato
salad he likes on his birthday.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Hey. You know, if you've got it's your birthday and
you've got a type of potato salad you.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Like, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
It is true, is.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Joe wrote, Summer isn't summer without hallow hollow. When I
was growing up, the Filipino community in my town was
still quite small, but that didn't stop someone from having
a hand cranked ice shaving machine and pulling it out
for summer picnics and birthday parties. You could usually find
jarret hollow hollow ingredients at an Asian market even then,
and there are jars with multiple ingredients inside of them,
(28:59):
like all in one, just add milk and ice. I
was a pretty picky kid, and sometimes my hollow hollow
was just condensed milk and shaved ice with litche fla
and ice cream on top. In time, I added fruit
and jelly. I'll eat most of the suggested toppings now,
but cold sweet beans have a bit of a weird texture,
even though they taste great. Attached our photos from my
(29:19):
family summer vacation in the Philippines last year. My dad
and uncle shared a gorgeous Buco hollow hollow. As you
can see, Buco is a young coconut, so the hollow
hollow was served in the husk with a very generous
serving of Buco strings. There was jelly fruit, ube, ice cream,
corn flakes, and even shredded cheese, popular topping in Filipino desserts.
(29:41):
I opted for something simpler, corn yellow, which you also mentioned,
specifically mice corn yellow, which has sweetened corn, shaved ice,
corn flakes, and either corn or cheese ice cream. I
can't remember both, as you can imagine, really hit the
spot because it was so stinged hot, multiple showers a
(30:02):
day hot. The ingredients of hollow hollow are what you
make of it, but I do think it needs shaved ice,
ingredients of different textures, and some sort of milk so
that it's all easy to mix. I remember that bonea
petit kerfuffle, and there was one even earlier when another
YouTube channel I think it was Taste Made, tried to
do one, but there was absolutely no milk. The Filipinos
(30:24):
and the cons in the comments were very upset. We
do have opinions trademark, oh dear, and the attached photo
does look really delightful and just so pretty. I man,
ube ice cream is so pretty, and I love things
(30:46):
served in a coconut, And oh that looks really good.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It does. And I love the shredded cheese. I wasn't
expecting it, but I think that would be really good.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Oh yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Oh it sounds why not? Indeed, Lauren, don't put limitations
on cheese? What am I thinking? This does sound lovely?
Like I can imagine how refreshing this must be on
a hot, hot summer day. Yeah, and just those fruits.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
And textures and the temperature and the melty melty ice.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
H uh huh. Oh sounds lovely. It just really really does.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Those are just like mad about it right now. Wonderful.
I love. I love being angry in this specific way.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yes, we really do.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
So.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Thank you. Thank you to both of these listeners for
writing in. If you would like to write to us,
you can Our email is Hello at savorpod dot com,
and we're.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts to
my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
(32:15):
more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to save her prediction of iHeartRadio. I'm
Annie Resa.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm more in vocal bum And today we have
an episode for you about Joyce Chen.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, yes, and I'm really glad to have done this one.
I had heard her name and I knew vaguely about her,
but that was it.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah. Yeah, me too, which, as it turns out, I
sort of deeply regret. And so it was really interesting
doing the reading and the watching for this one.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, was there any particular reason she was on your mind, Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
She's just sort of one of the personalities in American
cookery that gets talked about, and so I was like, yeah,
I don't know about that, lady, let's look into her.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yes, and here we are, Here we are.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
You can see our Julia Child at the for lots
more about the contemporary world of cooking television that Chen
was part of, and our General Sow's episode for a
bigger conversation about the growth of Chinese American restaurants from
the night in like around the nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, yes, yes, I found a really interesting deep dive
into that and how Joyce Chen played into it as well,
And I really recommend it once we get to that section,
maybe I'll call it out. But it's a lot, It's
bigger than we're going to get into here. But yeah,
we play a pretty big role in it. Yeah, yeah,
(01:40):
which I guess brings us to our question. Sure. Joyce Chen,
who was she?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well? Joyce Chen was a Chinese American cook, restaurateur, writer, educator, personality,
and businesswoman who was working in the late nineteen fifties
through the nineteen eighties. She had a brief cooking show
on PBS, and through that and her cookbook and restaurant
and brands, she did a lot to introduce and familiarize
(02:10):
different styles of Chinese and Chinese American cooking to the US.
Though she was successful during her lifetime and a local
celebrity around Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was working, she didn't
achieve the lasting popularity that some of her food edutainment
colleagues did. Like she was very much ahead of her
(02:34):
time and also working within the constraints of her time,
and she had such a passion for food and for
the soft politics of making the fine flavors and techniques
of the fancy Chinese cuisine that she had grown up
with available and approachable to Americans. Just an incredibly savvy
(02:57):
and tenacious human personal and joyful about cooking. She's She's
the kind of personality who I wish had had more time,
and who I wish was spoken more about, because I
think she had so much to offer. For a little
bit of an idea of her voice and philosophy, I
(03:21):
suppose here's a line from the long introduction to her cookbook,
in which she wrote, you are the one to make
the dishes successful. If anything goes wrong or right, there
must be a reason. In some things, the reason for
failure is beyond our control. But in cooking, success is
always under our control.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, some of my more spectacular failures come to mind,
but she was correct. That was on me. Definitely on me.
But so were the successes. Yeah yeah, Well what about
(04:04):
the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Don't eat dead people as a general rule, don't eat
living people, don't eat people.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Here you go, Oh my.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Do appreciate different forms of cuisine?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I think the whole is going to be for Laura. Okay,
let's move on.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
To a number one number. Yeah, so I said, long
introduction to that cookbook, And to specify here, she doesn't
print a recipe in her cookbook until page sixty five.
Everything before that is this introduction to everything from Chinese ingredients,
(04:51):
to cooking methods, to regional cuisines, to tea service to
just like general ideation of what makes a good in
Chinese cultures. So yeah, really fascinating.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
I love that because a lot of times if you
can get some of those foundational things, just an understanding
of what ingredients will work well here and over here.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And maybe what substitutions can happen, and just why she's
going to ask you to do certain things in different recipes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, as always, listeners, if you have fond memories of
this cookbook, if you have this cookbook, please let us
know because we're big fans.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Oh yes, yeah, it's called the Joyce Chin Cookbook.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So there you go, yes, which we will definitely talk about.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Oh history, Oh yeah, and we are going to get
into that history as soon as we get back from
a quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So. Joyce Chen was
born into a pretty well off family in Beijing, China,
on September twelfth, nineteen seventeen, and her birth name, which
I'm going to attempt not to Butcher was YAOJIAI. You
can please let me know if I got it incorrectly.
(06:26):
Her father was a city executive and railroad administrator with
enough money to hire a chef for the family that
took care of pretty much all of their meals. Chen
discovered a passion for cooking when she was young just
through watching this chef and other people in the household cooking.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, her parents hosted a lot of parties and encouraged
her to be involved in household management, including cooking. Chen
later said, whenever I entered the kitchen, my mother never
forgot to remind me that I should learn how to cook,
so I wouldn't eat raw rice in case I couldn't
afford a family cook in the future. That said, she
(07:02):
definitely like had maids do the prep and the cleaning
when she cooked.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
But yeah, it's pretty solid advice now. Right by the
time Chen was eighteen, she was hosting her first professional dinner.
She was also the lead in White Snake for the
Beijing Opera, which is a line I cut out and
then put back in several times because I was like,
it's not related, but it's so cool, but it's not related.
(07:29):
But it's really cool.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, it's pretty cool, and it does show her drive.
She was a very driven individual, which speaking of she
spent some time working as an insurance broker, which was
pretty rare for a woman in China at the time.
And then, in response to the Chinese Communist Revolution, her family,
husband Thomas, and children, Henry and Helen, moved to the
(07:53):
US in nineteen forty nine, settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Thomas was a fine art importer, and Chen became a
housewife with kind of a lot of time on her hands,
which she often spent cooking.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yes, and since they were near big universities like Mit
and Harvard, Chen would often run into students from China
who were feeling homesick for food from China. Whenever her kids'
school had an event that called for food, she would cook,
and her meals were really popular among the kids and
families that tried them.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah. So, by this time, in the early nineteen fifties,
the family had a third child, Stephen, and all three
kids went to this private school that was part of
what's now the Buckingham Brown and Nickels School in Cambridge.
The story goes that there was this annual fundraising event
for scholarships to the school called the Buckingham Circus, and
(08:49):
families realistically at the time, moms would make baked goods
or whatever to donate, and so chen Like dropped off
these pumpkin cooks and these egg.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Rolls right and in popular family lore, the egg rolls
went like hotcakes. And at first chen believed that they
had been thrown away.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
She was afraid that like the moms had been embarrassed
by them and like put them under the table or
just tossed them. But yeah, the story goes that one
of those other moms said that, you know, they had
sold out in the first hour, and so chen Like
rushed home to make another batch to bring back.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yes. And so seeing this, Chen leaned into her passion
for cooking and opened the Joyce Chin Restaurant in nineteen
fifty eight. It had two hundred and fifty seats with
tables covered in white tablecloths, It had an event space,
and it offered takeout. She co ran it with her husband.
It was the kind of place you might go for
(09:46):
like a nice meal, like like a graduation dinner, and
where also the restaurant tour would come around to each
table and interact with the customers, and she really wanted
to introduce people to cuisine that might be new to them,
frequently offering Chinese and American dishes, sometimes in a buffet setting,
so people could sample things they might not otherwise order.
(10:10):
Her menus were in Chinese and English, and the dishes
were numbered for ease of ordering. Over time, some of
the American dishes were dropped and replaced with more traditional
Chinese dishes as those dishes became popular. By some accounts,
the line was out the door and the restaurant played
upbeat music to move things along. I heard it was
(10:32):
the chatcha Wow Yeah, I read like eat quicker, let's go.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah okay. So at this time, most Chinese restaurants in
America were working class joints, serving mostly Cantonese inspired foods
and a lot of cheap lunches. Americanized dishes like Chop
suey and chow main had been served in military mess
halls during World War Two and in school cafeteria after that.
(11:01):
There had been a wave of more like upscale, flashy
Chinese American restaurants that got their start around the nineteen thirties,
often incorporating nightclubs, and they really thrived in places like
Hollywood in the nineteen fifties. And of course there was
that a post World War II trend of like kitchly
approachable Pan Asian tiki restaurants and cocktail lounges. There was
(11:24):
also a smaller trend of restaurants opened by like fairly
bougie Chinese immigrants who had fled Communism and who were
aiming to entertain the intellectual, well to do demographic that
they themselves were or perhaps had been a part of.
And Chen, it seems, set out to create something a
(11:47):
little bit in between this, like upscale and approachable, personable,
educational and incorporating dishes from several different Chinese cuisines. And
this place was a big deal. She had customers from
the President of Harvard to Henry Kissinger, to James Beard
to Julia Child, who remember was also based in Cambridge
(12:11):
by that time.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yes, so the restaurant was successful, and it gave her
room to grow as a chef. In nineteen sixty she
started offering cooking classes, and two years later she published
a cookbook full of not just recipes but tips around cooking.
Cultural notes about the importance of tea, How to use chopsticks,
How to Cook rice. The ford was written by doctor
(12:35):
Paul Dudley White, who commended the recipes for being healthy
in part because she avoided additives and things like red
dye number two.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah. Dudley White was a prominent cardiologist at the time
and a regular at Chen's restaurant.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
The book was self published, in part due to Chin's
insistence on using color photos. It was a later commercially
published and was reprinted to the eighties. According to Atlas Obscura,
diners purchased six thousand copies before it was even published.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Oh wow, Oh that's great. And yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
A lot of her recipes, especially these earlier recipes, were
about meeting American taste halfway. The recipe for egg rolls
in the first edition of the cookbook calls for one
half pound of good hamburger.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah. That was to be mixed with sugar, pepper, sherry,
brown gravy, and a little bit of cornstarch to thicken.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And it wasn't only a taste or familiarity thing, but
it was also taking into account access to ingredients, what
people could get.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah. Yeah, Like the recipe description notes, this is not authentic, right.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
She also helped popularize dishes like potstickers by calling them
Peking ravioli, which, like.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
All of this might sound a little bit weird or
maybe be a little pandering or even condescending today, but
it's important to note that when this book came out
in nineteen sixty two, you know, right, there were Chinese
American people and restaurants in the United States, but there
had been one hundred years of really xenophobic, racist, and
(14:21):
pervasive messaging about Chinese people in America. And yeah, you
can see our episode on General So's for more on this.
But like, basically during the Depression after the Civil War,
there was this pushback against Chinese immigrants that resulted in
our first ever anti immigration act wou go US, the
Chinese Exclusion Act of eighteen eighty two, which was not
(14:41):
repealed until the Civil Rights Movement changed stuff in nineteen
sixty five. You know, I think Chen was just excited
about sharing this cuisine, this huge part of her home culture,
and was trying to make it right, personable and approachable
and definitely on the less pandering, more interesting side. Her
(15:08):
recipes included a mind for the busy modern American middle
class household. You know that that servantless household that Julia
Child talked about, where a housewife was expected to make
things like nice and novel under a limited timeframe. Chen
included a lot of insight on shortcuts and like pre
planning in order to make cooking easier in practice and
(15:31):
sort of effortless in appearance.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
M hm. And so her second restaurant, the Joyce Chin
Small Eating Place, opened in nineteen sixty seven, and not
only that, she launched her PBS cooking show, Joyce Chen
Cook's first broadcast in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US.
She was the first woman of color to host a
(15:55):
nationally syndicated cooking show in the United.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
States, and she would be the only one until into
the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
YEP.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
It was a half hour program And from what I understand,
what happened was Julia Child was a fan of Chen's restaurant.
So when the PBS local affiliate that Child was on, WGBH,
expressed an interest in expanding their cooking show repertoire, Child
recommended talking to Chen, and so her producer Ruth Lockwood
(16:25):
reached out.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Right. So over the course of filming, twenty six episodes,
Chin met Child. Their shows were filmed on the same set,
and they became friends. Notably, the decor was swapped out
for stereotypical Asian set pieces for Chin show.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah Asian and sort of quoty, yes, sort of. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yeah. The show was not renewed and many have speculated why, which,
by the way, WGBH has several resources about this, and
that's where I was the thing I mentioned at the
top about a really in depth dive.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, yeah, that's where I got the thing that I
was just talking about about Chinese restaurants in America. So
there's lots more there.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yes, So if you're interested, that's where that's where that
resource is. So many were wondering why it didn't get renewed,
and the main consensus seems to be that non Chinese
Americans weren't ready for a Chinese woman leading her own show.
Others wondered if it had to do with lack of
sponsors or conflicts of interest with her businesses.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yeah, yeah, although I would say that the lack of
sponsors is probably related to that first thing. Honestly, like,
I've gotten the feeling that the producers of this show
didn't really give her what she needed to thrive, or
like we're expecting too little of her, or like they said, hey,
(17:56):
we hope that the show is going to reach a
lower income demographic. Then shows like Julia Child based on
this perception that Chinese cooking is low class cooking and
that's not what that's not what Chen was doing, or
you know, maybe they were expecting another like really breezily
dynamic hit along the lines of Julia's show, but you know,
(18:18):
like Child was lightning in a bottle, and Chen's flavors
and recipes were even less familiar and furthermore, like her
native language was not English.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yes, and she did get some criticism for her accent
being too.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Thick, like the producers would like add these illustrated cards,
like writing out words that she was having trouble pronouncing,
which I think is really condescending, but she was working
on it, man, like she had a voice. Coach Lockwood
would go over lines with her anyway. The show nonetheless
did win a Reader's Digest Educational Television Award that year,
(18:59):
and it was in reruns through nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yes, Yes, stepping back a bit in nineteen sixty six,
she and her husband divorced and she took over primary
care of their children.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Yeah, the youngest was about fourteen at the time, and
the two older siblings were about eighteen and twenty two,
and they started helping in earnest at the restaurant. After
Thomas was out of the picture the business in general.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
She opened up two more restaurants in nineteen sixty nine
and nineteen seventy three. She expanded into other things too,
like patenting what she called the Peiking Walk, which was
a flat bottom stirfyprian with a handle in nineteen seventy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
So the thing about walks is that traditionally they have
a curved bottom, which makes it impossible for them to
sit on an American stovetop. And you know, you can
fix this with a ring that you set down over
the burner. But this pan was meant to allow Americans
to easily adopt sturfrying techniques in their kitchens.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
In nineteen seventy one, she released a line cooking utensils.
In nineteen eighty four, she started selling Chinese cooking oils
and sauces.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah. The cooking utensils included bamboo spatulas and also kitchen shears,
which were not common in American kitchens at the time.
She got a patent for the shares. I think the
bottled sauces were the first Chinese sauces marketed to American consumers.
She also opened a retail store, Joyce Chen Unlimited, and
started a line of frozen foods.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yes, and the issue of access to ingredients was facilitated
by increased trade with China after President Nixon's nineteen seventy
two trip to the country, which gave Chen easier access
to some of the ingredients and items that she wanted
to use.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Or that she wanted other people to use.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah. Yeah, that she wanted other people to use. Yes.
Not only that, she successfully secured permission for her, her
son Stephen, and her daughter Helen to visit China that
same year. She got the production team show to teach
Steven some basics on filming, and Stephen got all kinds
of footage of their time there, later used in the
documentary slash travel Log. Joyce Chen's China first aired in
(21:12):
nineteen seventy three, and it was really powerful during a
time when China had been so vilified in the US
for so long. Throughout her time in the US, which
I feel like we've been saying throughout it was really
important to her to educate people about China and combat
anti Chinese prejudice. As part of that, she was a
(21:33):
founding member of the Greater Boston Chinese Cultural Association.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
In nineteen seventy three, Time magazine ran a profile on
her with the title Fortune's Cookie. M Yeah, yeah, so
mixed feelings about that one. But she was said to
be a millionaire at that point, so definitely a popular figure.
(21:59):
She did injure her hand in a kitchen accident in
nineteen seventy six, like a gallon jar dropped on it,
and so she began stepping away from her work around
that point.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Right, And then in the early eighties she was diagnosed
with multi infarked dementia and she died on August twenty third,
nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, these days people think it was probably Alzheimer's, but
that was a little bit more difficult to diagnose at
that time.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So she was posthumously included into the James Beard Hall
of Fame in nineteen ninety eight. That same year, the
last of her restaurants closed.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, Helen. Her daughter, Helen A. Cookbook author and cooking
instructor in her own right, wound up having to sell
the Joyce Chen Cookwear company to a corporation in two
thousand and three due to profit difficulties. There is still
cookwear being sold in her name, but Helen doesn't really
have anything to say about it. According to an interview
(23:00):
that she did with Food fifty two, Henry had been
running the retail shop, but it closed after his death
in two thousand and seven. Stephen still runs a company
that sells spices, sauces, and frozen dumplings called Joyce Chen Foods.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
In twenty fourteen, Joyce Chen was featured on a US
S Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
This was part of a line of commemorative stamps called
Celebrity Chefs Forever. They featured five chefs, Julie Child, James Beard,
Ada Lewis, and Felipe Rojas Lombardi alongside Joyce Chen. Jen's
show was digitized for the first time that year. In
twenty fourteen, so eleven of the twenty six episodes are
(23:46):
now online. And I'm bad at remembering to put links
up on social, but I'll do my best with this one.
It is on that PBS station's website. Of exhibits of
important stuff from their history. The url is openvault dot,
WGBH dot org.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, yes, and a lot of sources. I was reading people, unfortunately,
But the truth of it was that's how they discovered
George Chen was his stamp. They were like, who is this?
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Did I not know about her?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, she's up there with these other people who I
do know. Why don't I know her? Sure?
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Exactly, And so there was a lot of the show
coming out. I believe the documentary got some more publicity
after that. So stamps Stamp Show, and then Carrie Clicker's
picture book Dumpling Dreams How Joyce Chin Brought the Dumpling
from Beijing to Cambridge came out in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah. I think she was also inspired by those stamps
and she was like, oh, who is this? And then
she was like, oh, this person is really cool, and
so she did a yeah, a kid spock about her.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
She did, and it does show the despite the sad
fact that so many of us didn't know a lot
about her, it does show her lasting impact and especially
in and I would love if listeners write in about
this in Cambridge, like in that area in Boston, and
I even found a really fascinating article about Boston Chinese food.
(25:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it was just I would love
to know more. I would love to know more about that.
But she was a part of that. She was a
huge part of that. Oh well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, I write like like unfortunately, like that is what
we have to say about Joyce Chen for right now.
But I yeah, I didn't know that these episodes existed
until we started doing this reading, and so I'm looking
forward to watching the rest of them.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yes, yeah, And I'm very happy that it seemed she's
getting more recognition. I'm sad it happened after she died,
but I'm glad she's getting more recognition. And there is
a lot for you to look into listeners if you want. Yeah,
there's a lot out there. But yes, that is what
we have to say for now.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, And
we're back with listeners giving up the flowers.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Oh yeah, too late, unfortunately, but still that's still given Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
But still okay. So this is fun because we've got
some more potato salad messages. But also we have we
got a slew about hollow holloway.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Oh, I was counting on yall, and you've pulled through.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yes, they have pulled through. But starting with potato salad,
Sarah out, I'm writing to tell you I married into
a family that makes mashed potato salad made truly with
mashed potatoes. I grew up on German potato salad, so
had to get the recipe from my spouse's mother to
make what my spouse wanted for their birthday the first
(27:30):
year we were married. Imagine my surprise when it called
for potato flakes. But our kids love it as much
as he does. It's all that's made in our family now.
So yes, it exists. And I'd say it's Scottish slash Irish,
which is the heritage of his grandmother who originally made
it for her family. Oh he kid. This is so.
(27:54):
I am loving the wide range of potato salad experiences
and recipes getting fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, I love I love that right. Everyone's like, yeah,
of course I make a potato salad. What do you
mean you make it like that. That's not what I
want at all.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
What are you talking about? I love that you had
to you had to learn he's got a specific potato
salad he likes on his birthday.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Hey. You know, if you've got it's your birthday and
you've got a type of potato salad you.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Like, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
It is true, is.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Joe wrote, Summer isn't summer without hallow hollow. When I
was growing up, the Filipino community in my town was
still quite small, but that didn't stop someone from having
a hand cranked ice shaving machine and pulling it out
for summer picnics and birthday parties. You could usually find
jarret hollow hollow ingredients at an Asian market even then,
and there are jars with multiple ingredients inside of them,
(28:59):
like all in one, just add milk and ice. I
was a pretty picky kid, and sometimes my hollow hollow
was just condensed milk and shaved ice with litche fla
and ice cream on top. In time, I added fruit
and jelly. I'll eat most of the suggested toppings now,
but cold sweet beans have a bit of a weird texture,
even though they taste great. Attached our photos from my
(29:19):
family summer vacation in the Philippines last year. My dad
and uncle shared a gorgeous Buco hollow hollow. As you
can see, Buco is a young coconut, so the hollow
hollow was served in the husk with a very generous
serving of Buco strings. There was jelly fruit, ube, ice cream,
corn flakes, and even shredded cheese, popular topping in Filipino desserts.
(29:41):
I opted for something simpler, corn yellow, which you also mentioned,
specifically mice corn yellow, which has sweetened corn, shaved ice,
corn flakes, and either corn or cheese ice cream. I
can't remember both, as you can imagine, really hit the
spot because it was so stinged hot, multiple showers a
(30:02):
day hot. The ingredients of hollow hollow are what you
make of it, but I do think it needs shaved ice,
ingredients of different textures, and some sort of milk so
that it's all easy to mix. I remember that bonea
petit kerfuffle, and there was one even earlier when another
YouTube channel I think it was Taste Made, tried to
do one, but there was absolutely no milk. The Filipinos
(30:24):
and the cons in the comments were very upset. We
do have opinions trademark, oh dear, and the attached photo
does look really delightful and just so pretty. I man,
ube ice cream is so pretty, and I love things
(30:46):
served in a coconut, And oh that looks really good.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It does. And I love the shredded cheese. I wasn't
expecting it, but I think that would be really good.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Oh yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Oh it sounds why not? Indeed, Lauren, don't put limitations
on cheese? What am I thinking? This does sound lovely?
Like I can imagine how refreshing this must be on
a hot, hot summer day. Yeah, and just those fruits.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
And textures and the temperature and the melty melty ice.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
H uh huh. Oh sounds lovely. It just really really does.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Those are just like mad about it right now. Wonderful.
I love. I love being angry in this specific way.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yes, we really do.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
So.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Thank you. Thank you to both of these listeners for
writing in. If you would like to write to us,
you can Our email is Hello at savorpod dot com,
and we're.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts to
my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
(32:15):
more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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