The Last Chinese Chef

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It's a hit!

There are certain times where I feel a certain condescension when I read foreigners trying to read meanings and poetry into what I feel is my domai... (show more)

There are certain times where I feel a certain condescension when I read foreigners trying to read meanings and poetry into what I feel is my domain as a person of Chinese ancestry. This isn't one of those times. In fact I feel humbled and delighted by the lessons that Nicole Mones was able to impart upon me.

It is rare that I get up from a book about China so totally enthralled and educated from a tome written by a yang ren, a foreigner. This book is the second book that has made me feel this way in the last few years. The first was Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present by Peter Hessler, it was a non-fictional observation about China and the impact that globalization has had on Chinese society. This book is a work of fiction, by virtue of that fact, it was able to draw me further into all that it had to convey: on being Chinese, on the complicated intertwining of Chinese food culture and general culture, on the meaning of guanxi, on the wonders of Chinese cuisine.

I had always felt that due to the unsavory nature of Chinese-American food as it is, that the true nature of Chinese cuisine has never been fully unleashed on the American palate. I have stewed on the fact that the French and Italian cuisines rank so much higher on the sophistication scale of the American gastronome versus the lowly Chinese cuisine. I felt it but I was unable to express it adequately. Nicole Mones has done this and more with this story. Her descriptions of the dishes, her attention to the details of the preparation, her insistence on relaying the philosophical nature of food, on presentation, on the small details and gestures so very important in China, on the little puns and literary allusions of Chinese food had opened my eyes and sent me headlong into a frenzy to rediscover my heritage through my ample stomach. Thankfully, she was good enough to have included an afterward full of resources for research so that I can research these ideas on my own.

To top it all off, she was able to wrap all of the scholarly work in a very touching and suspenseful story. After all, guanxi is all about people. The characters in this book are not necessarily completely developed, except maybe for Sam and Maggie but the other characters are developed enough to elicit emotional responses, I cared about what happened to these characters. The relationships drawn in the story are very Chinese and yet also very western, the ending had a nice and tangy sweetness to it which made me smile.

I really liked this book, it combined a lot of my own personal loves: my ancestry, food, methods of writing, and China itself to pull me in and stay there until the end. It was informative with out being didactic, sentimental without being maudlin, philosophical without being humorless, and dramatic without dropping into melodrama.

I guess you can say that I endorse this book highly. (show less)

 

 

by Pete Wung

No, it's a flop!

It was a lovely light read - but not enough depth. Although there were some resonant moments for me - a great insight into the culture of food and... (show more)

It was a lovely light read - but not enough depth. Although there were some resonant moments for me - a great insight into the culture of food and sharing. Not only in China. As a traveller, if you are prepared to jump into the food culture of the country, then you will experience a new world. But most people won't eat the food, so miss out on all the associated experiences. (show less)

 

 

by Facebook narys

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  I loved this book, so much that I made myself stop reading a couple of times to prolong it. The prose is clean and elegant, the setting lush and beautiful, the characters fully realized in their flaws and foibles, and the FOOD! I was hungry through every chapter.

  The story is intricate, with many different points of view culminating into one place at the end. Everything is nicely tied up, but not contrived. What I enjoyed most were the relationships between the food, the characters, the ... (show more)

  I loved this book, so much that I made myself stop reading a couple of times to prolong it. The prose is clean and elegant, the setting lush and beautiful, the characters fully realized in their flaws and foibles, and the FOOD! I was hungry through every chapter.

  The story is intricate, with many different points of view culminating into one place at the end. Everything is nicely tied up, but not contrived. What I enjoyed most were the relationships between the food, the characters, the history, the culture, the literature; everything is richly intertwined. I'll be thinking about many of these themes for a long time to come, particularly the idea of sharing food as ritual and relationship rather than just nourishing the body. The juxtaposition of this very Chinese idea with the western reliance on Plato and his like (deny the body in favor of the mind) is fascinating.

  I don't usually say this about books, but this one would make a good movie. It's so visual, and the interaction between the characters, given good casting, could be really compelling on the screen. They would have to cut out some elements of the story, but I think it could be done well. (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook narys on Mar 23, 2009 at 07:01PM

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  The love story is nothing really special or original.In fact, it is quite predictable. If you're looking for a great romance book, this is not one.

  The REAL, GREAT VALUE of the book is the documented, extremely original, praqxtically sensual description of the old traditional chinese cuisine, from cooking recipes, to gastronomic history and to the hierarchy in the chinese kitchen. So the book really keeps you reading out of sheer curiosity for what a real chinese recipy is and what rules... (show more)

  The love story is nothing really special or original.In fact, it is quite predictable. If you're looking for a great romance book, this is not one.

  The REAL, GREAT VALUE of the book is the documented, extremely original, praqxtically sensual description of the old traditional chinese cuisine, from cooking recipes, to gastronomic history and to the hierarchy in the chinese kitchen. So the book really keeps you reading out of sheer curiosity for what a real chinese recipy is and what rules the chinese gastronomy follows. Mones has a way of describing all these without becoming boring or too documentary and you can feel that she has lived in China and was entrhilled by the way of life.
  I loved the book , could not put it down until it was finished , and would recommend it to anyone who loves a book about China, gastronomy or 'exotic' ways of life. (show less)

   

   

  by Krystallia Papadimitriou on Mar 15, 2009 at 12:03PM

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