Soul of a Banquet (2014) - full transcript

I was born in, uh, Wuxi.

It's a small town
near Shanghai.

When I was four years old,
from Wuxi we moved to Beijing.

And I'm from
a very big family.

We have 12 children--

nine girls
and three boys.

And I'm number seven daughter
in the family.

We live in a big house,
and also--

We have also a big kitchen.

And when we were small,

we're not allowed
to go to the kitchen...



to do the cooking.

And my mother
was the one...

supervised all the food...

and running the household.

And my father
was very--

had very modern mind.

Kind of very open.

So--

And very funny.

Usually, in Chinese family,

father is the strict one
and the mother
is the kind one.

But in our family,
just opposite.

My mother is a tough one,

but my father is very open
and always discuss things
with us.



I feel like Cecilia is one of
the last of an old school.

She's one
of the last people...

who really grew up...

in sort of Chinese splendor,
in a very traditional family.

Very fortunate
that her mother's feet
were bound,

and for the great,
good fortune,

her father decided
that none of those girls' feet
were going to be bound.

Think about how different
her life would have been...

if they had been
traditional enough.

She would not be alive.

But she had
this extraordinarily
happy childhood,

growing up
in a very large family...

with an extremely
competent mother--

who ran the household
with a fist of iron...

but cared deeply about food,
knew about food--

and, apparently,
a very kind father...

who educated all
his daughters beautifully.

Cecilia and all of her sisters
went to college.

So she grew up probably
at a very rare moment...

in Chinese history,

where she spanned
the old traditions...

and the coming of the new.

When we were little,

we're not allowed
to sit with my father to eat.

My father usually
always sit first, alone,

on the table.

Then my mother prepare...

six or eight small dishes.

And then let my father
sit down there...

and enjoy
all these dishes...

with a little champagne,
maybe vermouth...

or sometimes sherry,

all the different French wine.

They say,
"Oh, we smelled it
from outside the door."

So we try to sneak in.

So my father saw us,
said, "Come on. Come right in."

So he invite us
in the dining room.

Then we're going,
"Papa, what are you having?"

So my father said,

"Here's a chopstick.

Come here and taste this."

And then even sometimes
give us a little wine to taste.

"Oh," we say,
"that's just so wonderful."

And then my mother
asked my father,

"Oh, what do you think
about these dishes?"

So my father explained.

"Oh, this one, I think it needs
a little bit more spice.

Not enough flavor.

That one, I think,
a little bit salty."

Always say that.

"Oh, that's a very good dish
maybe with wine."

So when we were little,
we learned this--

how to-- the flavor of--
the taste of the food.

And also, that time
I realize...

not only the Chinese wine
goes well with the Chinese food.

And even the French wine
and champagne.

And pairing
with Chinese food is excellent.

I once asked her
about an appetizer dish...

that she was serving
at the Mandarin.

And she said,
"Oh, this is something...

that my mother used to make
for my father."

And I have this sort of memory
of standing in the kitchen
with Cecilia,

watching her tasting things
and shaking her head...

and throwing in
a little more salt
or a little more ginger.

Um, so one of the things
that I think is extraordinary
about her...

is that she has
this taste memory
that's locked in,

that goes back to a time--

There aren't a lot
of people alive...

who remember
the food of that China.

The great food
of the great houses...

when you had chefs
who had been
classically trained.

And, um, somewhere
deep inside of her
is this memory...

of what that food
should taste like.

And part of it
comes from having sat
at her mother's table,

not being in the kitchen,
not being allowed
in the kitchen,

but sitting there,
tasting the food...

and knowing that
because it was on their table,
it was right.

She said that she
had come from Japan,

where she was living
with her husband
and her children.

And her sister needed her.

And so she had gotten
a three-month visa
to come here.

And, um, while she was here,
she met some people...

who wanted to open a restaurant,

and, um, they needed money.

And with kind of typical
Cecilia generosity,

she lent them the money
to start this
and signed the lease.

And then they all backed out.

And she was left
with a restaurant...

in a country
that she was going
to have to leave any minute...

'cause she only had
a three-month visa.

And she was a little nervous
about telling her husband
what she had done.

And she realized
she had to make a success of it,

that her honor
was kind of in it.

And she became
a very accidental restaurateur.

I opened
a Chinese restaurant
outside Chinatown.

I got no choice,

because first thing--
I'm not Cantonese.

I doesn't speak
any Cantonese.

And I don't even
understand Cantonese.

And when I go
to Chinatown--

Those days, if you
don't speak Cantonese,

they treat you
like a foreigner.

They fence you out.

So even if I want
to move to Chinatown,

I cannot get in.

I don't speak their language.
They treat me like enemies.

Mm-hmm.
So finally, I--

I, uh, pick up this by--

pick up this place
also by coincidence,
by mistake.

I didn't think about
I'm going to open
a restaurant.

Because my friends
asked me to deal with them
for the lease.

Then they back out.
I got stuck.

And maybe--

maybe that's because
of my destiny.

I think it was fated.

So my-my-my life,
whole life, it changed.

It's very hard now...

for any American
to understand...

what the state
of Chinese food in America
was at that point.

Um, for a lot of reasons,
mostly immigration laws,

there were no Chinese cooks
in America.

And the restaurant--
There were many Chinatowns
all over America.

Chinatown New York.
Chinatown L.A.
Chinatown in San Francisco.

But the food that--
for the most part--

that was served
in those restaurants...

was, um, food
that was not cooked by chefs
'cause there were no chefs here.

So it was food cooked
by Chinese people...

who were nostalgic
for the food of China.

But, um, most of the people here
came out of a peasant tradition.

They weren't cooks anyway.

Um, the food
became Americanized...

as Americans went
and discovered--

So it was not, um,
in any respect...

like great Chinese food.

I want do something
totally different
from Chinatown.

Whatever they serve
the food on the menu,
I'm not going to serve.

Somehow-- Those days
I was quite young.

I don't have
any experience
running a restaurant.

Somehow I just thought--

Anything-- the chop suey,
egg foo yong--
I'm not going to serve.

I want do something
totally different.

And I want to serve
real Chinese food...

and educate
the American...

how to eat
real Chinese food.

Just shortly after
Chez Panisse opened in 1971,

Marion Cunningham
invited me...

to come to a cooking class
at the Mandarin.

Now, Cecilia...

not only sort of guided us
through the cooking class,

but she guided us
through the whole menu...

and how we were
to experience Chinese food,

not like any other cuisine
that I had experienced before,

and why certain courses
came first...

and, uh--
and what ones came next...

and how you had
to really prepare yourself
for a real banquet.

Uh, that
everything had to do
with textures and colors,

how it had to do
with the time of year,

how it had to do
with good health,

how it had to do
with lots of vegetables.

It had to do
with sort of cleansing
of the palate.

It had to do
with portion size.

And everything
just came together.

It made sense to me
that they were close friends,

because there's something
similar about them.

They're two very fierce women--

two women who
were running restaurants
who were not chefs.

And two women...

who had a notion of why they
were running the restaurants...

which did not correspond
with anybody else,

with what anybody else
was doing.

Um, they both had an idea
that transcended
just feeding people.

Um, and neither of them
did it to become rich or famous.

Um, and I think for Cecilia,

it was very much
about giving her history...

to an American public,

about her enormous pride
in her upbringing,

her knowledge that the China
that she had grown up in
no longer existed...

and her attempt to save it
in some way,

to show people what it was
and how it tasted...

and what that food meant.

And Alice, in her own way,
wanted to do the same thing.

I know that I was
sort of well trained
in rebellion.

Being part
of the free speech movement
and the antiwar movement...

in the United States
in the '60s.

And-- And so it-- it just
seemed reasonable for me,

uh, to-- to open a place...

and feel like people
would come to it--

a different
sort of restaurant.

I didn't want that
sort of very fancy
stiff French restaurant.

I wanted
a kind of country place.

And I had no idea
that it would seem so unusual...

at the time.

I basically just--
May I say something?

Wanted it for my friends.
Yes.

Remember when
you would talk...

about Chez Panisse
and everything?

You said, uh,

"My restaurant is not--

I'm not going into it
just to make money.

I want to make my restaurant
like a little club...

for my friends
to get together."

Remember that?
Mm-hmm. I do.

So I said, "Well,
you also probably like to
make a little money too."

Cecilia is, in many ways,
the history of China...

in almost
the last hundred years.

And she is very much
a person who has never
let fate push her around.

I mean, she has controlled
her own destiny.

She walked out of China.
She came to the United States.

She worked incredibly hard,
and she grabbed
every opportunity.

She never waited
for anything to come for her.

She went out and took it.

And she has this very optimistic
kind of American spirit.

And when she went back
to China in 1974,

she discovered something
really shocking to her...

and discovered
that for many people,

life had been very different.

Yeah, the last time
I saw them,
that was 1946.

I went to Beijing.

Then I went to see them.

Like, 1974,
during Cultural Revolution.

So about 37 years
I haven't seen them.

And so a lot
of things happened in--

We just lost contact,

because that time
we cannot write to them.

And they can't--
They didn't even know
where we were also.

So 1970, '72--

Then we got a telegram--

actually is
my sister Sophie.

That time she was live
in San Francisco.

So she got a telegram...

from my younger sister.

Says my father is very sick,

hope some of the girls
go back to see him.

During the Cultural Revolution,

some of the famous chef,

they change their profession.

They've got no choice...

because the government
force them.

And also they have no demand.

They cannot find
a good job for--
No more restaurants.

In China, they're called

No menu, nothing.

Just four dishes
and one soup.

You have no-- no choice.
A fixed price.

So everybody eat
the same thing.

You have no demand.

You say,
"Oh, I want a banquet."

Nobody can cook a banquet.
Nobody knows how.

What Mao did
to Chinese food was a crime.

He basically took
this great legacy
and destroyed it.

And the great chefs of China
either left...

or they were sent out
to be reeducated.

And so you have
this huge gap...

when no great Chinese chefs
are being trained.

And what was eaten during
the Cultural Revolution...

was basically one big pot.

It was a kind
of subsistence stew.

And Chinese food,
as it has been known
for thousands of years--

the great tradition--

had come screaming to a halt.

In 1983,

Cecilia invited our friend
Marion Cunningham and myself...

to go on a culinary tour
of China.

And we arrived in Beijing
in the middle of the night.

And they had
to turn the lights on
at the airport...

so that our plane
could come in.

We were the only plane
arriving at that airport
in the night.

We went to this, um,
Peking duck restaurant...

that Cecilia
was so excited about...

and discovered
that it wasn't the same
as she remembered.

And people
weren't attentive and
the duck was very greasy.

The most amazing lunch
was presented...

at, uh,
the Summer Palace.

But we were
the only people there.

Now, I can't say that
the food was exceptional,

but the place
was exceptional.

And, again, Cecilia
was very disappointed
with the service.

People didn't seem
to be paying attention.

And I think, uh,
the food had been
brought from elsewhere.

It wasn't until we went
to Taiwan afterwards...

that Cecilia explained
that most of the chefs
had left China...

and were cooking in Taiwan
at the time.

We had some
exceptional banquets--

in fact, stunning banquets
in Taiwan.

I learned so much
about Chinese food there.

There's this
new generation of young
Chinese-American chefs...

who do very
interesting food.

But they've never tasted
great classic Chinese cooking.

And they're
throwing out something...

that they
don't even know about.

I mean, they're, um--

It's like they're starting
in the middle...

instead of starting
from a baseline...

of having learned
all of the cla--

Once you know
all the classics,
you can throw them out.

But you need to know them
before you abandon them.

You need to have them
firmly rooted in your psyche...

and in your cooking...

before you say,
"Okay, I don't want
to do this anymore."

And it's-- For me,
it's like there's a generation
of young Chinese chefs...

who do interesting things,

but would do so much more
interesting things,

would be such better chefs,

if they had the grounding...

in the kind of food
that Cecilia makes.

Chinese food, mostly,
is really the prep work.
Cuts a long time.

For just a simple
three dishes--

It's still
beautiful.

I just love it.

This dish takes
one hour just cutting.

Just think how fine--
It's so amazing.

Think on
how small diced--
I do.

This a big--
That's thick piece
of

So it's cut-- But if you
don't cut that fine,
it won't taste good.

People don't
understand it.

Like, sometimes
my daughter ask me,

"Mama, do you really have
to cut that fine?"

I say,
"Yeah, you don't have to."
I have plenty.

I say, "You don't have
to cut that fine,

but won't taste good."

You can cut that--
It tastes really
quite different.

Just kind of marries
in a different way.
And it's something--

But now these days
the kids just--

they don't want to spend
that kind of time.

They rather
do something else.

It's because they haven't
learned about it.

And I think we all have
a kind of desire...

to be connected
with gardens and nature...

and that we really do
love the culture
of the table.

We do like to cook.

But we haven't been given
an opportunity to do it.

I love to have a good soup.

So I cook a good soup.

I make my own chicken broth.

I make my own beef stock.

That takes forever.

Slow, slow cook.
But I--
It smells good.

I also like the smell.
So do I.

Yeah, in the--
That look like a home.

You walk in.

"Oh, boy, this is a home."
You know?

One of the things
that was great about it--

When she would give a banquet,
she always knew what your
favorite dishes were.

So you would show up,

and, um, you would realize
that she had paid
real attention...

when you were eating.

You thought
you were just eating
a dinner at the Mandarin.

And she was paying attention
to what you particularly liked.

You know, I miss
her restaurant so much.

So much.
I-I-I--

It was a taste of food...

that really
feels like...

it rarely exists
in San Francisco.

Sometimes
in people's homes,
you know.

Sometimes
in restaurants...

when somebody
is doing something
really intentional.

But the quality
of the food,

the whole ambience
of the place,

the very precise dishes
of northern China--

You know, the way
that Cecilia--

the hospitality
of the meal,

uh, just doesn't
exist anymore.

And so I just thought...

there are so many people
who would like
to experience that again.

And I said, "Well,

would you like to do a party
for the 40th birthday
of Chez Panisse?"

You frying some rice?

May I wash this?
Okay.

Thank you.

The invitation
says she's an icon--

The invitation
says she's an icon
in Mandarin and Chinese cuisine.

Last minute
the office called Cheng.

Because
at 6:30 will come.

I still don't
quite get it.

So in other words,
Alex and Joe will--
How--

They're gonna come
and just go around...

and put a little piece on?

They're going
to serve it?

They're
supposed to serve it,
put it on your plate.

I-- My suggestion
is to put it on a cart,
and we'll set it up.

Because we're going
to serve that first thing.

That's going to be
our first thing?

Yeah, that first thing
is clear.

You can have that chair.

Hmm? Okay.

Yeah. Thank you.
Bonsoir.

I want to tell you
about tonight's dinner.

The dinner
is family style banquet.

It's nothing that fancy.

It has shark fins
and very nice soup.

And this is--
Most dishes
I cooked tonight...

is, uh, from
my mother's recipes.

And, uh--

So it's very simple,

but it is very tasty,
I hope.

The pork kidney--

usually somehow
Cantonese don't use that much.

I think first thing
it's very hard to clean,
very hard to prepare.

So first thing
you have to buy real fresh.

Then you remove
the white thing inside.

And then slice very thin.

Then you shred it.

Cut it. Slice it.

Then when you cook it,

then they open up
like a flower.

You like that?

What is this?

Oh, this is pork.

You want some spinach?

This is the pork.
Pork kidney. Yes.

Then you put it
on the top.

The "bon bon"
is just a little nickname.

Maybe they kill this chicken
by use the bon. Bon bon.

The bon bon in China
is just a stick--
a wooden stick.

Kill the chicken.

And, actually,
the real name
of this chicken,

they call--

That means
"very odd flavor."

Odd-flavor chicken...

have five--
five different flavors.

Have a little--
little sweet,
a little sour,

a little, um, spicy,
and also salty.

Before you eat it,
before you taste it,

you try to figure out
what is--

After you finish,
there's an odd distant flavor...

still linger around
in your mouth.

One of the great things
about the Mandarin--

When you went there,
she would come
and do this.

And so you weren't
just eating food.

She was giving you
the context.
Yep. Yes.

She was making it
kind of magic for you.

This is fresh wood ear.

And also this
is wolfberry.

This is imported from China.

Goji. Goji.
Goji. Goji.

But somehow, this two--

Now, this two dishes
in China is very popular.

This goji
very good for your eyes.

And also lower--
lower your cholesterol.

This is what
a Chinese doctor told me.

This fresh abalone.

And Bill, he caught himself.

Wow.

And serve it
and also slice it.

It's a fresh
and paper-thin slice.

So this is
a very unusual dish.

This is-- This dish
we change a little bit.

In the menu, we said pick whole
long Chinese string beans...

and used
to cook with pork.

But today,
since we have
a whole abalone,

we use only
in the middle part.

And peppercorns,
add some more.

So we cook this dish
of rabbit.

Celebrate
the Year of Rabbit.

But there is something
very special.

Rabbit only
in Sichuan province.

Yes, I remember that.
They eat it--
You remember.

Because all
the other provinces,

the people,
they don't eat rabbit.

All right.
Let's transport it out.

Yeah.
Ha ha!

The story behind
this chicken is--

In China, in the old days,
we have a lot of poor people.

Everybody knows that.

So they cannot afford it
to buy a chicken.

So they steal
this chicken...

in somebody's backyard
somewhere.

And they don't have
a stove.

They don't have anything
to cook with.

So they just kill
the chicken...

and then get some mud
and the clay,
put it on.

And then started
the wildfire outdoors
and then bake it.

So this is called
"beggar's chicken."

Hard. Hard!

Okay.

Ah!
There we go.

Thank you.
Thank you.

So good.

Because I got a fresh plate.

I must say one thing.

Today all the dishes
you're having here...

I don't think you're
getting anywhere else.

Not in the restaurants.
Not even in New York.

This is
red-cooked pork.

That's my signature dish.

This is
what they call--

One of the most popular dish
now is pork belly.
Pork belly.

Now even
French Laundry
serve this.

Red-cooked in China
we call hongshao.

That's a typical
Shanghai dish.

And somehow
the Shanghainese people
love a little sweetness.

This is my mother's
favorite dish.

And I remember
when we were kids...

we just use the juice--

Put a bowl of steamed rice,
white rice.

We finish
a bowl of rice.

Let me tell you
my favorite Cecilia story,

which is like right after
I first met Cecilia.

She and Marion and Alice
went to China.

And Marion, famously,
doesn't drink.

And Alice was pregnant.

And Cecilia took them
to banquet after banquet...

where, you know,
there would be 32 toasts.

And Alice said,
"Cecilia drank her toast.

She drank Marion's toast.
She drank my toast."

Because she didn't
want to be impolite.

And she was still standing
at the end of every banquet.
That's great.

And-- The unstoppable
Cecilia Chiang.

This is, uh--

Oh, fantastic.

Wong have
to say something.
This is so great.

Yeah, this was
a pork belly with
black sesame paste inside...

and sticky rice
under pork belly.

Thick chili.

Mmm. That looks good.

Yes.

Cecilia.

Oh. Okay.

This is something, um--

I have to say something
about the fish.

In China, the fish
always come last,

because this is--

Fish in China
pronounced yu, Y-U.

The Chinese would say--

And this is--

Because the sound "yu"
means you're going
to leave something...

for next generation
for tomorrow.

So always have
something left...

for your kids
for next year.

So we don't eat--
We don't eat this all.

A very memorable night
I had at the Mandarin...

with a group
of wonderful friends
of Cecilia's.

And we were gathered
at this big table
in the corner of the restaurant.

And Cecilia had brought in
special dishes from home...

that were very elegant.

And, uh,
she brought in the soup...

in this beautiful bowl
with a top on.

And when she lifted the top,

we saw the soup
all covered with coriander.

And exactly at that moment,
there was an earthquake.

And-- And we were startled.

The soup
just went up and back.

And I just sort of thought
it was part of the performance.

It was like--

It's like
part of the drama of
eating at the Mandarin.

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