Cooking is Martin Yan's life but the zest this culinary genius brings to his television shows has a deeper purpose -- he wants to bring people and cultures closer together, writes Zhao Feifei.
With characteristic outbursts of "ooh" and "aah", Martin Yan debones a chicken with his Chinese cleaver in 10 seconds. And even more amazing and wacky, he also gives the chicken a 10-second massage.
"It helps the chicken to relax," says this 57-year-old celebrated chef and television personality with his ever-present sense of humor. For 25 years, Yan and his toothy grin have been seen on television across the United States and in some 80 other countries.
His Yan Can Cook series won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1998 as the best cooking show. Recently, he starred in Taiwanese director Sylvia Chang's comedy, Rice Rhapsody, and became the spokesperson for the President instant noodles. Now he has started filming a cooking show for a Shanghai television program. "I just finished 52 shows which are broadcast throughout the world, including Hong Kong, Singapore, India, England and Australia. I'm really happy if people here can see my show as well," he says.
Yan always blends acrobatic cutting techniques with slapstick humor in his shows. His extraordinary handiwork with the most ordinary fruit and vegetables is an astounding display of martial arts. Aspiring chefs can find a dozen of his best-selling cookbooks on the Internet. Yan's many guest appearances on TV include NBC's The Tonight Show and ABC's Good Morning America.
On his weekly TV show Yan Can Cook, Yan has brought Chinese and Asian cuisines into the mainstream of American cooking. Now he is bringing Western influences to the cuisine he is presenting to Asia. "The cooking and eating habits of Asians have changed. More supermarkets carry Western-style foods and seasonings," says Yan, who describes himself as an "ambassador of culture" between Asia and the rest of the world. For him that's not an empty boast. He has been named as "Culinary Diplomat" for the American Culinary Federation. Born in south China's Guangdong Province, Yan started cooking when he was 12 years old.
His mother's cooking had a lot to do with his affinity for the culinary art and even today she still has a huge influence on him. However, his first formal contact with the world of cooking started when he was 13 and he began his first apprenticeship in a well-established Hong Kong restaurant in Kowloon. Food has become his life and he enrolled in the Overseas Institute of Cookery, paying tuition by doing odd jobs at the school.
After earning his diploma from the institute, Yan went to Canada and then to the United States. He received a master's degree in food science from University of California. Later, he began teaching Chinese cooking classes at the university but as he only started speaking English when he was 16, his first classes were a little rough around the edges.
"When I first started teaching, my students dozed off," Yan recalls. That started to change during one class when a student snored so loud that it became distracting. Yan grabbed his wok and a spatula, walked over to the man and shook him awake.
The class erupted in laughter and Yan realized that humor was an effective aid to communication and is an international language of education. Since then, he has never stopped cracking jokes. "It's not an act. It's just my enthusiasm coming out," he says.
Yan broke into TV in 1978 after opening a restaurant in Calgary, Canada. He moved to the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States with his own show about a year later and has been a hit ever since. The globalization of Asian cuisine made Yan an international star. He is dedicated to dispelling the mysteries of Chinese and Asian cooking and furthering an understanding and enjoyment of different cuisines and cultures. "You don't have to use expensive ingredients to do gourmet dishes. You can use things that are seasonal and fresh to create lots of delicious dishes," he says.
Yan cooks and eats with engaging gusto. As a master chef, he is also slim and fit. "The most important thing is to eat a variety of food, and always remember to eat in moderation. It's the balance of yin and yang," he says. "Actually, the philosophy of yin and yang is one we Chinese follow not just in the cooking and eating of food but in everyday life. For instance, if you love certain things, you always learn to watch out that you do not have too much of one thing -- even it's making money or enjoying success. "Food is the same. You don't want to have too many deep-fried dishes. You don't want too many dishes all with meat.
You want to balance meat with a vegetable dish and you want to balance the sweet and the sour with some lighter fare. On top of that I do exercise on a daily basis." Apart from the Emmy Award, Yan has received two James Beard Awards for Best TV Food Journalism and Best TV Cooking Show. He also has received special recognition among his peers as a master chef. He is a 2001 inductee into the James Beard Foundation's D'Artagnan Cervena Who's Who of Food and Beverage, which honors cooking professionals for their significant achievements. To him, cooking is beyond a culinary pleasure. "Food and cooking brings people and families together," he says. "I think nowadays people are beginning to forget family value.
Family life is breaking down. People are running around too much and spend too much time showing off their material gains. Cooking is very calming. Even a lot of men love to do the weekend cooking. "I am very fortunate to be able to work with food and to make a reasonable living doing what I love to do. Cooking is not a job, not a vocation. It's an avocation. Plus, I don't have to wait in any of the best restaurants in America. The chef usually seats me straightway and, in the end, I don't have to pay," says Yan, who just can't shake off his antic TV persona.
(Shanghai Daily December 28, 2004)
