Ching-He Huang, a Taiwan-born food entrepreneur in Britain, received a warm welcome and high praise when she spoke on Chinese culinary art and gave a live demonstration at an Asian food fair in London on Thursday.
The young, self-taught cook was the first culinary guru to be invited to speak at the Asian Food Festival organized by Asia House, a group aimed at promoting business, cultural and diplomatic interaction between Asia and Britain.
Sumi Ghose, Asia House's director of public programs, said Huang was invited to be the keynote speaker at the festival's first event mainly because she has emerged as the leading spokeswoman in Britain for modern Chinese cuisine.
PHOTO: CNA
Ghose, a Chinese food aficionado, said Huang's popularity lay in her ability to infuse new life and taste into Chinese dishes by extensively exploring traditional Taiwanese and Chinese food ingredients and cooking them in creative and tasteful styles.
Ghose added that it was very meaningful to invite her to speak and prepare Chinese dishes ahead of the Lunar New Year today.
Huang said she was honored to be invited to give a demonstration at the Asian Food Festival's first presentation program.
Huang introduced the origin and history of Lunar New Year celebrations in China and Taiwan and prepared two New Year's dishes — deep-fried glutinous rice cakes and salty rice dumpling soup.
She told a packed house that the rice cake symbolizes good fortune and that the salty rice dumpling represents families reuniting for the holiday.
Among those in attendance was Representative to the UK Katharine Chang (張小月).
“Through her introduction, many British citizens have become more interested in Chinese cuisine. Huang is truly a Chinese food ambassador (中華美食大使),” Chang said.
The 32-year-old Huang moved to South Africa with her parents at the age of five and relocated to London six years later.
She opened a food company — Fuge Foods — after graduating from the University of London, selling health drinks and adapted Chinese dishes that have made inroads into upscale department stores, such as Harrods and Selfridges.
It almost seemed inevitable that she would end up on television, and in 2005, her Ching’s Kitchen made its debut on UKTV Food (now known as Good Food Channel). Since then, Huang has made TV appearances on ITV's Saturday Cooks and Daily Cooks, UKTV's Market Kitchen and Channel Five's Cooking the Books. She is the author of Chinese Food Made Easy and Ching's Chinese Food in Minutes.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF REPORTER
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
CASE COUNT: The deceased had advised law enforcement agencies regarding 60 fraud cases this year, leading to the confiscation of NT$9.3 billion in alleged illegal proceeds Prosecutors yesterday launched an investigation into the death of cryptocurrency expert Miffy Chen (陳梅慧), who died in a car crash on Wednesday under what some consider to be suspicious circumstances following her work with law enforcement to track down NT$9.3 billion (US$286.97 million) in alleged illegal proceeds. Prosecutor-General Hsing Tai-chao (邢泰釗) tasked the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office with investigating the incident following requests from the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) and other agencies with which she worked to crack several prominent cases involving financial fraud and money laundering. Chen was killed in a six-car pileup near Hsinchu in the northbound lanes of Sun
RSS