The Woman Who Taught America How to Cook Real Chinese Food

By Fanny Wong, author, New York.

Standing on the kitchen stool, Yin-Fei could barely see the wok on the stove. Who would expect a five-year-old to cook with a wok and a spatula?

It was Ah Po, Yin-Fei’s grandmother!

“Just the right age to learn cooking,” Ah Po said. “And never have a short temper or use bad words when you are in the kitchen.” She then pointed to a paper image of Jo Kwan, the Kitchen God, and added, “You want Jo Kwan to think well of this family.”

Baba, Yin-Fei’s father, instructed her, “Eat first with your eyes, then with your mind, then with your nose, and finally, with your mouth.”

Luk Gu Jeh, her aunt, was another teacher of hers. “With patience and practice, you can create something that brings happiness and miles of satisfaction,” she told her.

With a family like hers, Yin-Fei was born to be a chef.

Yin-Fei’s skills grew with Ah Po’s instructions.

“Chop the choy sum properly.”

“Stir the fish mixture in one direction to make it stick together.”

“Pour the hot peanut oil and soy sauce on the steamed fish.”

For Yin-Fei, the learning was easy, but finding the joy in cooking was hard.

Too much time cutting and dicing.

Too much time waiting for the oil to be hot enough to stir-fry.

Too much time waiting for the meat to be tender in the braising pot.

But then Ah Po’s birthday changed everything for her.

Yin-Fei was to contribute one dish for Ah Po’s birthday. She picked the White Cut Chicken recipe because in her Chinese culture, a chicken was always cooked for special occasions.

Yin-Fei placed the whole chicken breast side up in seasoned boiling water and covered the pot. When the water returned to a boil, she lowered the heat to simmer, turned the chicken and let it simmer again. She had to time the cooking just right, and allow the chicken to rest in the pot to finish the cooking. Otherwise, the chicken would be overcooked or undercooked.

Yin-Fei lifted the chicken from the pot. She prepared a dipping sauce of soy sauce and ginger. It looked perfect, but did it taste perfect?  

Yin-Fei watched Luk Gu Jeh cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces with a cleaver. Ah Po, surrounded by her family at the table full of many delicious dishes, chose to eat the chicken first. She took a bite, closed her eyes, and chewed it slowly.

Yin-Fei held her breath and waited for Ah Po to finish swallowing.

“Hm….” Ah Po opened her eyes that crinkled with a wide smile and commented, “That was the best chicken I ever had.”

Everyone at the table loved the chicken! Not a single piece was left over! An eleven-year-old girl had made her loved ones happy with her cooking skills! From that moment on, making delicious dishes was her gift to others in the family, a way of showing her love and respect.

Now, she was eager to learn more from Ah Po. She learned that what people ate had to be balanced within their bodies.

Foods such as fish and most vegetables brought them coolness.

Foods such as most meats and some fruits brought their bodies heat.

The combination of these two types of food brought balance and good health to the body.

Yin-Fei learned to cook balanced meals for good taste and good health.

But life was not balanced in their village of Sun Tak. To escape the repressive government in China, 12-year-old Yin-Fei fled with her family to Hong Kong. There, she continued to improve her cooking skills by learning from her aunt. She also learned English in night school and picked an English name for herself—Eileen.

When she was 21, she met an American journalist named Fred Ferretti, and they fell in love and soon married. They moved to New York City. And that was when Yin-Fei’s life took another turn!

Her new in-laws brought her to a Chinese restaurant.

“What is this? This omelet is like an overdone pancake covered with a brown sauce,” she remarked.

“This is egg foo yung, our favorite Chinese dish,” her in-laws said.

From that moment, Yin-Fei had a mission! She wanted to teach Americans how to make good-tasting, authentic Chinese food.

First, she gave her friends Chinese cooking lessons at her home.

“You must write a book!” her friends said.

And she did. Eleven books in all! Each book taught readers how to cook traditional Chinese food at home.

She also taught at cooking schools and appeared in cooking demonstrations on television.

And when a renowned chef invited Yin-Fei to create a dim sum menu for his restaurant and teach his cooks, that’s exactly what she did. She took charge of his cooks!

“No, no, no, do it this way, let me show you.”

If she felt a Chinese restaurant was not up to her standards, she was not shy to say to the chef, “Make it this way, don’t Americanize your food!”

Yin-Fei had found a new passion. She wanted to teach others about how to make good Chinese food.

“Always learn, learn, learn, and never take a short-cut in cooking,” Eileen Yin-Fei Lo told her students. “The food you cook shows your love and respect.”

Yin-Fei became a great chef and a teacher who taught Americans how to cook authentic Chinese food. Born and raised near Canton, the capital of Guandong Province, Cantonese cooking was her specialty.

She taught at The New School in New York City and beyond—from Singapore to Helsinki. Cooking shows on television invited her to demonstrate how to make authentic dishes. She won two International Association of Culinary Professional Awards. Many Chinese food writers that came after her still think of her as the foremost Chinese expert chef.

Yin-Fei passed away at age 85 in 2022, leaving a delectable and mouth-watering legacy.

By Fanny Wong, Asian American author, New York. Fanny has written often on multicultural interest topics and been published in Skipping Stones frequently.