Cecilia Chiang, the mother of Chinese food in America

when i was young i can use three you can eat how many 30 30 of these yes that's that's a whole meal it's hard to imagine life without chinese dumplings you sound like an american college student yeah i can use sorry even now 95 year old cecilia chang showed us a whole variety including these pot stickers at san francisco's yang singh restaurant but when chang first came to san francisco's chinatown in 1960 you couldn't find them here what did pass for chinese food in america was foreign to the chinese-born chang back in china you didn't know mugu gaipan never heard of it egg foo young never heard of it chop suey no i never heard of it but when a botched business deal stuck chang with the lease for a restaurant an accidental restaurateur was born chang grew up the seventh daughter of nine in a 52-room mansion with two chefs she wasn't supposed to cook and she hadn't until 1961 when she opened her legendary restaurant the mandarin and introduced america to the grandeur of authentic chinese cuisine with dishes like peking duck kung pao chicken and sesame shrimp did you find that americans were adventurous eaters or not at all your adventures in certain things about food they don't want to even try and at first few gave the mandarin a try it wasn't even in chinatown then one day powerful san francisco columnist herb kane stopped by for a meal the business was slow and today is so busy what happened and then there's people walking said the oregon hurricane's column i said who is here you don't know this is the guy who can break you and make you for 30 years an elegant madam chang presided over the elegant restaurant that became a mandatory stop for bold-faced names john lennon is the best customer of mine not to mention freddie mercury of queen luciano pavarotti and jack nicholson you know jack nicholson starred in chinatown but he wasn't going to chinatown he was going to mandarin yeah because jack nicholson is a big big people people love him honky walking everybody oh boss lady can you give him to my table everyone because frank's not the same way big deal the documentary soul of a banquet shows that the food world also took note from james beard to julia child to alice waters chang taught them she guided us through the whole menu and how we were to experience chinese food even though she's retired the imperial chang still commands authority so i don't like to follow i like to do something different i'm like not a copycat i want to do something on my own it may be a myth that marco polo brought noodles from china but it's a fact that cecilia chang brought respect for one of the world's oldest cuisines and tell me the truth every once in a while do you ever go and sneak some chop suey i think right now somehow chelsea is really disappearing i think i know who to blame

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 155,210

Keywords: video, cbs, news, Restaurateur Cecilia Chiang, chinese food, Chinese cuisine, food, Mandarin, San Francisco restaurant

Id: uBGNpOZu3yw

Length: 4min 9sec (249 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020