Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food

King (Chinese gender and food history, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Between Birth and Death) offers a well-researched and charming biography of Chinese cook and culinary teacher Fu Pei-mei, whom the New York Times dubbed “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking” (though King points out that Fu’s television career predated the American icon). Regardless of whether they are familiar with Fu, listeners will resonate with King’s reference to Fu’s “dialect of dumplings,” which connects food, family, and history. King uses Fu’s life and career as a jumping-off point into a fascinating exploration of family, nationalism, and gender roles. Fu’s trajectory won her—and her fans as well—the independence they’d been seeking. She built herself from a woman who didn’t know how to cook to an unstoppable force whose food and cookbooks comforted many. Rebecca Lam draws listeners in with her precise diction and engaging tone, mixing the lecture style of a favorite professor with the ease of a friend talking about their favorite subject. She sounds so connected to the subject matter that listeners might double-check that King isn’t narrating the book herself.