#ChineseFoodiesofIG: Jonathan Wu of Imaginary Chinese Food

 

This is part of an ongoing series of interviews I’m doing with my favourite Chinese foodies that I follow on Instagram. Come and follow the #ChineseFoodiesofIG hashtag on Instagram and leave a comment showing your support for these talented folk!

Where are you from? Where are you really from?

From a physical standpoint: I was born in the Bronx, NY and moved to the Hartford, CT area when I was 5. I grew up there, in suburban CT, until I moved to Chicago, IL to go to college. 

Emo-culturally: I've always felt kind of out of place from where I grew up. 

What does home taste like?

Home tastes like my Mom's Hong Shao stew with soy eggs and tofu.

Share a food memory:

When I started cooking professionally in 2002, I never thought I'd cook Chinese food. I attended the French Culinary Institute, cooked abroad in France, Spain, and Italy, and worked in New American restaurants, mostly in Manhattan. Then, in 2009, I was visiting my Grandma who lived just north of NYC. I was becoming interested in cooking Chinese food and asked her if there were any Chinese vegetables in her garden that we could cook with. It was mid-Spring and she took me into the yard. We harvested glossy, oxblood red leaves from her toona sinensis tree and made scrambled eggs with chopped leaves. The taste - earthy, minerally, garlicky - blew me away! It was a completely new flavor to me and 100% Chinese. This was the moment I decided to dedicate my life to cooking Chinese food.

The secret to Chinese cooking is:

Labor. Lots of labor. In my experience, Chinese cooking is a lot of work. Even what would be considered the most ‘basic’ or ‘homestyle’ cooking is still labor-intensive, relative to many other cuisines.

Who's your Chinese food legend?

My Mom. Popo and Gong Gong. Yuan Mei. Sam from The Last Chinese Chef.

MSG: Yay or nay?

This is probably a weird answer: 

  1. I don't use powdered msg (synthetic msg) So I never sprinkle ajinomoto powder on my food. 

  2. But, I will use condiments / sauces that contain "synthetic" msg like laoganma.

  3. I love to pack my cooking with "natural" sources of msg like ferments, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc.

Dream dinner party guests:

Any of my friends or family really. We used to host dinner parties often and haven't since the pandemic started. I would just be grateful to be able to have guests over and to feed them.

Idea for a Chinese fusion dish:

I like doufu-ru, fermented tofu. On the scale of Chinese ingredients it is one of the more hardcore. My Mom uses it to flavor stir fried greens. I like to take these super Chinese ingredients and play with the context. So I'm making furu - white chocolate ice cream. Fusion is what I am. It's me, so the majority of my cooking is in this realm. Recently, I chopped pidan aka century eggs (along with congee) and put them into my sourdough bread.

What does Chinese food mean to you?

I didn't grow up speaking Chinese. I did grow up eating Chinese food - so it's the strongest connection that I have to my cultural heritage. Chinese food is everything to me.

 
#ChineseFoodiesofIGJenny Lauchinese identity1 Comment