Andrew Wong: A Life Through Food

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“It’s about trying to paint pictures – of different places, different moments in time, throughout China’s past.”

Andrew Wong grew up helping out in his parents’ Chinese restaurant in central London, convinced that he would never work in hospitality himself. But the “magic” of the industry drew him in – and today he’s chef-patron of a restaurant on the very same site as his parents’ place, but totally transformed.

In the decade or so since its launch, A.Wong has built a reputation for lunchtime dim sum, with an evening menu showcasing imaginative interpretations of regional and historical delicacies: from ‘Barbecued Forbidden City Sweetcorn with Wagyu Beef Meat Paste and Truffle’ to ‘Toasted Sweet Potato with Salted Black Bean Sauce, Black Tapioca and Liquorice Soy’. It’s also the first Chinese restaurant outside Asia to have earned two Michelin stars.

Jaega Wise visits the Pimlico restaurant to find out how Andrew’s fascination with China’s food heritage has inspired this unique dining experience; one that seeks to bring to life a rich and diverse culinary culture.

We also hear from cook and food writer Fuchsia Dunlop, who specialises in Chinese gastronomy and has written six books on the country’s cuisine; and Dr Mukta Das, a research associate for the Food Studies Centre at London’s SOAS University, focusing on Chinese food and culture – who collaborates with Andrew to dig into dishes and delicacies from the past.

Presented by Jaega Wise Producer by Lucy Taylor in Bristol

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the
0:03.8	podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.
0:08.6	It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.
0:15.3	What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism
0:19.8	and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.
0:23.7	And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject
0:28.4	you might not even have thought you were interested in.
0:30.2	Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,
0:36.1	you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.
0:39.7	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:44.6	Hello, you've downloaded a podcast of BBC Radio 4's The Food Program.
0:49.7	Welcome to our world, from cooking to culture, politics to pleasure.
0:54.7	We hope you enjoy it.
0:55.7	There are Chinese cooking techniques.
1:04.1	You would really associate with modernist cooking
1:07.2	in trendy restaurants in the West.
1:09.0	And Chinese cuisine has for centuries
1:11.1	been about a really analytical approach to ingredients and the
1:15.1	transformation of ingredients into exciting forms and that's something that I think most people in Britain wouldn't associate with Chinese foods.
1:27.0	There's a lot that people can understand about Chinese cuisine through Andrew's menu.
1:36.5	It's almost like an archaeological exploration of Chinese identity in Chinese cuisine. So you'll find dishes on his menu from all kinds of
1:45.9	regions that are totally unrepresented in other places, for example, featuring cheese from Yunnan.
	...

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