The Seventh Daughter
The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters
American Public Media
4.3 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2008
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week it's a look at the life of a culinary innovator. Cecilia Chiang was a pioneer in bringing regional Chinese food to America with the opening of The Mandarin, her San Francisco restaurant. It became a culinary landmark and Cecilia became a leader in the city's food community. Her book, The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey from Beijing to San Francisco tells her story. Cecilia's recipe for Lion's Head, a Shanghai specialty, is from the book.
It could be the ultimate corned beef sandwich for Jane and Michael Stern at Tucson's Feig's Kosher Foods. Baking authority Dorie Greenspan is back from "Chocolate University" and stops by with tips for a chocolate tasting. She leaves us her recipe for Gooey Chocolate Cakes from her fabulous book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.
Tea expert Bill Waddington joins Lynne for a tasting of new old teas—two varieties treasured in China but unknown here. Ethan Lowry has the scoop on Urban Spoon, a wonderfully innovative source for good eats in cities across the country. And, as always, the phone lines will be open for your calls.
Broadcast dates for this episode:
- February 9, 2008
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Ana Gonzalez, through this complicated country. |
| 0:08.1 | We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails to meet people, hear their stories, their poetry, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature and get closer to the things we're missing. |
| 0:24.4 | Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts. |
| 0:36.5 | It's Lynn Rosetta, and you're listening to The Splendid Table, the show for people who love to eat. |
| 0:42.8 | Our program is produced by American Public Media and supported by RumenBord, handcrafted furniture for your home at RumenBord.com. |
| 0:51.7 | Well, today we talk with the Grandame of the San Francisco food scene, |
| 0:55.6 | Cecilia Chang. She didn't know she was a visionary when she opened a little Chinese restaurant |
| 1:00.9 | in San Francisco back in 1961. Cecilia was in the wrong neighborhood with a kind of Chinese |
| 1:07.1 | food no one had ever tasted, and the story gets only better. You know all the intricacies |
| 1:13.5 | of tasting wine? Well, chocolate's stepping into that arena. Baking Prodory Greenspan has had lessons |
| 1:20.4 | in tasting the good stuff. Tea expert Bill Waddington brings us a kind of tea that we've never had access to before. |
| 1:29.3 | The teas that tea families grow for themselves. |
| 1:32.7 | And as always, in the second half of the show, we're going to be opening the lines for your calls. |
| 1:37.0 | You can get to us at 800, 537, 527-52. |
| 1:41.4 | So let's get going with Jane and Michael Stern. |
| 1:43.9 | They write the Road Food column in Gourmet Magazine. |
| 1:54.3 | Lynn, I don't know if the name of this restaurant we're about to recommend is FIGs or FIGs. |
| 2:00.6 | It's F-E-I-G-S. But it is an extremely unlikely |
| 2:05.5 | restaurant in Tucson, Arizona, where perhaps the last thing one might expect to find is a |
| 2:12.6 | kosher deli. But that's what FIgs is. Or Figgs. Or Figs. So what are they, maybe you would explain for people who don't know what a kosher deli is, what we're talking about? Well, a kosher deli means it goes by the kash root rules, which is there is no cheese, no dairy product whatsoever in this place. You can get great smoked fish. There's all kinds of meat, pastrami, corn beef, and so forth. |
| 2:38.3 | But absolutely no dairy, and of course, needless to say, no pork. |
| 2:40.2 | They have a short menu. |
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