Grace Zia Chu

Grace Zia Chu (1899–1999) was an author of Chinese cookbooks and a landmark figure in American Chinese culinary world. Chu introduced generations of Americans to Chinese cooking.^[1][2][3][4]

Personal life

Grace Zia Chu was born in Shanghai in 1899. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1924. Obituary by WILLIAM GRIMES Published: April 19, 1999

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/19/nyregion/grace-zia-chu-99-guide-to-chinese-cooking.html

Grace Zia Chu, who introduced a generation of Americans to Chinese cuisine though her cooking classes in Manhattan and her landmark book The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking, died Thursday at a nursing home in Columbus, Ohio. She was 99.

In an era when most Americans believed that chop suey was a classic Chinese dish, Mrs. Chu led her students and readers, step by step, down the complicated byways of Chinese cooking, which, she explained, differed from region to region and, ideally, relied on raw ingredients that did not come from a can. For home cooks bewildered by the unfamiliar ingredients and techniques involved, Mrs. Chu proved to be an ideal guide. Assuming, correctly, that her readers knew precisely nothing about Chinese cuisine, she wrote clearly and simply, tailoring her recipes to the realities of the American kitchen, even if that meant calling for creamed corn in the recipe for chicken velvet corn soup.

Mrs. Chu was born in Shanghai. She was the eldest of the nine children of Zia Hong-lai, a Christian educator and editor, and Sochen Sze. After graduating from the McTyeire School for Girls in Shanghai in 1918, she won a scholarship to Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., where she earned a degree in physical education in 1924. After returning to China, she taught at McTyeire and taught physical education at Ginling College in Nanjing, and from 1935 to 1947, she was a vice president of the world Young Women's Christian Association.

In 1928, she married Chu Shih-ming, an army officer and an official in the Nationalist Government who at one time was an interpreter and aide-de-camp to Chiang Kai-shek. When he was posted as a military attache to the Chinese Embassy in Washington in 1941, Mrs. Chu took on the entertaining duties that transformed her into an ambassador for Chinese food.

Mrs. Chu returned to China after World War II but left in 1950 and took up permanent residence in the United States, becoming a citizen in 1955. By that time she had settled in Manhattan, where she began teaching cooking classes at the China Institute. For the next 30 years, she taught at the institute, the Mandarin House restaurant on West 13th Street and at her apartment on West 111th Street.

Her classes later resulted in two cookbooks, The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking (1962) and Madame Chu's Chinese Cooking School (1975).

In The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking, Mrs. Chu patiently guided her readers through unfamiliar territory. She listed and described the basic ingredients of Chinese dishes, and the utensils and techniques used to prepare them. She showed how to use a Chinese cleaver, how to hold chopsticks, how to grow bean sprouts at home and how to order a proper Chinese meal in a restaurant. In a concession to American tastes, Mrs. Chu included recipes for chop suey, chow mein and other Chinese-American hybrids, but then pressed on to offer more authentic fare like string beans in bean curd sauce and lobster with black bean sauce, as well as challenging banquet dishes like shark fins with Chinese cabbage.

The book may well be the finest, most lucid volume on Chinese cooking ever written, Craig Claiborne wrote in The New York Times in 1962. To a generation of Americans familiar with the distinctions among Sichuan, Hunan and Cantonese cooking styles, The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking reads like a period piece, but in the early 1960s it was a badly needed instruction manual. It is telling that in his review of the book, Mr. Claiborne had to explain to readers that a wok was a Chinese cooking utensil.

With Arthur Chu, Mrs. Chu wrote Oriental Antiques and Collectibles: a Guide (1973), Oriental Cloisonne and Other Enamels and The Collector's Book of Jade (1978).

Her husband died in 1965, and Mrs. Chu moved to Columbus in 1986. She is survived by her sister, Ruth Zia, of Columbus; two sons, Samuel, of Columbus and Daniel, of New York City; three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

MRS. CHU'S CHICKEN VELVET CORN SOUP

From The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking, by Grace Zia Chu

Time: 20 minutes

1 whole chicken breast, uncooked

2 egg whites

1 8-ounce can creamed corn

3 cups clear chicken broth

1 teaspoon dry sherry

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons minced cooked ham (optional)

1. Slice and mince the chicken breast, discarding the skin and bone.

2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and mix with the minced chicken.

3. Dissolve the cornstarch in 2 teaspoons of cold water.

4. Bring the chicken broth to a boil; add 1 teaspoon of salt.

5. Add creamed corn and let boil 1 or 2 minutes.

6. Add pre-dissolved cornstarch, stirring continuously until soup is thickened.

7. Stir the chicken mixture into the soup. As soon as it boils again, the soup is ready.

8. Sprinkle the minced ham on top of the soup before serving.

Photo: Grace Zia Chu taught classes in Manhattan and wrote two cookbooks. (The New York Times, 1961)

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/19/nyregion/grace-zia-chu-99-guide-to-chinese-cooking.html

Notable works

The New York Times called her 1962 cookbook The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking. Chu authored Madame Chu's Chinese Cooking School in 1975, a detailed cookbook from the beginner to an advanced cook.

Grace Zia Chu was named Grande Dame of Les Dames d'Escoffier, New York Chapter in 1984.

See also

• Chinese Americans in New York City

References

External links

• Papers of Grace Zia Chu, 1941-1986. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.