Customer Reviews

The Last Chinese Chef

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are certain times where I feel a certain condescension when I read foreigners trying to read meanings and poetry into what I feel is my domain as a person of Chinese ancestry. This isn't one of those times. In fact I feel humbled and delighted by the lessons that Nicole Mones was able to impart upon me.

It is rare that I get up from a book about China so totally enthralled and educated from a tome written by a yang ren, a foreigner. This book is the second book that has made me feel this way in the last few years. The first was Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present by Peter Hessler, it was a non-fictional observation about China and the impact that globalization has had on Chinese society. This book is a work of fiction, by virtue of that fact, it was able to draw me further into all that it had to convey: on being Chinese, on the complicated intertwining of Chinese food culture and general culture, on the meaning of guanxi, on the wonders of Chinese cuisine.

I had always felt that due to the unsavory nature of Chinese-American food as it is, that the true nature of Chinese cuisine has never been fully unleashed on the American palate. I have stewed on the fact that the French and Italian cuisines rank so much higher on the sophistication scale of the American gastronome versus the lowly Chinese cuisine. I felt it but I was unable to express it adequately. Nicole Mones has done this and more with this story. Her descriptions of the dishes, her attention to the details of the preparation, her insistence on relaying the philosophical nature of food, on presentation, on the small details and gestures so very important in China, on the little puns and literary allusions of Chinese food had opened my eyes and sent me headlong into a frenzy to rediscover my heritage through my ample stomach. Thankfully, she was good enough to have included an afterward full of resources for research so that I can research these ideas on my own.

To top it all off, she was able to wrap all of the scholarly work in a very touching and suspenseful story. After all, guanxi is all about people. The characters in this book are not necessarily completely developed, except maybe for Sam and Maggie but the other characters are developed enough to elicit emotional responses, I cared about what happened to these characters. The relationships drawn in the story are very Chinese and yet also very western, the ending had a nice and tangy sweetness to it which made me smile.

I really liked this book, it combined a lot of my own personal loves: my ancestry, food, methods of writing, and China itself to pull me in and stay there until the end. It was informative with out being didactic, sentimental without being maudlin, philosophical without being humorless, and dramatic without dropping into melodrama.

I guess you can say that I endorse this book highly.

Nicole Mones delivers a languid, sumptuous story about an American widow, Maggie McElroy, who journeys to China to find out whether a child born there to another woman was fathered by her late husband. She also has an assignment to write an article on a Chinese/Jewish-American chef, Sam Liang, who is descended from a line of venerable masters of cuisine and to whom Maggie gradually,sweetly grows close.

The reader is immersed in the lives of those Maggie meets, in the essences of Chinese culture and familial bonds, and in the meaning of food and the culinary arts there. Often whilst reading, one can almost breathe in tempting aromas of dishes being prepared in bustling Chinese kitchens. But although succulent meals can be vicariously savored regularly in THE LAST CHINESE CHEF, and food is arguably at the heart of the novel, Mones doesn't scrimp on plot or on presenting believable and very different human characters, all of whom share one bounty: every person is basically decent and kind (not a ready characteristic of much current literature). No character leaves a dastardly or incorrigible impression when all is said and done. Indeed, the reader is left with a halcyon -- though perhaps an overly optimistic -- feeling that everything works for good, even if fate isn't immediately favorable.

Four and a half stars for a luscious feast of a book that radiates a love for China, its people, and its delectable cooking traditions.

This book combines everything worthy in this world, good food, tender love and the warmth of family and place that touch your heart. Anyone who's "in love" with China would know the crazy feeling that enfolds you and everything becomes surreal and every sense is heightened.

This book captures that feeling and more...the characters are so real and believable that the moment the characters finally come together, it's something you've been rooting for all along. You want him to win, you want her to heal her heart...you want them together. When she thinks of staying in China forever, you tell her, yes, go on!!!

You read the culinary history excepts of Liang Wei with just as much intensity and you feel yourself drawn into a world that you wish you knew or as Sam feels, needs to be connected to...to be whole. The conversations he has with his uncles are some of the liveliest parts of the book....family ties you wish you had following you around the kitchen.

You don't need to love Chinese food or be a culinary history buff, this book is that good. But I guarantee you'll become one afterwards. You'll want another book to continue because the stories are so rich and there's still so much more we want to experience and *taste*!!! Did I mention all the luscious food, you'll never look at wonton soup the same way again...

Luckily, the downplayed notation on the cover indicating "A Novel" was accurate. Though The Last Chinese Chef was an inspired novel, it really was so, so much more. I could recount the general storyline for you as so many reviews do, but you can read this on Amazon for yourself. Not to be understated, it really does have an excellent story. Though I hate to admit it, I longed for my reading time each day to find out if Matt was the child's father and if Sam would be selected from among the greatest chefs. Nonetheless, the drama was not overdone, and the intertwined stories of culinary history and lessons of Chinese cuisine were sensational.

My heritage is primarily Northern European, but as someone who happily lives milk-free, my diet is largely made up of various Asian cuisines. Needless to say, I love Chinese food. But only on occasion have I had the chance to trial the flavors of "real" Chinese food. They are so much deeper, complex, yet not suitable to the average American palate.

The author, Nicole Mones, stepped outside of the comfort zone to introduce westerners to this cuisine that in reality, we hardly know. I was truly amazed by the intricacies of Chinese cuisine. The concepts of texture and appearance are taken to new levels, rivaling flavor in importance on the Chinese table. I learned so much from her writing, too much to even detail, and my curiosity has only been heightened.

The only problem I had with this book, was that on occasion it took me a moment to figure out that their had been a scene change and who was talking. But perhaps this my lack of novel experience. As I continued reading, I was easily able to catch up with the story and put it all into perspective.

Thanks to Mones, I have received some renewed inspiration in the kitchen, and seem to be tasting my food in a new way. Not to mention, I am now eager to take a trip to China! For any curious cook I can not recommend The Last Chinese Chef enough.

This story provides a wonderful peek into "guanxi" -- the Chinese concept of relationships. And food is at the heart of Chinese relationships. For example, unlike in America where food is individually plated, all meals are shared in China. Food there is a presentation of symbols, suggestions and references, connecting people not only to one another but to their culture, art, and history (p. 164).

The love story that develops along this culinary back drop is tender and believable. The book made me look at basic every day interactions with friends and family as an opportunity for gentler, more sensitive exchanges.

I cannot give this book enough praise. Everything was so perfectly balanced in this story that I could find no flaws. The characters were rich and complex, the description was exact and fascinating, and the plot flowed like a languid river. The setting, contemporary China, may be the strongest "character" of the book, with its varied and exquisite food being a close second. Mones is a skilled writer and the Western world fell away as I was transported into the culinary memory of several characters. Would make a terrific book group read.

If you're not careful, you might assume that THE LAST CHINESE CHEF is a cookbook. Even the reviews on the book talk about the author's ability to share details about food and its preparation. This book is better than that. After you meet Maggie and follow her until she meets Sam, you'll realize this book is about romance, about connecting unexpectedly with people so different from yourself, about understanding the Chinese relationship with food and with one another and the outside world. Sam turns out to be someone any woman would love to know. I highly recommend this book. When I finished reading it, I wanted the characters to keep going.

If you have watched Big Night, Babette's Feast, or Eat Drink Man Woman -- especially more than once -- then you don't need to read farther. The Last Chinese Chef is the novel equivalent of those "foodie movies." And on food descriptions, culture, and history alone, the book is simply awesome.

At first, I was a little turned off by the storyline and the prose style. It's a little spare. A lot of short sentences. Self-conscious description. Too many viewpoint characters. But I found myself getting interested in the plot (which is far subservient to the food), and I ended by sitting up late to finish the novel. (That's always a telling sign, for me, that the book earns at least 4 stars. I can turn off the light at 9:30pm if it's a perfectly nice 3-star book.)

Simple plot synopsis: Our heroine, who writes for an American food magazine, was widowed a year ago when her husband was killed in a car accident. Now she's learned that a woman in China has filed a paternity suit; logistically, she needs to go to China to deal with it. Since she's already in the country, her editor suggests, why not write about this up-and-coming American/Chinese chef...

You'll savor the food descriptions. You'll like (maybe not adore but like) the story, because it's a peek into a different culture. Even if you're a well-read foodie, you'll learn plenty about the social and food history of China (such as the fate of the Imperial restaurants during the most intensely communist era). And you'll say, "Honey, I'd really like Chinese food for dinner tonight!"

Just minutes ago I finished reading Mones' "The Last Chinese Chef". Not only was I so taken by this book that during the three days I was reading it, I had stir fry twice - breaking an absence from such of almost a year; but, when the book was concluded, I just had to keep reading more - every word was tasty to the very end... We are warned not to read this book when we might be hungry. Somehow that didn't seem to make any difference: I wanted the food I was reading about every syllable of the way.

Coupling authentic Chinese dishes with their related cultural meanings wove a rich tapestry of color, taste and feeling which served as the backdrop for a sweet romance written with discretion and sensitivity.

I love this book. It is a wonderful story that blends the very interesting details of Chinese history, culture, and food along with a young woman's journey back from grief. The descriptions of many of the food truly made my mouth water. The family and commuinity spirit surrounding meals are a refreshing reminder that eating, while nourishing is also social and is most definitely about sharing love.