I still remember as a young tike walking into the kitchen to a group of neighbors oohing and awing over an object that seemed to be garnering far too much attention if you judged it on just appearance. My father was tossing meats and veggies into this thing and second’s later people were fawning over the finished product. This, my furry little friends, was my introduction to the wok and some severely bastardized Chinese food. As the years went on, the wok was used more and more sparingly until it appeared to be nothing more than a kitchen ornament. How this kitchen utensil got into my family and why it created such excitement can be attributed to one man: Stephen Yan.
Stephen Yan was a Vancouver restaurateur who was born in Hong Kong and started his own cooking show on CBC called “Wok With Yan”. The premise of the show was that Yan would come on and tell a few corny jokes to the studio audience and then he’d show the viewers how to make some Chinese food. He would always wear an apron with a different pun on the word “wok” on it. (“Wok the Heck”,” Superior Wok Manship” etc.) At the end of the show he’d invite a randomly selected audience member to try his food. His show became syndicated all over the world (including Asia) and made for happy times if you were in the soy sauce business in Canada at the time.
Yan went on to make other shows, write books, and a video cooking series. I went on to University and a Chinese takeout spot near my house called Garden View (Gag n Spew) that served up such delights as Chicken Chow Meow and Cum of Sum Yung Gi. Every time I turn on the TV for another of the seemingly endless food shows I think back to Yan and a simpler time. Stephen Yan was a true pioneer and innovator. To him I say Good Wok.
If you want to watch reruns, just Video Google search “Wok with Yan”.
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