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PBS cooking shows changed my life. PBS cooking shows changed yours, too, whether or not you actually watch them. Julia Child’s “The French Chef” wasn’t just the first PBS cooking show — it was the very first program broadcast on PBS.
I watched every episode of “The Frugal Gourmet” as a kid, taking notes on the proper ratio of oil to vinegar for a salad dressing, learning to stretch the flavor of a lemon by stripping it of its zest before releasing its juices, even though ours was a ReaLemon household. (I was shattered when the show’s host, Jeff Smith, was embroiled in abuse allegations in the 1990s, but I still carry the lessons learned from his show to this day.)
It was through PBS cooking shows that I learned about the way that people outside my white-bread, working-class community cooked and ate, opening my eyes to a world that I could experience right from my kitchen. I accepted Justin Wilson’s gar-on-tee that Cajuns knew what to do with the holy trinity and a spice rack; I was rapt to see how Lidia Bastianich salted boiling water for pasta and then used some of that starchy, seasoned broth to sauce the final product. When Martin Yan said he could cook (and so could I), I believed him.
But 20 years before Yan convinced PBS viewers that a wok belongs in every kitchen, before PBS had even picked up where the National Educational Television network left off, another Chinese-American chef and cookbook author had taken a stab at it. In the mid-1960s, Joyce Chen became America’s first nationally syndicated cooking show to feature a woman of color.
Chen quite literally followed in the footsteps of Julia Child, whose success on WGBH (Boston’s public media station) paved the way for instructional cooking series on public television. In fact, Chen’s show, “Joyce Chen Cooks,” was filmed on the same set as Child’s “The French Chef” with the same producer, merely swapping out the set decor between filming. The point of adding Chen’s show, WGBH’s station manager Dave Davis wrote in a letter to a colleague in 1966, was to “look like we’re trying to specialize in cooking shows.”
PBS stations around the country would eventually add dozens of cooking shows (OPB’s offering was the highly rated “Caprial and John’s Kitchen,” which aired across more than 60% of the country during its prime).
Both Chen and Child aimed to show average Americans how accessible foods from other cultures were; how they could offer a taste of high living without costly trips overseas, and how similar the flavor principles and cooking techniques of China are to those of France.
While Child’s show was sometimes viewed by the French as a clichéd, overcomplicated caricature of French cuisine, Chen was accused of Americanizing her recipes too much, dumbing them down into a pale, safe alternative to the genuine article (though she did at least include MSG). But Chen was already aware that some recipes needed shortcuts or substitutions, and seemed aware that gatekeeping her native cuisine was no way to encourage non-Chinese cooks to give it a try.
This all begs the question: Are egg rolls, beef with broccoli, General Tso’s chicken and chop suey bastardized versions of Chinese food, or are they really just a different type of regional Chinese food, as respectable as any other dishes borne of the Chinese diaspora? How long must a dish exist before it’s considered “authentic”?
I say it’s time to challenge the idea that “Americanized” dishes are inauthentic. Cuisines evolve; tastes change, ingredients come and go (or go viral) and culinary traditions have always — and will always — adapt to cultural shifts. Do you think Italian cooks were immediately gung ho about tomatoes when they hit European kitchens in the 15th century? On the contrary, it took 200 years for tomato sauce to become a staple of Italian cuisine, and the idea to serve pasta with red sauce — arguably one of the most iconic dishes of Italian cuisine — didn’t occur until the 18th or 19th century. This is nearly as long as Chinese people have cooked an adapted version of their food with American ingredients.
This recipe, based on the classic sesame noodles from American Chinese restaurants around the country, is very fast and pretty cheap, relying on a few easy-to-find ingredients. And make no mistake, it is Chinese food.
A couple notes: Most sesame noodle recipes call for peanut butter, but I prefer the salty, fermented funk of miso here — it’s a really nice complement to the earthy nuttiness of sesame paste. Feel free to use peanut butter instead if you prefer. And if you don’t have toasted sesame seed paste (which has a richer flavor than raw tahini), you can blend toasted sesame seeds into a smooth paste with a little neutral oil. Serve room temperature or cold, serves 4-6
Ingredients
1 pound thin Chinese egg noodles (or spaghetti)
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
2 green onions, finely sliced
Chopped cilantro, julienned cucumbers, crunchy chile oil, etc. for serving (optional)
Sesame noodle sauce
2 tablespoons toasted sesame paste (not raw tahini)
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
¼ cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon miso or smooth peanut butter
1 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine) or sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced (or grated on a microplane zester)
2 tablespoons finely grated ginger
Instructions
- Cook the noodles according to the package instructions. Strain, reserving a cup of the cooking liquid, and rinse in cold water. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and set aside.
- In a blender or with a whisk, blend the sauce ingredients, adding the reserved noodle cooking liquid as needed to achieve a smooth and creamy consistency. Pour the sauce into the noodles, tossing until evenly coated. If the noodles drink up all the sauce, add a little more of the cooking liquid and sesame oil to loosen up the sauce a bit.
- In a suribachi or mortar and pestle, crush the toasted sesame seeds to release the fragrant oils. Add the crushed sesame seeds and sliced green onions to the sauced noodles, tossing once more to mix. Taste and adjust salt as necessary, then serve with whatever garnishes you like.
