More Asian Food Movies: The God of Cookery

Stephen Chow and friends await customers for their newly-developed Explosive Pissing Shrimp Beef Balls

   




Hong Kong produced The God of Cookery (Chinese: 食神; traditional Chinese: 食神; pinyin: Shíshén; Cantonese Yale: Sik San) in 1996, a year before Hong Kong's reversion to Chinese sovereignty.  For my purpose---a source of quotes conveying the spirit of Hong Kong cooking in the '90s---that's spot on.  The locations alternate between the Night Market stalls of Temple Street, brightly lit banquet boats and a roof-top view of the sky-scrapers of the city center.  

   
I'm not a student of Stephen Chow's films, but this comedy seems to riff on just about everything, everywhere.  Stephen, a Top Chef type who styles himself The God of Cookery, satirizes the Chairman, of Japan's Iron Chef, by over-analyzing everything from banquet dishes to a bowl of ramen.  If the Kitchen God is the messenger of moral behavior from Chinese families to the Gods, the message on Stephen is not good.  He's abusive, shallow, and greedy; about as far from a Confucian gentleman as you can get.  He can't cook but he can manufacture showy items with kung-fu style, yet another cinematic touchstone.  The market ramen scene and simple bowl of rice scene have to be nods to Tampopo, the 1985 Japanese "noodle Western,"  which similarly dissects the components of ramen soup. (Here, I must note that noodles were invented in China during the Han Dynasty, and presumably so were noodle soups...)  Of course Stephen Chow does finally learn both cooking and moral behavior when he happens upon the Shaolin Monastery and apprentices in its kitchen.

   
Could he have learned to cook the dish both chefs start for the final contest, "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall," in a Buddhist monastery?  It is a dish that requires two days of preparation and contains quail eggs, bamboo shoots, scallops, sea cucumber, abalone, shark fin, chicken, Jinhua ham, pork tendon, ginseng, mushrooms, and taro.  

   
As it turns out he cooks a different dish for the contest, a simple rice dish made for him by the stall cook, Turkey, with love.  Stephen says "Everyone can become a God of Cookery.  Even parents, brothers, sisters and lovers, as long as they have heart.  Everyone can become a God of Cookery." (Strange words coming from the king of franchises and vendor of canned Explosive Pissing Shrimp Beef Balls.)

   
This "cooking from the heart" trope is only one of the themes in Tampopo, where ramen is all about getting the precise recipe and correct technique.  The 2010 Korean film Le Grand Chef 2: Kimchi Battle definitely comes down on the side of heart.  

   
In my reading of Gourmet Magazine of this era, the travel articles about Hong Kong encompass both vendor food and banquet cuisine, while the restaurants opened in San Francisco and New York as a result of the influx of Hong Kongers before Revision leaned to the elaborate techniques and extensive ingredients of the banquet boats.  Enjoy both and The God of Cookery!