This one stuck because of the first time Yan-kit and I prepared it, hanging it in strips on coat hanger hooks fixed to the grill of the gas oven, and so called it. In desperation, Yan-kit would come to our cold-water flat in Onslow Gardens to cook barbecue pork (char hsiu), which we dubbed Charles Liu.īE I have retained the habit of calling char siu ‘Charles Liu’ as do some of my close friends, such that I often have to correct myself when I order it at a shop. At that time there were only two Chinese restaurants in Central London, each of them too expensive for students. very much took to life in London, except for its lack of good Chinese food. This type of Western menu was fairly standard in Chinese restaurants on the Canadian Prairies until the arrival of fast food. For dessert, there were usually at least three sorts of pie: apple, raisin, coconut cream, along with vanilla ice cream. Typically, it – and other Chinese restaurants – offered a menu including fish, veal cutlets, pork chops, steak, and chicken, along with mashed potatoes, peas and carrots. On the occasional trips we made to the city of Lethbridge for shopping and an excursion, we had lunch in a Chinese restaurant on the main street. Just before noon, we would gather at a Chinese restaurant to eat soup, halibut with mashed potatoes, and coleslaw, ending with pie and ice cream.Īre those dishes typical of the Prairie Chinese you grew up with?īE My parents never ate Chinese food, but being British, they loved fish. Those tastes and flavours remain with me today and are sometimes recaptured in small-town Chinese cafes. Later I developed a taste for the Cameo’s chop suey and chow mein – enhanced, of course, by soya sauce. I remember the hot rice in particular because up to then I had had rice only in my mother’s rice puddings it was never served to accompany main dishes. It was a simple stir-fry of chicken, celery, onion, and tomato served with steamed rice. TCQ: How vivid are your memories of those first foods?īrian Evans My first experience of Chinese food (prepared in the kitchen of the Cameo Cafe by Herbert’s mother) remains with me visually more than gastronomically.
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She taught me how to use chopsticks and fed me authentic Chinese food. in Taber in 1923, the year the Exclusion Act went into force, banning any further immigration of Chinese women (and Chinese men who were not merchants) to Canada.
His first friend was Hebert How, a Chinese boy whose parents owned a small-town diner called Cameo Cafe, serving a style of Canadian-Chinese cooking Evans calls “Prairie Chinese.”Īfter completing a three-year degree at the University of Alberta, Evans enrolled in London’s prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he cooked char siu with a classmate who became the influential chef and cookbook author Yan-Kit Martin. We were lucky enough to correspond with Professor Evans in his later years, when we asked him to comment on some intriguing passages from his book (excerpted below in italics) about his seven decades eating Chinese food.īrian Evans was born in the mining town of Taber, Alberta, and grew up in the “isolated splendour” of the prairie, eating chokecherry jellies and Saskatoon berry pies. Trust us, it’s worth it. From start to finish, Evans weaves insights on China-Canada relations with a charming account of his lifelong fascination with China, an unlikely pursuit that began in the Great Depression at a Chinese-owned restaurant in rural Alberta. You’ll have to read Evans’ autobiography Pursuing China: Memoir of a Beaver Liaison Officer to learn whether Trudeau’s beaver diplomacy survived translation. We were at an impasse, the sort on which the very history of the world turns. “They have large tails and swim under water.”
“You know,” we said, “they have large front teeth.” “What,” asked the acting interpreter, “are beaver?” There was only one problem: No one at the Chinese Foreign Office knew how to translate beaver. He immediately lobbied for and won the job. That designation filled Brian Evans, a Canadian Sinologist and the embassy’s cultural officer, with unbridled joy. For the safety and wellbeing of the animals, and to facilitate the official handoff, the embassy was advised to appoint a member of its staff the “Beaver Liaison Officer.” In the fall of 1973, the newly established Canadian embassy in Beijing received a telex about four beavers that would be presented to China during Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s upcoming visit.
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