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Confucius Was a Foodie Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
6 Episodes 0 - 0
Episode 1
The Big Picture
Celebrity Chef Christine Cushing starts by meeting her three Chinese mentor chefs and, although language is a challenge, they are all fluent when it comes to their passion for food. Qu specializes in Shandong, Sichuan and Northeastern. Jon Zhang is a master of Huaiyang and Cantonese. Yi Yang, also known as Chef Tika, is a rare female master chef who is an expert in the cold kitchen of Huaiyang. Although each has their area of expertise, all three masters have an encyclopedic knowledge of the five classic cuisines. They are dedicated to producing the very best food that, according to Chinese philosophy, can only be created by chefs who approach their work with a good heart and a clear mind. They quickly find harmony with Chef Christine.
Episode 2
Cantonese
From a cuisine that originally frightened and confused North Americans Cantonese has become one that boasts more ethnic restaurants than any other in North America! Christine discovers that real Cantonese is a living example of the Confucian principal that food must always be fresh, seasonal and local, and realizes that a principle today's foodies believe is modern is actually from a 2,500 year old philosopher!
Episode 3
Sichuan
Originally, the cuisine's flavorings were very mild, unlike the popular dishes of today. Christine keeps searching for the more mildly flavored dishes but time and again her North American search yields mainly mouth-searing, eye-watering offerings.
Episode 4
Huaiyang
Huaiyang cuisine is a bit of a mystery. Said to be the cuisine of poets and scholars, and a cuisine which demands meticulous knife skills and elaborate presentations, the cuisine appears to be a personification of the teachings of Confucius. The creative presentation of skillfully combined ingredients expresses the four most important elements in the art of Chinese cooking; color, aroma, flavor and texture. This type of cuisine is refined and delicate, and a far cry from what most North Americans think of coming out of a takeout container! All of this is incredibly enticing, so why then is Huaiyang cuisine so little enjoyed or understood in North America?
Episode 5
Northeastern
What is Northeastern cuisine and what makes it so distinctly different? A huge part of North America has more in common with the weather and agriculture of the northeastern area of China so surely this cuisine would be more prevalent here. But Christine has learned that immigration is everything when it comes to portable cuisines. And, as China is so large and the northeast so remote, it turns out that even the Cantonese might not know Northeastern (or Dongbei) cuisine.
Episode 6
Shandong
Shandong cuisine, more commonly known in Chinese as Lu, is derived from the native cooking styles of Shandong, a northern coastal province of China. It is the oldest of the cuisines and was created during the Yuan Dynasty. Although it is thought to be a regional cuisine, Chef Christine finds that it has spread to northern China, Beijing, Tianjin and northeastern China, where it influenced imperial food. Shandong is the cuisine that Confucius would have enjoyed and contributed to. One of the three subcategories of the cuisine is known as Confucius Mansion cuisine. The other two are Jian cuisine, the cuisine of the interior, and Jiaodong cuisine, the food of the peninsula, which consists mostly of seafood.