HKU Bulletin October 2015 (Vol. 17 No.1)

Secretary for Food and Health Dr Ko Wing-man (second from right) tastes the dish prepared by the champions. Dr Isaac Yue of the School of Chinese has been considering the cultural significance of foods in China’s past and present. A cooking competition organised by the Faculty of Science encouraged junior secondary school students to apply scientific principles in their daily lives. CULTURAL MUSINGS ON THE DINNER TABLE JUNIOR CHEFS MASTER SCIENCE “That saying was misinterpreted over time [it originally applied only to the slaughterhouse], but it became so widely accepted, that if men wrote down recipes they did it in private, in secret, because they didn’t want people to know,” Dr Yue said. Fortunately for Dr Yue, enough Chinese sages were secretly interested in food that there are written recipes dating back to the Tang Dynasty. Recipes have even crept into classical literary texts. Taken together, these snippets provide insights into the status and preparation of food over time. For example, pork was shunned at one point during the Song Dynasty, despite its centrality to Chinese cuisine before and after. Lamb had come into favour instead under the influence of the north and because it was more difficult and costly to obtain. “In one particular menu from that period, we know the emperor was a guest at a general’s household. Pork was not served on the emperor’s table, but it was served on the other tables. They were ranking food,” he said. “Anywhere in the world you will notice this pattern in which people don’t eat specific foods not because of the taste, but because of the ideas associated with them.” to see the science in such things as sunflower patterns, origami and animation. This year he led the SciChef Cooking Challenge, in which junior secondary school students had to select a recipe, find a way to improve it, explain the science behind their efforts to a panel of judges, and cook up the dish. They were judged on both scientific knowledge and taste. “Our goal as a faculty is to increase scientific literacy, but not in the traditional way of going to a laboratory and listening to lectures. We wanted the students to relate science to their daily lives, to something they can do at home,” he said. “We also wanted them to be creative and work on their teamwork, communication and leadership skills, which are not things they learn from the traditional curriculum.” Dr Isaac Yue uses food as a vehicle to travel to the past and bring ancient times back to life. Ironically, it would have been difficult for him to openly pursue this interest in times past because of the Confucian precept that men of virtue should steer clear of the kitchen. The pursuit of science conjures up images of laboratories, test tubes and white coats – things removed from everyday life. But Dr Benny Ng of the Faculty of Science has been spearheading efforts to turn that idea on its head and show people how to see the science all around them. In 2013 and 2014 he organised the Science and Art Crossover Project to inspire students Anywhere in the world you will notice this pattern in which people don’t eat specific foods not because of the taste, but because of the ideas associated with them. Dr Isaac Yue Our goal as a faculty is to increase scientific literacy, but not in the traditional way of going to a laboratory and listening to lectures. Dr Benny Ng Tastes of long ago Dr Yue is also interested in the elaborate preparations of certain dishes. In The Golden Lotus there is a detailed description about a pig’s head cooked using one log to control the fire and keep it at a low temperature, and in Dream of the Red Chamber of fetching mountain snow to make tea. Dr Yue’s interest in food is not confined to ancient China. He has also been studying the first Western recipe book written in China, by the missionary Martha Crawford of Alabama in the mid-19 th century. It instructed servants how to make beef stew, carrot cake and other foods for their Western employers, and also found an audience among Chinese readers interested in these new foods. “Usually when we study history, we look at dead people. But food is something that can be brought back to life. I am asking, is what we eat today the same as what we ate 100 years ago?” said Dr Yue. Apart from reading about food, he has also tested some of the recipes in his modern kitchen and found they stand up. Men can cook. The event was organised in two parts. Eighty-eight applications were received from 28 schools and the top 15 were invited to the semi-finals where they had to describe their proposed recipe and the scientific ideas that they were exploring. For instance, one team proposed a soufflé and detailed their experimentation, which involved more than 20 attempts before they got the soufflé to rise. Winning with polymerisation Twelve teams were selected from that group for the final, where they actually prepared their dishes. They had 60 minutes and employed all kinds of scientific methods. For instance, one team used the sous vide method to cook chicken, which was vacuum-packed before being poached at a constant temperature of 63 degrees Celsius in a water bath – which, incidentally, had come from a laboratory. The winning entry, called ‘Amazing Dessert from Seaweed’, involved the preparation of five dessert jellies using a mixture of algae from seaweed extracts and calcium. The combination helped the jelly to set through the process of polymerisation. The competition was supported by the Hong Kong Electric Home Management Centre, DotAsia Organisation and HKU’s Knowledge Exchange Fund. Guest chefs gave demonstrations and the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, BBS, JP, attended the closing ceremony in May. Next up: the SMArt programme 2016, also aimed at secondary school students, which Dr Ng said would incorporate science, mathematics and art. For more information and registration, please go to http://www.scifac.hku.hk/smart The Night Revels of Han Xizai , original by the 10 th -century Chinese artist Gu Hongzhong of the Southern Tang. A challenger is working on her latte art. Chef Perry Lau from Shui Yue demonstrates glow-in-the-dark sugar crystal ball. Cover Story 14 | 15 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | October 2015