https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/u...dead.html?_r=0

By RICHARD SANDOMIR
MAY 13, 2017

First paragraphs:

Henry Chung, who brought the lessons of Chinese cooking from his grandmothers rural kitchen to the United States, where he opened one of the first American restaurants to specialize in spicy Hunanese cuisine, died on April 23 in San Francisco. He was 98.

His death was confirmed by his granddaughter MacKenzie Fegan.

When Mr. Chung was growing up on a farm in Tao Hua, a village outside Liling, in southern Hunan Province, food preparation was a two-woman job: His mother, Wang Shao Yi, chopped the ingredients, then added wood to the fire as his grandmother, He Xiang Tao, had instructed.

The elder woman €œloved to use fresh ginger, hot pepper, black beans, black pepper, garlic, scallions, vinegar and good white wine as flavor builders,€� Mr. Chung wrote in €œHenry Chungs Hunan Style Chinese Cookbook€� (1978).

€œShe was often choked by strong smells and she would say, "This is a mighty good dish! €� He added, €œHer cookery was early injected into my blood.€�

But turning his grandmothers teachings into a restaurant would take many years, immigration to the United States, numerous jobs and the urgings of his wife, Diana Chung, to pursue work that he would truly savor.

Finally, in 1974, when he was in his mid-50s, he started Hunan, a tiny restaurant on Kearny Street in San Franciscos Chinatown, where he introduced diners to hot, peppery Hunanese food, a departure from the milder Cantonese cuisine that many Americans were more accustomed to.

One diner dazzled by Mr. Chung was Tony Hiss, a staff writer for The New Yorker, who was walking by the restaurant on Thanksgiving in 1976 and lured in by its rich aromas. A few weeks after eating Mr. Chungs onion cakes and chicken and garlic sauce, he declared in the magazine that Hunan was €œthe best Chinese restaurant in the world.€�

In a telephone interview, Mr. Hiss said: €œHenry was such a warm, sweet and charming guy and so devoted to his grandmothers memory. Each dish was more interesting, astonishing and unusual than the next, and all simply prepared.€� Mr. Hiss subsequently edited Mr. Chungs cookbook and wrote the introduction.

In the interview, Mr. Hiss said that one challenge of their collaboration was getting Mr. Chung to translate his instinctive cooking into recipes. €œId ask, "How much salt? And hed say, "Enough!€� Mr. Hiss recalled. €œSo I bought some graded spoons, spread them out and said to him: "Pick one. How much ginger? How much soy sauce? How much chili sauce?€�...

(snip)

One shocking fact about his puberty is mentioned soon after his birthdate.


Lenona.