Episode 4 Exploring China: A Culinary Adventure

'China, home to one in five of the planet's population.

'The superpower the world fears, but few really know.'

'Ken Hom is the Godfather of Chinese food.'

Heaven on Earth.

'He introduced the wok to the West more than 30 years ago.'

This is the way you should be cooking it.

'Ching-He Huang is leading the next generation of Chinese cooks...'

I'm just going to chop off the head.

'..with a modern, inventive approach to the cuisine.'

-Like ducks playing in springtime.

-Lovely.

'We're taking a once-in-a-lifetime adventure

'across China through food...'

-Rabbit head.

-Shall we try one?

-No!

'..to delve into its heart and soul.'

Bang it, pull it.

Food is the best way to explore Chinese culture,

because we really live to eat.

'It's an epic trip, 3,000 miles, from the mega cities of the east,

'to the forgotten villages of the wild west.'

It's like we've been back to the time of Genghis Khan.

Ah! She's just decapitated it!

'We'll uncover the familiar, the secret, and the surprising...'

Wow! I've never seen that done before.

'..cook simple and delicious dishes...'

That is my Sichuan sausage.

'..and reveal the secrets of China, old and new.'

It's like a journey that I've always dreamt about,

but in a China I've dreamt about.

We're on the final leg of our journey across China

and have arrived in the Cantonese province of Guangdong,

my parents' birthplace and my spiritual home.

I was last here in 1989, in the summer,

and for me, it's exciting to be here

because I can understand what everyone's saying!

I can't wait, I really can't wait.

First time in Guangzhou, couldn't have a better translator.

We're spending four days in the capital, Guangzhou,

before going our separate ways to our family and ancestral homes.

This is the climax of our entire journey.

I'm crossing the South China Sea to Taiwan,

where my food journey began at my grandmother's knee.

While here in Guangdong,

I'm reuniting with family I haven't seen for 23 years.

You know, we Cantonese are often called the Sicilians of China,

because we're loud, boisterous,

our food is, like, the greatest, we think.

My parents left Guangdong for America in 1948,

in search of a better life.

Historically, most overseas Chinese come from here,

and today, there are over 30 million in more than 100 countries.

They took their style of cooking with them

and adapted it for Western tastes.

Today, this is what the West thinks of as Chinese food,

but there's so much more to Cantonese cuisine.

I know you would appreciate very much some of the things

we have to offer here.

Dim sum, I mean, really good dim sum.

I can't wait to try dim sum with you here, actually,

and see, you know, how different it is.

You know, great seafood here.

We're famous for... We eat everything!

Guangzhou is home to South China's largest fish market.

Everything's in tanks, everything's alive.

Fresh, live, I mean, we're obsessed with that.

The variety here's incredible.

Huangsha market is open 24/7

and sells 600 tonnes of seafood every day.

Oh, my gosh, that's giant prawns.

That's a spiny lobster.

That's beautiful, look at all the colouring.

The food is so familiar to me,

versus other places I've been to in China,

and coming here to Canton, yeah, this is where my culinary soul is.

Oh, my God! Alligators!

Baby crocodiles.

My gosh.

-They're from Thailand.

-From Thailand?

-I've eaten it.

-No, I've never...

Alligator, I had it in America.

-I've never cooked or eaten alligator steaks.

-Tastes like chicken.

-Wow!

-Wow.

Has he ever been bitten?

Yeah, he's been bitten.

-Oh, my gosh, look!

-Turtles.

-Turtles!

-Surely this is not for eating?

-Of course, it's for the pot.

They're not here for pets.

-I actually think it's quite cruel.

-Very Cantonese.

We don't have the same concept about things as pets,

I think that's changing now.

It's changing.

I mean, shark's fin, for example, is being banned throughout China,

and I hope turtle soup will be on that same agenda,

because I think it's cruel.

There's some things you just don't need to eat.

Well, you have to look at things historically. I mean,

where people didn't have enough to eat,

there was a lot of famine,

so it's hard to judge when you don't have anything to eat.

I know, but times have changed, things move on,

like China, and like modernisation,

I think the food needs to modernise, as well.

Chinese tradition claims that stewed turtle cures cancer

and alligator meat relieves asthma.

Like many of the creatures here, they're an endangered species,

and though the Chinese government is taking steps

to monitor their trade, consumer culture won't change overnight.

Even a major British supermarket chain with stores in China

sells and slaughters live turtles.

We're at the market, to shop for more conventional fare -

like these super-fresh razor clams.

See, you don't know whether they're alive or not

because they're open, the meat is oozing out of the shell.

Normally, with mussels or scallops, the shell's got to be firmly tight.

The way you can tell it's fresh

is if you kind of touch them, they squirt water out.

These are good.

These will be good eating, right?

These should be really sweet and delicious.

I think that's enough.

The Cantonese like everything straight from the sea.

I've got my eye on some fresh scallops.

They're beautiful.

We Cantonese believe in never gilding the lily.

In other words, when your ingredient is so fresh,

what you want to do is highlight it.

The Cantonese prize their palate as one of the finest in China,

simply because all of our food is unadorned,

simply because it's so fresh.

Freshness, to us, is like the Eldorado.

At this local Guangzhou restaurant,

diners come straight from the market with their live purchases.

Today, we're taking over the kitchen to cook our fresh shellfish.

SPEAKING CANTONESE

I'm cooking steamed Cantonese scallops with chilli,

spring onion and garlic.

It's a quick and easy dish,

but the skill is in the preparation of the scallops.

To open them, hold the round side down

and run a flat blade along the inside.

You have to really pry them open.

That's how you know they're fresh.

Separate the shell and wash to remove the dark membrane,

leaving only the scallop and the roe.

They're now ready for the pot.

Yeah, steaming is the best way to actually cook this kind of food,

because it's the freshest and the best.

I'm just preparing the chillies, these are mild chillies.

Cantonese do not like really strong chillies, like a Sichuan.

They don't want the freshness of the seafood

to be crushed

by strong seasoning.

And just a lot of spring onions, and that's it.

Perfect, just a few minutes.

Next, pour hot oil on the spring onions and chillies,

then add a good splash of soy sauce to bring out the flavours.

It's very Cantonese, because it's steamed

and minimum amount of seasoning.

Great, good, can I try one?

I love the way that you put coriander in there.

I love it, I love the flavour of coriander.

Mmm!

-So sweet.

-This is delicious.

Out of this world.

I'm making a quick stir-fry with razor clams,

using traditional ingredients of chopped spring onion, chilli,

and some garlic fried in oil.

It's very rare they see a woman in the kitchen like this.

Really?

-Women don't do wok.

-Everyone's stopped cooking!

As in all Cantonese cooking, the main ingredient

is plunged into hot water to remove the impurities.

Remove the clams and reintroduce the seasonings to the hot wok.

Add the shells, with some rice wine and a good pinch of salt.

They're ready in just a couple of minutes.

A little bit of soy sauce.

That's it.

-That's easy, shall we try?

-Yes.

Perfectly cooked.

Good?

You like it?

Yeah, unbelievable.

And you did it perfectly Cantonese,

which meant the seasonings were not overwhelming,

everything really matches the freshness.

Thank you, Ken.

There's one Cantonese food

that we're all familiar with in the West - dim sum.

I'm taking Ching to the locals' favourite restaurant

in the city that gave birth to this worldwide delicacy.

Eating it here is more a ritual than a dining experience.

I want to bring you to the best dim sum in Guangzhou.

I can't wait. Well, this is your town.

Built in 1935, Guangzhou Restaurant is on three floors,

serves up to 10,000 people every day,

and employs chefs who train for decades.

Isn't this beautiful? Wow.

-I'll sit right next to you.

-Thank you.

This is very nice.

What kind of things do you like?

Some restaurants offer customers pre-prepared dishes,

but here, everything is cooked fresh to order.

There are hundreds of varieties of dim sum here,

from steamed dumplings to chicken feet,

and one of my favourites,

lotus leaves stuffed with sticky rice.

Shall we split one first?

Yeah, let's have this one.

OK, I love this, let's share.

That's beautiful.

And what I love is to see all the beautiful inside

look at that - mushroom, pork, belly pork,

and that looks like a little bit of chicken, salted duck egg.

Look at how much skill has gone into it.

And just because it's cheap doesn't mean that it shouldn't be up there

as one of the best cuisines in the world.

-And it's perfection.

-It's perfection.

The tradition of eating dim sum started centuries ago

in small tea houses along the Silk Road.

Yum cha, which means "drink tea",

is a ritual that goes hand in hand with dim sum.

It's the Cantonese equivalent of having a biscuit with your cuppa.

Here, where tea is considered the elixir of life,

granting the drinker eternal youth,

this part of the tradition is taken very seriously.

Now she's going to make the tea for us.

See, it's the ritual, she had rinsed it before.

'There's also a Cantonese etiquette when taking tea.'

No, no, it's always the duty of the younger one

to pour tea for the elder.

You know, we always say thank you,

especially in Cantonese, like that.

'Tapping the table is the polite way to say thank you

'for having your tea cup filled.

'Bending the fingers symbolises kowtowing

'or bowing as a sign of respect.'

-Why is that?

-Well, the legend

comes from the time of Qianlong,

which is one of the greatest emperors in the last dynasty.

And he had gone out with his retainers

-to tour the country incognito.

-In disguise?

Exactly.

And when he poured tea or gave some food to some of his retainers,

they couldn't bow without revealing his identity.

So they did this, that's the legend.

So, you see people doing that all the time.

Yes, all the time.

When I was bad, when I was a child...

I can't imagine you being a naughty child!

What I had to do was I had to offer tea, I had to kowtow to my mother,

on my knees and offer her a cup of tea

in front of all the Chinese neighbours,

and when she accepted it, that meant she accepted my apology.

This restaurant is very popular with locals.

SPEAKING CANTONESE

Friends Leu Peilan and Liao Shaoguang

are its most loyal regulars.

She says, in 50 years, I can eat through the menu!

Oh, right, she knows the menu off by heart!

He said, "Of course it's better than cooking at home!"

I don't want to deprive the restaurant of its best customers,

but after 52 years cooking

for celebrities, presidents and royalty, I'm certain

I can persuade them to try some authentic home cooking.

While Ching takes a break, I've offered

to prepare a meal for them at Mrs Liao's house.

I thought, OK, that's a good opportunity for me to actually

make sweet and sour as we Cantonese make it, which is the real thing.

I've come to the old Bao Hau road

to buy ingredients for my sweet and sour pork.

Guangzhou is in China's wealthiest province.

Thanks to manufacturing,

people here are among the country's highest earners.

They demand quality and variety in their food,

and in this market, you can buy almost anything.

Live frogs.

You know what we call live frogs?

Chicken of the fields.

There's a famous saying that

we Cantonese eat everything on four legs except the table,

anything that flies, except an airplane.

Well, this would be nice to put in sweet and sour,

it's very unusual - mangosteen.

Mangosteens are a South Asian fruit with a sweet, tangy flesh,

which makes them ideal for this dish.

I got mangosteen and some pear apples.

I learnt how to cook sweet and sour pork from my Uncle Paul,

who had a restaurant in Chicago's China Town.

He taught me which cuts of meat to look for.

I'm using the most tender part of the pork,

not the belly that needs more cooking, but a piece that

I can stir-fry very quickly and toss in the sweet and sour sauce.

Mrs Liao is retired and lives in the commercial district of Guangzhou.

It looks like word of my visit has spread.

Mrs Liao has invited the entire neighbourhood!

That's a Chinese Buddha.

Chinese Buddhas are always fat.

Mrs Liao could not have displayed religious icons

during the Cultural Revolution but, since 1978,

the Chinese constitution has guaranteed freedom of worship.

This is quite lovely.

I have the same thing in my home in Thailand.

It's 23 years since I was last in Guangzhou,

so before I cook dinner, I'm keen to hear

how life has changed for its residents.

SPEAKING CANTONESE

It's beautiful, they said, "We're so happy because we have

"stability and peace. We can eat things, we can do what we want,

"and for people who are retired now,

"we don't have to worry about instability in society.

"We can go out and walk, whatever, we are not afraid to be mugged.

"Food is abundant."

She said, "It's great, we've never had it so good.

"The level of happiness is incredibly high."

Before, even if you had money,

there's nothing to buy, you have to queue up to buy nothing,

she said, you couldn't buy anything.

And she said, "We have such peace and we can buy anything we want,

"we can eat." She said, "Now we worry about getting fat!"

Not worried about not having enough to eat, but getting fat.

You couldn't buy anything, it was like wartime.

For dinner, I'm making an authentic sweet and sour pork,

nothing like the sugary, glowing, red version available in the West.

I'm just going to do

a sort of typical Chinese marinade,

which is a little bit of soy sauce.

And this is an interesting rice wine which I've never seen,

because rice wine will just add a bit of flavour.

I thought this might be very nice in the sweet and sour,

which is very unusual - mangosteen, which is really lovely.

Mangosteens are hard to get in the West,

so if you want to make this dish at home, use pineapple,

or try experimenting with other fruit

to give the dish its sweet flavour.

And this is just some pear apple,

which will give a texture.

I'm also adding water chestnuts and young garlic,

which look a lot like spring onions.

I'm quickly frying the marinated pork with vegetable oil

to seal in the flavours.

Everywhere you go in Canton, they use this very mild red chilli

in many of their dishes, so I thought I'd do the same.

Along with the chillies, young garlic, and water chestnuts,

I'm adding a splash of rice vinegar, which gives the dish its sourness.

I'm going to add a little bit of the stock that I made

with bits of pork and a little bit of chicken stock.

This is just sugar.

Now we're just going to thicken the sauce

with a little bit of corn flour and water.

After a quick taste, add the fruit -

Asian pears, pineapple and mangosteen,

followed by the pork.

She said, "You're a bright boy!"

Nobody's ever called me a boy for a long time.

They said, the flavours are really nice.

A bit of East meets West!

Whilst Ken is cooking for the locals,

I'm at Guangdong's medicine market with physician Dr Shu.

I've been travelling for so long and I'm really tired,

so what can I take that's going to lift my spirits

and boost my energy?

'She's going to help me make an energy-boosting tonic

'before I travel to Taiwan to see my family.'

OK.

That would be wonderful, thank you.

'Dr Shu's a practising gynaecologist

'but, like many Chinese doctors,

'she combines modern and traditional medicine.'

There's a big history and there's, what,

over 13,000 different herbs? Is that true?

Yes, that's right.

'To go with the chicken,

'I need some fruit to help boost my immune system.'

This is goji, everyone in the West knows goji berries.

I love this just steeped with some tea.

My mum always says, drink this cos it's good for your eyes.

Yeah, it's good for eyes.

And it tastes sweet, you know?

A little bit sweet.

So, we're going to get just a small handful of the goji berries.

This is going to go into this stew

with black chicken and dang gui.

'Dang gui is the root of a plant

'which we know in the West as Angelica.

'It's supposed to help circulation.'

Apparently, this is the best herb for women.

It's going to keep all the organs down there working.

'With all the key ingredients in the bag,

'Dr Shu takes me back to her home to make the soup.'

'As Guangzhou has developed, so has the housing market.

'Now many young, successful Cantonese

'live in modern apartments like this.'

-Did you buy that from the market?

-Yeah.

'The black chicken we're cooking

'doesn't just get its name from its feathers.

'It's black on the inside, too,

'from the skin and meat, right down to the bone.'

I haven't seen black-skin chicken in the UK,

but I know that you can buy it from some Chinese supermarkets,

I think they're frozen.

'It's been used in Chinese medicine for over 1,000 years,

'and today, it's considered a superfood

'because of the bird's high levels of anti-oxidants.'

'In Chinese medicine, it's believed the body has two energies,

'yin and yang, which should always be balanced.'

In its simplest form, yin is very cooling, yang is very fiery.

-Yeah.

-So, if you're tired, you're stressed,

you're not feeling well, your body's probably...

When you feel sort of thirsty.

..if you're feeling thirsty, you're probably very yang, too much yang.

So you need to eat cooling foods, yin foods...

-Yes, a little bit of cool.

-..to balance it.

So this, the chicken, inherently is yin, but the ingredients

we'll be putting will have different properties, right?

There's got to be some science in it,

because when anyone feels ill in any culture,

they go for the chicken soup.

OK, so we've got the goji berries, and then this is the dang gui.

'We also picked up something else at the market,

'which is full of vitamin C.'

Dried Chinese dates.

So just put straight in, into the water, yeah?

The ingredients go into the pot to boil.

It's got that dang gui smell!

I was expecting to eat the chicken, and she's saying no,

Cantonese-style tonic broths, you don't eat the actual meat.

After boiling for about an hour, it's ready

and, in true Cantonese style, we garnish it

with spring onions and coriander.

Bon appetit! Thank you for this, this looks very healthy, very clean.

Mmm! That is really good.

You just know that it's doing you wonders.

And it's easy to make!

Just put it all in a pot, can't get better than that.

Before I visit my father's family tomorrow,

I'm taking a walk in the city's

old colonial area, Shamian Island,

which is where my parents did some of their courting.

My father was a GI and he fought in WWII,

and he got leave after the war.

And he chose to come here, where he met my mother,

and they fell in love.

My parents emigrated to America as newlyweds,

but my father died when I was just eight months old, aged 33.

My mother brought me up alone in Chicago's China Town.

My father never existed for me,

except in photographs.

My mother never talked about him

very much, so...

..I grew up with him only as an image.

My mum never remarried, and I think she was

of the old traditional

Chinese school that,

if you have children,

then you didn't remarry,

so that feels kind of sad for her.

Apart from my father and me,

my mother had two other great loves in her life.

The game of mah jong,

and Cantonese opera.

Before we go our separate ways,

I want to share this traditional Cantonese art form with Ching.

Cantonese opera dates back to the 16th century

and had its heyday in the 1920s.

Today, a few Guangzhou restaurants put on daily performances.

It's kind of surreal, cos I feel like

I've just come to a restaurant, but they're performing.

It's really beautiful though, I really love the costumes.

And it's very old fashioned.

You see, most of these people are of a certain age here,

they're not working, they're probably retired.

Before widespread education,

Cantonese opera taught morals and messages to its audiences.

Are they all based on, like, old legends?

-Yes, legends, very famous stories, tales...

-Tales, fables.

It's not only what they say, it's what they're gesturing,

a lot of gesturing.

Do you see? It comes from Tai Chi,

like when they go like that, that's very Chinese.

Today, these performances are more like variety shows,

put on for the elderly and tourists.

This is the aria from my mum's favourite opera,

and, oh, I mean, God knows how many times I've heard this!

APPLAUSE

Our time in Guangdong Province has come to an end.

Whilst Ken stays on to visit his relatives,

I'm going home to see my family in Taiwan.

I miss my family and I really... I'm looking forward to seeing them,

but I feel like it's going to be quite emotional,

cos I haven't seen them in a long time.

This whole journey is about discovery and learning,

and it's just the last leg of the journey now,

so it's all culminating in this sort of homecoming.

I feel I'm proud to be Chinese,

and I wasn't always proud to be Chinese.

When I was growing up in the UK, all I wanted was to be English.

Now, you know, through cooking,

I've found my Chinese part of myself,

and the more I've learned, the more I've discovered,

and the more I've eaten my way around China,

the more that I'm in love with it.

And so I feel like I'm kind of coming full circle.

But the circle's not quite complete yet.

Taiwan is an island 112 miles off the south-east coast of China

which separated from Chinese rule 100 years ago.

Although I was born in Taiwan,

I left with my parents when I was five

and eventually settled in London.

Sometimes, I feel a bit anxious when I come back to Taiwan

because I don't feel 100% Taiwanese.

So over the years, when I have visited,

there's a sense of, oh, you know, my Taiwanese, my language,

you know, my vocabulary, my etiquette, my manners...

all of it is not quite, you know, up to scratch.

My parents moved back to Taiwan in 2009.

I haven't seen you in a long time! I miss you a lot!

We're travelling today to the farming area of Baihe village,

where my food journey began as a little girl

in my grandmother's kitchen.

So we're going to see my grandfather,

to see where my mum and all her family grew up.

And where I grew up from when I was two to five years old.

We're going to go and burn some incense for my grandmother,

and then I'm going to cook for the whole family.

This will be the first time I've seen my grandfather

since my grandmother passed away two years ago.

Here we are!

SPEAKS TAIWANESE

This is where I grew up.

This is our small courtyard, this belongs to my grandfather.

This is where we used to play, my brother and I, and cousins.

He's saying this is 84 years old.

My grandfather's lived here since he was two.

That's the entrance there, you can come through.

My grandmother, as well as all these great aunts, always like sisters,

and they all cooked for everybody.

'Today, I'm stepping into my grandmother's shoes,

'cooking some of the dishes she taught me.

'And I know the family has high expectations.'

Everyone's waiting for lunch.

Everyone's saying, "When are you going to cook lunch?"

Before lunch, my grandfather and I share a quiet moment

to mark Qingming festival,

when families remember loved ones who have passed on.

This is my great-grandfather, my great-grandmother

and my great-great-grandparents.

It seems fitting that this is the room where my family

so often came together to share my grandmother's food,

and it's where today, we will take time to remember her.

'I've travelled 87 miles from Guangzhou to the city of Kaiping,

'to spend a couple of days with cousins on my father's side,

'who I've not seen for 23 years.

'I'm struck by how much this place has changed.'

God, I have never seen so many four-wheel drives.

I think there has been a recent survey that says,

for the first time in China, more than 50%, half of the people,

are living in urban areas now, instead of in the countryside.

That's a remarkable change, when you think

that China has always been at least 80% to 90% peasants.

Up until the 1990s, my cousins were full-time farmers,

but as China began to accept private enterprise,

they moved to the city and set up a successful restaurant.

I'm kind of curious to meet them and actually to learn more

about parts of my family's past which I don't know.

This is my last visit, when I took my mother and, actually, her sister.

I know quite a bit about my mum's family.

My dad's family was sort of a mystery.

This is a great opportunity for me to reconnect.

Hopefully, over food.

I think it will be about coming to terms

about who I am and, sort of, where my place is.

Hello!

SPEAKING CANTONESE

'I've brought the young ones

'silver dollars.

'In China, it's traditional

'to give coins in an envelope

'as tokens of good luck.'

Well, they loved my mum a lot.

It's, uh...

It's evident.

And they said they...

When they heard she had passed on, they did a lot of offerings to her,

so that was very nice.

This morning, my cousins are taking me to our ancestral village

in the Foshan region of Guangdong.

It's an area dominated by paddy fields,

where my father's family were rice farmers

going back several generations.

I said, "Is it hard work?"

She said, "Well, when you're young, I mean, you don't think about it,

"how backbreaking it really is to plant each stalk of rice."

She has to get down there, bend down to do that,

and they say when people actually eat,

they have no idea where it comes from and how it's harvested.

My family are gathering at my grandparents' grave

to mark Qingming, an annual ceremony of grave sweeping,

when relatives meet to tidy the burial sites of their loved ones.

Traditionally, it's believed that the spirits of the dead

will look after their living family if they're offered gifts of food

and fake money to keep them happy in the afterlife.

Despite the occasion, it can be quite a lively event.

It's very different, our attitude.

If you think of something like this in the West, it's very sombre.

I mean, nobody would think of...

This is almost like a picnic here.

Before we eat, we must fulfil one last Chinese custom.

Wow!

Well, no evil spirits will come here now!

This is my grandmother's kitchen.

This is the big wok, this is how much to feed a whole big family.

I would sit around watching, all here,

all this I remember, at that height.

The kitchen's just as my grandmother left it,

and today, I'm cooking some of her favourite dishes for the family.

The idea is to make a lunch

in honour of my grandmother.

So, she used to make delicious hama, clams.

And prawns, she used to make drunken prawns - prawns drunk with wine.

And then my favourite is zongzi, which is bamboo sticky rice,

which my grandmother used to make for me,

she was really good at making it.

When you're cooking for so many, timing is crucial,

so I've enlisted my mother as sous chef.

We're starting with the most complicated dish - bamboo parcels.

Mushrooms.

These are dried Chinese mushrooms,

they've already been stir-fried in a little bit of oil.

But, of course, first, I pre-soaked just to soften them a little bit.

So that's dried shrimp and some shallots, and it's all been

already sort of stir-fried

with a little bit of soy sauce.

And then this is the rice, so stir-frying raw rice, basically,

just to get that fragrant, get lots of the flavours going.

Next, shape the bamboo leaf

into a cup, fill it with some rice,

a few pieces of braised pork belly,

and another layer of rice.

Then secure the parcels with string before you boil them.

Now, the trick is to try and make them all the same size.

They're all going to cook in the same time.

I don't think my grandmother would approve, but one big, one small.

Just 50 more to go!

That looks good.

And then what we do, we cook it.

I'm going to boil it.

Once it's cooked, you can use that knot to take it all out.

I think I'm going to start with the prawns first.

Next, I'm making one of my grandmother's signature dishes -

drunken prawns.

Get the wok nice and hot,

add the prawns, a little ginger,

and a good splash of rice wine to get the shellfish nice and tipsy.

My grandmother used to make drunken prawns for us

when we were growing up,

really tasty.

So, like, the bitter sweetness

of the Shaoxing rice wine

enhances the sweetness of the prawns,

and these are local river prawns.

Really good.

My grandmother's speciality was seafood,

so I'm making another of her favourite dishes -

fresh clams with Chinese basil, soy sauce and rice wine.

Just keep cooking until a lot of the shells have opened up.

Once the food's ready, it's time to seat the guest of honour -

my grandfather.

My uncle said, "This is the best."

It's got the best flavour, it's got the flavour of a Taiwanese basil.

They all think that this food is really similar

to what my grandmother used to cook.

These are all her flavours.

CONVERSATION FADES OUT

I'm really happy because my grandfather just said,

"Did you really make this?"

and, "It's got Grandmother's flavour."

It tastes like Grandmother's.

'My grandfather's really vulnerable,'

and I've never seen him emotional.

He must really miss her a lot.

My grandmother was an amazing woman,

but she really groomed me to be a cook, at such a young age,

and I didn't really think it would leave such an impression on me.

They all give their hats off to my grandmother.

You know, she was the cook, she was Exec Chef.

She was the best one out of all of them.

Now I really understand a bit of her more,

through cooking and this kitchen.

This was her life...you know.

My food memory started here

and I didn't think I'd grow up to be a cook.

I didn't think it would shape me so much.

I think I have come full circle.

This farm has been in the Hom family for five generations.

It's where my father grew up.

Today, my cousins grow vegetables

and raise poultry here for their restaurant in town.

HE TALKS IN LOCAL DIALECT

I said, "They look very tasty."

They're beautiful.

DOG BARKS

I remember this, this is the old family kitchen.

THEY TALK IN LOCAL DIALECT

It's a revelation.

She said that when my mum laid eyes on my dad,

it was love at first sight.

Nobody else, she would even be interested in.

That's a revelation.

After grave-sweeping, there's always a feast

and, on this occasion, we're cooking together to celebrate my homecoming.

This is what we call a family affair.

Everybody pitches in, do their thing and help,

because if we don't do that, we're not going to be eating!

Everybody wants to eat.

My cousin is going to make his, er,

signature dish, which I never had, which is sweet and sour goose.

The goose is fresh from the farm.

Once it's coated in soy sauce to give it colour and flavour,

my cousin deep fries it.

What that does is, it seals the skin

so that when he cooks it,

the whole thing doesn't fall apart.

He's braising it in a thick sauce made of rice vinegar,

Chinese tomato ketchup, cane sugar,

and salted, preserved plums,

to give it the sweet and sour taste.

Then he covers it and slowly simmers it until it's done.

In one hour.

While it cooks, I'm making

bitter melon with black bean sauce.

This is the great thing about cooking like this.

The family all chips in

and helps you do the prep, which is great.

-I love it.

-HE LAUGHS

This is bitter melon, it's quite delicious,

and you can actually get this fresh everywhere now,

in Chinese supermarkets, and you need to take out the inside.

It has a bitter flavour.

She likes it.

But I'm cooking this because my mum used to make it often.

I used to walk into the door and I would hear the wok sizzle

and I would hear all the food going into the wok,

and so by the time I washed my hands and everything,

the food would be on the table.

In a few hours, we're going to have a feast here.

I'm making a full-flavoured black bean sauce,

which will go perfectly with the melon.

This is classic. Garlic, ginger and black beans.

I think this is the flavour that people who are outside of China

probably are the most familiar with.

These are the famous black beans

that the world loves.

We take vegetables and we blanch them,

and it helps to give them a cleaner flavour.

Now I'm draining it.

Garlic, ginger and the black beans.

Then add spring onions,

mild red chillies...

..and rice wine.

Next, add the bitter melon pieces

and a splash of water to tenderise them.

Mmm...

They need a bit more cooking.

Just a little bit of sesame oil.

Give it a nice sheen to that.

My cousin is serving the goose

in the traditional way, chopped.

Tell me if that's not beautiful.

They're all having a little booze!

I think the most touching moment

is not only seeing my family,

but how we're actually united

by our culinary passion,

and the fact that I was able to cook and share food with them

I thought was the best part.

This is absolutely beautiful.

What I've learned in Kaiping

is a bit more of my family puzzle.

I learnt more about my mum and dad meeting

and how it was love at first sight. I thought that was quite touching.

In many ways, I felt she'd more or less

sacrificed her life for mine,

but still hearing that

she did have some moments of happiness.

What actually makes me happiest coming here

is to see in reality

how the changes in China is reflected in my family.

Their welfare has gone up, they're optimistic,

they are looking with hope to the future.

That's pretty fantastic.

Bye-bye.

After five weeks and more than

13,000 miles crossing China,

Ken and I reunite for our final dinner in Hong Kong.

It feels fitting to end our journey

in the city where East meets West.

This view, I think has to be one of the most beautiful views

in all of Asia.

It's one of the best views in the world.

I mean, Hong Kong. Look at that.

I have learnt a lot on this trip.

Actually, before coming,

I actually wanted to experience most of the cities,

because I am a city girl at heart. But going back to the roots,

the basic roots, and going back to the countryside

and learning from these farmers... You know, life is tough,

it's not easy, and the way they live with such dignity really touched me.

They put their food on the plate and it represents them.

They cook for us and they share with us

and they're giving a bit of themselves to us.

What is amazing

is how China has changed

in such a short period of time.

I mean, growing up, I saw China as being very poor,

and not enough to eat and that sort of thing.

It's transformed to the second economic power in the world.

And its food is like that too,

because 25 years ago, when I went throughout China,

I was disappointed in Chinese food.

Nobody cared about it, there was no passion.

Now every place we've been to has been a more than pleasant surprise.

Through food, we've been able to

get beneath the skin of China.

Unrecognisable. It's like the new frontier.

We discovered a country

that has emerged from the trauma of the Cultural Revolution.

It's like a human epic.

He's gone through all this hardship to arrive here

and I think he embodies very much what China is about,

-looking forward.

-Yeah.

The food culture that was in danger of being lost

has been reinvigorated.

Hands down, she is dumpling master of Beijing.

China is revelling in its new-found freedom.

You have these very small families

that are starting businesses like this

and who knows? Maybe in the next 30 years,

there'll be a gigantic corporation, based on this family recipe.

Even in the face of sweeping modernisation...

I actually didn't expect this.

A mass construction site.

..ethnic minorities are preserving

their traditional cultures and cuisines.

Who eats the head?

-The eldest here.

-No, no, thank you!

There's some Chinese traditions I don't like.

THEY LAUGH

Across China, home cooking is alive and well.

I've never done it like that before.

It's just, it's beautiful. I'm learning so much.

While in the mega-cities, Chinese cuisine is reaching new heights.

This is not like sweet and sour you've ever seen anywhere.

It looks like a work of art.

It's been a deeply personal journey that has helped us

to understand more about our relationship with our homeland.

It's all about our food. We're united by how we eat,

and how our passion to eat is so important,

and that's a recurring theme, I felt, throughout wherever we went.

It's the essence of who we are.

To China, its people,

its cuisine, to its hope and to its future.

Cheers.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd