“Danny Kaye, the Chinese chef”

The Journal – Jan. 22, 1974

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – One of California’s most highly respected Chinese chefs is a round-eyed, reddish-haired, rubber-faced comedian known around the world as Danny Kaye.

The 60-year-old entertainer has had a love affair with Chinese cooking since he visited Shanghai as a young man and became fascinated with its “quick, wild, fabulous food.”

Today, his Beverly Hills home boasts a Chinese kitchen complete with woks steam pots and his dinner guests have included Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and numerous French chefs.

But many nights Kaye can be found in the kitchen of longtime friend Johnny Kan’s restaurant on San Francisco’s famed Grant Avenue helping head chef Piu Wong cook up a crispy chicken with lemon sauce or marinated lamb and long crunchy noodles.

And nearly every Tuesday, he’s at the Mandarin Restaurant there teaching a course on “the ancient and fine art of Chinese cooking” with owner Cecilia Chiang, Peking-born daughter of a wealthy textile industrialist.

Chef Kaye—minus a white hat and apron—began one lesson on Crispy Duck Szechwan style by picking up a freshly killed fowl and saying: “First, you drop the duck in boiling water to open the pores. But just give it a half-bath—but no soap! No soap!”

After the washing, a coating of water chestnut powder, 45 minutes of cooking in a tasty mixture including yellow rice wine, Chinese nutmegs and Szechwan pepper corns and a final basting in cottonseed oil, the duck emerged crispy brown.

“Now isn’t that beautiful,” asked Kaye. “That looks good enough to have a name—like Morris.”

When the class of a dozen housewives and a few professional cooks began dining on the results of the next dish—Steamed Crab with Red Vinegar Sauce—Kaye quipped: “I’m astonished to see a whole group of finger suckers.”

Kaye began coming to cooking school about eight months ago. Last fall, when Mme. Chiang was hospitalized, he and head chef Tony Chan taught the class alone.

Each lesson ends with an eight-course luncheon presided over by Mme. Chiang, cooked by chef Chan assisted by Kaye, and served by Kaye and a restaurant waiter.

Students, who pay $20 per lesson including lunch, rave about the course.

“What fun,” said Myrna Frankel of Berkeley. “My first lesson and here was Danny Kaye. My mouth fell, but to have him there was lots of fun. He’s awfully whimsical but great.

“I’ve changed my whole way of cooking since I’ve been here,” added Margrit Biever of Napa. “To me, it’s sort of like an opera, a thing for all senses. The personality of Cecilia Chiang and the serious yet humorous addition of Danny Kaye makes it more than a class.”

“Cooking is an expression of one’s being that minute,” said Kaye, “and if you’re not cooking with joy and love and happiness, you’re not cooking well.

“Cooking is so much a reflection of culture and when I was in Shanghai I’d never seen anything like it,” he said. “I got interested in it. It was fascinating for me to see raw ingredients turned into something absolutely beautiful to touch, to taste, to see, and to smell. So, I decided to cook.”

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