Fu Pei-mei (; 1931 – 16 September 2004) was a Taiwanese chef. She wrote over 30 cookbooks on

Chinese cuisine Chinese cuisine encompasses the numerous cuisines originating from China, as well as overseas cuisines created by the Chinese diaspora. Because of the Chinese diaspora and historical power of the country, Chinese cuisine has influenced many ot ...

, and produced and hosted cooking programs on

Taiwan Television Taiwan Television Enterprise, Ltd. (), commonly known as TTV and formerly known as Central Television and Voice of Taiwan, is the first terrestrial television station in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was established on April 28, 1962, and ...

and Japan's

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

. In 2012, she was posthumously awarded the special award at the

47th Golden Bell Awards The 47th Golden Bell Awards (Mandarin:第47屆金鐘獎) was held on October 26, 2012 at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. The ceremony was broadcast live by CTS Cts or CTS may refer to: Arts and entertainment Television * Chines ...

ceremony.

Life

Fu was born in 1931 in

Dalian Dalian () is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China. Located on the ...

, under Japanese rule at the time. Aged 15, she left the city due to the events of the Chinese Civil War, and took on clerical work, where her company provided meals to its workers. Fu moved to Taiwan at age 18, as Chinese Communist forces consolidated control over the mainland. Before becoming a cook, she worked in a trading company and appeared in television commercials promoting electrical appliances. Fu left her career behind to marry Cheng Shao-ching, whom she met on a blind date. Cheng expected Fu to cook, and she tried to learn while raising a family, but she did not have time to focus on cooking until her children began attending school. Fu sought chefs from several well-known restaurants in Taipei to teach her how to cook, mailing a note that read, "Seeking famous chefs to learn cooking from, high pay." Fu spent two years, 1957 and 1958, as well as the entirety of her dowry, on sessions with these chefs, then began teaching students of her own in 1961. At first her audience were mainly Taiwanese housewives. Fu later taught wives of United States Armed Forces stationed in Taiwan. It was one of those students that helped her contact a producer at

, where she began her television career. For forty years, from 1962 to 2002, Fu hosted a series of cooking programs at Taiwan Television, presenting over 4000 Chinese cuisine dishes. Her programs were exported to Japan, the United States, the Philippines and other Asian countries. Fu's show won a

Golden Bell Award The Golden Bell Awards () is an annual Taiwanese television and radio production award presented in October or November each year by the Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development, a division of Taiwan's Ministry of Culture. It is the ...

in 1997. She could speak English, Mandarin, Japanese, and

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in ...

. Fu was frequently invited to appear on Japan's

, while her English-language programs were aided by a daughter. Fu published an English–Chinese bilingual edition of her first cookbook in 1969, translating the text herself. ''Pei Mei’s Chinese Cook Book'' ran for three volumes. Fu wrote over 30 cookbooks in Chinese and English and ran a cooking class. Fu helped develop a number of flavorful precooked food products, including Manhan Noodles, an instant noodle product marketed by

Uni-President Uni-President Enterprises Corporation () is an international food conglomerate based in Tainan, Taiwan. It is the largest food production company in Taiwan as well as Asia, and has a significant market share in dairy products, foods and snacks, ...

, and a product line of five entrees for

Ajinomoto is a Japanese multinational food and biotechnology corporation which produces seasonings, interlayer insulating materials for semiconductor packages for use in personal computers, cooking oils, frozen foods, beverages, sweeteners, amino acids, an ...

. Fu died on 16 September 2004 of

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of t ...

, aged 73.

Legacy

In 2012, she posthumously received the special Golden Bell Award. In October 2015, a

Google Doodle A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...

was dedicated to her. A mini-series was made about Fu's life titled "What She Put on the Table", and it aired in Taiwan during the summer of 2017. It was available globally starting in the fall of 2018 through the online streaming platform, Netflix.

TV Shows

*Chinese Cooking with Fu Pei-mei (TBA) (aired on ABS-CBN as part of Saturday morning program)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fu, Pei-mei 1931 births 2004 deaths People from Dalian Taiwanese television chefs Taiwanese women television presenters Taiwanese people from Liaoning Women chefs Chinese–English translators Women cookbook writers 20th-century Taiwanese women writers 20th-century Taiwanese writers Deaths from cancer in Taiwan Deaths from pancreatic cancer Taiwanese translators Cookbook writers