A prestigious family
A large part of what has made Chu Chu is his wide-ranging knowledge. Over the years, he’s read even more than he’s eaten.
Chu simply loves to read. Never much interested in acquiring wealth, he prefers to spend his money on food and food-related items. He lives in a very ordinary fifth-story apartment in Yonghe that he purchased in 1999 and doesn’t own a computer, but he has collected several thousand volumes on food and gastronomy that he keeps in a 330-square-foot study on the roof of his building. As a young man, he spent one-and-a-half months’ salary on the complete set of Calligraphy Through the Ages in the National Palace Museum just two months after joining the Investigation Bureau. Later in his career, he used the entirety of a bonus to acquire the complete works of Shakespeare. More recently, Chu made a point of picking up a copy of the Shan Jia Qing Gong, a Southern Song Dynasty cookbook, in Shanghai because the city’s Zhonghua Book Company is reputed to publish the best available edition of the work.
A quick glance at his shelves reveals a series on Ming and Qing dynasty history and a volume on the history of Chinese cuisine, not to mention the collection on calligraphy standing behind an inkwell and a few brushes. All in all, it is an outstanding private library with an incredible collection of works on food. Chu passes his days here, emerging at twilight to pen a bit of calligraphy in the sun’s last rays. If not scheduled to attend a banquet, he then mulls where to have dinner with his wife, Guan Huiming.
Without the enormous erudition acquired through his study of these many books, Chu would never have become the leading authority on gastronomy he is today. At best he would have been a mere gourmet.
Chu’s family background also contributed to the person he has become.
Born prematurely after his mother took a fall, Chu weighed just 1.7 kilograms at birth. A fortune teller told Chu’s parents that the boy’s elemental makeup included equal parts of gold and fire, but lacked wood, water, and earth. The horoscopist explained that Chu would have a “general’s fate,” and further predicted that he would be fundamentally unbalanced, excelling at his strengths and being utterly useless at his weaknesses. Seeking to provide a counterbalance, Chu’s uncle recommended that the boy be named with the character “fan,” one that contains elements suggesting both water and earth.
Chu comes from an accomplished family, and culture is in his genes. According to the family’s genealogy book, he is a 21st-generation descendent of the Song-Dynasty scholar Zhu Xi. More immediately, his mother is an excellent cook specializing in the cuisine of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, and his father, a judge, was a gourmet who used to spend 20% of the family’s income on food. “We never skimped on meals,” recalls Chu.
By the fourth grade, he knew that serious eating meant patronizing chefs, not restaurants. The family ate meals prepared by Tang Yongchang (known as “Ah-Tang”), the top Zhejiang–Jiangsu chef of the day and trainer of the chef who founded Red Bean Dining, and by Lü Jiangquan, head chef at the then famous Xu Xiang Yuan Restaurant.
These family meals helped Chu refine an already sensitive palate. He has sharpened it further in the years since, honing it to such a fine edge that he can “tell at a glance whether a dish has been cooked at the proper temperature, and enumerate from a single taste the origins and historical antecedents of an ingredient.” Truly a gastronome of the highest order, he can even offer insights on ordinary instant noodles.
Chu’s “general’s fate” is apparent in his addiction to books on exercise and the military arts, and in the natural athleticism that allowed him to master new sports effortlessly. He pitched for Tatong Elementary School’s baseball team at the age of 12, and was known for his unhittable sinker. Similarly adept at tennis, he took to the court for his first match just moments after being shown how to hold a racket. While a student in Fu Jen Catholic University’s Department of Law, he branched out even further, becoming the goalie of the department’s championship intramural soccer team. He also pitched and played left field on a slow-pitch softball team and center on a basketball team, and was known as a formidable spiker for his volleyball team. But the high point of his athletic “career” came during an Investigation Bureau basketball tournament when, at the age of 45, he scored ten points in just four minutes. He hung up his sneakers soon after, choosing to express his love of sports through avid support of the Boston Red Sox. He almost changed his mind after watching Swiss tennis star Stan Wawrinka defeat Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal. The underdog’s victory sent endorphins coursing through Chu’s brain, making him momentarily forget the sciatica that had been hobbling him for a year.