The Last Chinese Chef

A year after her husband Matt Mason's death, Maggie McElroy, an American food writer for Table magazine who specializes in regional cuisine, has withdrawn from the world, selling her house and moving onto a small boat in Marina del Rey. One September evening she receives a call from Carey James, an attorney at Matt's law firm in Beijing, informing her that a woman named Gao Lan has filed a paternity claim against Matt's estate, alleging she has his five-year-old daughter. Under a Children's Rights Treaty, the claim can be decided in China and is binding. The only way to contest it is to obtain a DNA test before the ruling, less than three weeks away. Carey confirms Matt was in China at the right time for the conception to have occurred.

Maggie asks her editor Sarah for a month off. Sarah agrees and offers her an assignment: profile Sam Liang, a half-Chinese, half-Jewish American chef in Beijing who is the grandson of an imperial palace cook and is translating his grandfather's 1925 food classic, The Last Chinese Chef. When Maggie arrives in Beijing and calls Sam, she learns his restaurant will not open because he has lost his investor, and he declines the interview. At the law firm's Beijing office, she meets Zinnia Chu, a sharp Chinese woman assigned to help her, who explains that the child, Shuying, lives with her maternal grandparents in the southern town of Shaoxing. The mother's whereabouts are unknown.

Sam left a teaching career in Ohio four years earlier to come to China and learn traditional imperial cuisine. He lives in a restored courtyard house on Houhai Lake that has been in his family since 1925 and is mentored by three elderly men he calls his uncles: Jiang Wanli, a retired food scholar; Tan Jingfu, a retired chef; and Xie Er, a chef in Hangzhou. They inform Sam that a cultural competition tied to the 2008 Beijing Olympics will feature cuisine, and he is on the audition list: Ten chefs will each prepare a banquet for a panel, and two will be chosen for the northern-style spots on the national team. After Maggie calls Sam again and proposes writing about the competition instead, he agrees.

At Sam's kitchen, Maggie encounters a culinary tradition far more complex than anything she has known. Sam explains Chinese cuisine's formal ideals of flavor and texture, its use of artifice, its tradition of healing through food, and its insistence that all meals be shared communally. She reads the prologue of his grandfather Liang Wei's book, a memoir of a boy who sold himself into slavery, trained under the great chef Tan Zhuanqing in the Forbidden City kitchens, and witnessed his master's death. Maggie recognizes in Sam a multigenerational connection to civilization that she has never known, and reflects on her rootless life with Matt and his growing desire for children that she kept deferring.

Carey then reveals that he knew about Matt's affair with Gao Lan, describing it as a single night Matt deeply regretted and ended because he loved Maggie too much. Maggie is devastated but must press forward. When she returns to Sam's kitchen visibly distraught, he serves her a poached chicken finished with ginger, cilantro, and chives, flavors selected to address grief according to Chinese healing traditions. She breaks down and confides the full truth. Sam reveals his own problem: His Uncle Xie in Hangzhou is dying, and he too cannot get tickets south. They discover that Shaoxing is only a half-hour from Hangzhou.

When Zinnia is pulled away for urgent work, Maggie invites Sam to travel with her as translator. On the bus to Shaoxing, Sam coaches her using the story of the ancient general Guan Gong and the Sword-Grinding Rain, a legend in which Guan Gong entered an enemy banquet unarmed and won over his would-be assassins through eloquence alone. Sam advises Maggie to approach the grandparents through guanxi, the Chinese concept of mutual connectedness, projecting welcome rather than opposition.

At the grandparents' home, Sam pretends not to speak Chinese, allowing him to overhear their private conversation. The grandmother initially resists the test, then reveals in Mandarin that Gao Lan had two foreign boyfriends simultaneously and is unsure which is Shuying's father. The grandparents eventually consent, and Maggie swabs the child's cheek. On the bus to Hangzhou, Sam tells Maggie what he overheard: The chances of Shuying being Matt's are only 50-50. A violent rainstorm engulfs them, which Sam calls the Sword-Grinding Rain, echoing the legend.

In Hangzhou, they ship the DNA sample and visit Uncle Xie, who, though barely able to move, berates Sam about his cooking and insists he prepare a meal. Sam cooks a 12-course dinner for the extended family, during which Xie repeatedly rejects the lotus-leaf pork ribs for lacking subtlety. The Xie sisters embrace Maggie warmly, and that night she falls asleep in Sam's room. When she wakes to find Sam sleeping on the hallway floor, she pulls him onto the other side of the bed.

Back in Beijing, Sam intensifies his preparations. At the office of an elite fish purveyor, he encounters a competitor named Pan Jun, the son of the vice minister of culture, whose ministry oversees the competition. One of the two northern spots is effectively reserved for Pan, leaving only one between Sam and his true rival, Yao Weiguo. Sam's father, Liang Yeh, who fled China decades ago and refused to return, finally travels to Beijing, motivated by Xie's dying.

Carey tracks down Gao Lan. Maggie and Zinnia visit her at the apartment where she works as an ernai, or kept mistress, for a Taiwanese businessman. Gao Lan explains she approached the other possible father, Andrew Souther, first, but Souther threatened to ruin her if she raised the claim again. She filed against Matt only because he was dead and could not retaliate. She tells Maggie that Matt ended their affair because he loved his wife too much. Maggie pledges to have Carey intervene with Souther if Shuying is not Matt's.

On the day of Sam's banquet, Uncle Xie dies in Hangzhou. Sam presses forward, staging a classical banquet built on literary and historical references. Disaster strikes when a drunken Uncle Tan stumbles into Jiang, shattering a platter of spongy tofu with crab sauce on the floor. Sam calls his father, who arrives and cooks for the first time in decades, creating xiao wo tou, the Empress Dowager's rustic corn cakes, and sesame cakes stuffed with minced pork. The meal concludes with carp in lamb broth, a literary finish: The Chinese character for xian, the fresh natural flavor, combines the characters for fish and lamb. The panel cheers, but Jiang overhears the departing judges praising Sam's brilliance while lamenting that the minister's son must be given a spot.

The DNA results arrive: Shuying is not Matt's daughter. Carey promises to dismiss the claim and confront Souther. The competition results confirm what Jiang overheard: Pan Jun and Yao Weiguo win the two northern spots. Sam watches alone in a bar, devastated. He calls Maggie, who meets him and takes him home when a severe migraine strikes. She watches over him as he sleeps, and when he wakes, she massages his head. He kisses her palm, and after a long, wordless exchange of hesitation and assent, they make love.

The next morning, Sam's father and uncles return and perceive what has happened. Sam cooks congee for breakfast, the simplest and most fundamental food. Liang Yeh tells Sam he is a great chef, the validation Sam has sought his entire life. He recites lines from an ancient Zhou Dynasty poem summoning the soul to the table with the promise of good food, a tribute to the departed Uncle Xie. When Liang Yeh asks Maggie if she will return to China, she looks at Sam and says yes. The old man serves more food and says, "Now eat, children. Another day lies ahead" (270).