Joyce Chen: America's Greatest Popularizer Of Chinese Food

Ella Cohen
Michael Cione
Em Bayona

Joyce Chen was a well-recognized chef, television personality, and restaurant owner, who introduced Chinese food to the American public. Through her television show and multiple restaurants, she is one of America’s greatest popularizers of Chinese food. E.C. Joyce Chen was born in Beijing on September 12, 1917, the youngest of nine children of a high-ranking Qing dynasty official, during the Republican era under Sun Yat-sen. Joyce Chen’s mother was a food enthusiast and pioneer in promoting healthy Chinese cooking. Born into a wealthy family, Joyce discovered her passion for cooking at a very early age. Her father, a railroad administrator and city executive, hired a family chef that cooked all of their

Then, in 1949, Chen’s family moved to Cambridge, MA due to the Chinese Communist Revolution. Her children attended Buckingham School, where she would frequently bring food, which everyone loved. This inspired Chen to open her first restaurant in 1958, called “Joyce Chen Restaurant.” At this restaurant, she served both Chinese and American buffet dishes to encourage customers to try new foods. The restaurant introduced Chinese cultured food to the American people. Her restaurant served buffet style meals to let customers have samples of every food on the menu. Moreover, she held cooking classes and wrote cookbooks to make it simple for people to make Chinese-style food. She released her first cookbook in 1962; the Joyce Chen Cook Book. In the book she talks about how to use chopsticks, the importance of tea, how to prepare rice correctly, and other key traditions. Dr. Paul Dudley White applauded her cookbook because it encouraged people to eat healthy foods that are enjoyable at the same time. She sold 70,000 copies of her cookbook. In 1967, Chen opened her second restaurant called “The Joyce Chen Small Eating Place.” Through her restaurants, she developed relationships with many well-known people, including Julia and Paul Child, Henry Kissinger, Danny Kaye, and Beverly Sills. That same year, Chen starred in Joyce Chen Cooks, her own cooking show on PBS that aired worldwide from 1966 to 1967. This twenty-six-episode broadcast was filmed in the same studio as Julia Child’s show, and they then became good friends. As her food grew more popular, she introduced new meals such as “Peking Duck, Moo Shi Pork, Scallion Pancake, Soup Dumplings, and Hot and Sour Soup.” She is credited with creating the term “Peking Raviolis”' or “Ravs,” for what many know as Potstickers. Not only that, but she created microwavable “Soup Dumplings”. In 1969 and 1973, Chen opened