In the wee hours of the morning, head bando chef Lin Tien-sheng leads 20 helpers to the banquet site. Inspecting the location and designing the layout is always the first order of business. After some thought, Lin decides to place the kitchen over by the wall, with the dish washing area at the other end, to avoid having the floor in the cooking area get wet and slippery. The table for chopping vegetables is placed in another corner.

With the layout decided upon, the materials for the bando are unloaded and work begins.

It's not very common for huge contingents from the groom's family to pick up the bride at her home anymore, but you can still often see large bando banquets on the streets.

Chuck wagon

Several women making up the tableware cleanup detail handle the washing, rinsing, drying, and stacking like old hands at this game. Another woman washes the vegetables, giving them a good shake to get most of the water off.

The man chopping vegetables is very precise. That which is to be diced is diced, what needs to be sliced is sliced, and what should be shredded gets shredded. There is nothing careless or halfway about it.

Off to one side there are four stoves on which vegetables and meat are continually simmering. The master explains, "these things are first boiled in water, that way they won't spoil."

What's really admirable is that there is no need for directions or shouting, and no one is slacking. Everyone knows just what needs to be done and when. They are all busy, but they look relaxed and familiar with their tasks. Lin is the only exception. He doesn't chat or joke around; instead he looks dignified and carries an air of authority that you wouldn't want to challenge.

In the afternoon, the seafood is delivered. Everything is so fresh that it is still jumping around. By 4:00 or so, the appetizers are ready. When the workers finish their immediate tasks, they have their own dinners. "We're going to be working until the middle of the night. We'd never be able to stand it if we didn't eat a little something first," says one elderly woman as she munches away.

Next comes putting up the tables and setting out the tableware. Everything is ready to go, and the staff changes into clean uniforms and begins preparing plates of cold appetizers. Guests begin trooping in just after 6:00. When the host gives the nod to begin serving the meal, everyone launches into furious action. Under Lin's direction, the workers deliver the courses of the meal to the tables. The dishwashers scoop up the used plates and promptly wash them in preparation for another course later on. It's all a race against time.

It's not the kitchen of a five-star hotel, but rather is a bando catered by Lin Tien-sheng. Now that Lin is famous as a bando chef, commercial endorsements have followed; his staff is wearing aprons provided by a manufacturer of catering products.

"Kid Chef"

Lin's family has been called "a clan of chefs." His father entered this line at the age of 13 or 14. Lin himself began studying with a master chef at the age of 12. Today he has two sons who also make their living this way.

Based on the belief that "a father should not take charge of instructing his own son," Lin's dad sent him out as a boy to "learn the ropes." After three years and four months of this rigorous training, at 16 Lin "graduated," becoming a master chef in his own right.

In those days graduates didn't receive any diploma or certificate; instead they got a complete set of cooking equipment. From a canvas bag Lin takes out the utensils that his master gave him back then. Lin has carefully preserved this set--knives large and small, a ladle, and serving spoons--to the present day. In his eyes, this set symbolizing his graduation into the ranks of master chefs is priceless.

When he first started out, the diminutive Lin needed to stand on a chair to prepare food. "People praised the food, but when they looked back toward the kitchen they would be surprised to see this little kid standing on a chair. So they jokingly called me 'Kid Chef!'" That nickname then spread to the whole area encompassing Yungle Market, Sungshan, and Nankang (sections of Taipei).

Some people never have the chance to put their talents into play, some are just born at the wrong time. Although Lin has always had great talent, there was a time when he was "a warrior without a battleground."

Just after retrocession, the country was in chaos, and the standard of living was low. Restaurants and cando businesses fell on hard times. For a while Lin took other work as a shipbreaker and electrician, taking the odd bando job on the side. Because he has always been willing to learn and has a quick mind, he did well at whatever he put his hand to. Not long after starting his shipbreaking job he was promoted to be supervisor of the whole work area. As a handyman he acquired a specialized electrician's license.

Lin was discharged from his military service in 1959. At that time the economy was just beginning to take off. So he returned to his former profession, and he and his wife began a bando business.

These utensils, presented to Lin by his teacher and kept by him in excellent condition to the present day, represented Lin's coming out as a master chef in his ow n right.

A heavenly master

Lin's home is an old brick affair resting on the slope of a hill in Nankang. When you first enter, you see that three of the living room walls are covered over with gold medals and laudatory plaques. Over here medals or plaques declare "Unmatched culinary skill" and "A divinely inspired chef." There you see "The spice magician" and "The aroma of fine food permeates the air." They tell a story of a glorious history as a master bando chef.

Since retrocession, Lin has won more than 100 gold medals. Although they don't weigh all that much, they were not easily earned.

Lin relates that in the past bando included the so-called "biahndo" custom. The host would invite four or five different master chefs to set up tables. Each chef would put his finest specialties out, and in the end the champion would be awarded a gold medal. "Sometimes the medals were awarded right on the spot, sometimes they would be sent to the house accompanied by a performing troupe. It was really a big deal," laughs Lin. He almost always emerged from these biahndo as the champion. It got to the point where some other chefs would simply leave the field to him if they heard he was going to participate.

When you ask about his history in bando, Lin's eyes light up, and he talks endlessly and with great interest, like a living history of the industry.

"Most of the early bando were what we called 'surname events.'" Beginning in the first month of the lunar year, in each area the biggest clans would rotate in holding raucous banquets. Business was so good that master chefs sometimes couldn't get a breather until the fifth lunar month.

The next wave would come in the seventh month of the lunar calendar. A master chef would be busy from the beginning of the month to the end. Then there were engagements, weddings, birthdays, house warmings, and other occasions.

At the tables of the bride and groom and of the parents, Lin not only uses the chopsticks to draw the "double-joy" character, but even fits the rest of the tableware into a pattern.

How many can do it?

It was a lot different doing bando then than it is now, points out Lin. There was no "full-service bando catering" before the 1970s; the hosts had to provide the furniture and plates themselves. This meant, in fact, that friends and family had to bring their own. It was only in about 1974 that businesses which specialized in renting out tableware, chairs, and tables came into existence. And a few more years were to pass before people began to contract out for complete bando catering which included every detail.

Early on the "master chef" was responsible only for the preparation of the food. He didn't even need to bring his own ingredients; the host was responsible for buying those. Lin notes that it was not as easy to buy things back then, even if you had the money. Most often the pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks to be consumed had been raised by the host. It was a project just getting eggs; you had to scour the countryside and buy a few here and there where you could find them.

Without being able to prepare his own ingredients ahead of time, the chef had to be a master of every variation of the art of cooking. Seven days before the event, Lin would go to the host's home to soak items like dried sea slug and shark fin in water. Then would come the slaughtering of the pigs and sheep and the mincing of the shark meat (to make fish sauce).

Lin Ming-chang, the eldest son, says that there were many tricky dishes like chicken rolls, thousand-layer cakes, and small delicacies. Now you can buy those things from food manufacturers. In the old days you had to prepare everything at home ahead of time, and even the little children had to lend a hand.

And the chef's work didn't stop with the food. In those days, before gas stoves and modern appliances, the chef had to build an oven out of earth and brick and get the kindling and charcoal going on his own. "How many chefs today have those skills?" wonders Lin with pride.

Lin not only cooks the food, he also often advises his clients on the precisely proper way to run the ceremonies.

Rite and wrong

From his apprenticeship at 12 to today, the 63-year-old Lin has been in the bando business for half a century. It is precisely because of his 50 years of experience that he is so determined to hang on to the old traditions. He feels that the responsibility of the master does not stop at preparing the food; it also includes teaching people the proper behavior and rituals.

Lin has always been very happy to instruct any client who may ask for advice in the proper handling of various ceremonies. For example, "in an engagement ceremony, the mother of the groom should put the ring on the finger of the bride, or else they will have a rocky relationship in the future." Or, "the way of serving the boiled chicken (baizhanji) is very important at an engagement ceremony." This is because, explains Lin, the chicken symbolizes the "starting of a family of one's own" and the removal of its head means there won't be a lot of "hen-pecking." If the chef doesn't understand this point, and fails to remove the head, the in-laws on both sides will snipe afterwards.

Eldest son Lin Ming-chang, on the other hand, believes that his dad's old traditions are increasingly inappropriate to the era. Although he has seen and heard enough to know a little something, Ming-chang rarely intervenes in the way the host wants to run the ceremony. "My dad is senior and carries an air of authority, so when he talks people listen. But I'm young, and my word doesn't carry enough weight, so people wouldn't put much faith in what I say anyway," he says.

"These days nine out of ten master chefs only understand cooking. They know nothing about the proper form of the rituals," sighs Lin. When he was an apprentice he had to first learn the ceremonies before he could begin studying cuisine. These included the rites for weddings, funerals, birthdays, and anniversaries, as well as the ways to dispel bad luck or to correct malevolent influences.

Chien Cheng-tung is, like Lin, a consultant for the annual Taipei Chinese Food Festival, though Chien has chosen the career path of being a hotel chef. He says that it is their understanding of proper traditional rituals that makes the bando master chefs unique, and it's something that hotel chefs lack. "All I can say is that Lin definitely knows that kind of stuff inside and out!"

The numerous gold medals on the wall testify to Lin Tien-sheng's glorious record of superior culinary skill. At right is Lin's wife, Hu Tzu.

He can do it all

Cheng Tien-fu, an old customer who often calls upon Lin's services, recalls one wedding banquet where he personally saw the bride go pale and nearly collapse because, as he puts it, "she was seated in the wrong location." Lin undertook a simple ritual gesture designed to break the spell (he placed some water in a bowl and upended it on a small table under the traditional "double joy" character suspended on the wall), and everything was fine. "This kind of master chef can deal with anything that might come up," Cheng concludes.

In these past 50 years, Lin has never taken on any official apprentices. but countless people have learned under him. Many in the younger generation, including not a few head chefs at fine hotels, call him "Master" or "Grandfather Teacher."

At the Chinese Food Festival held in Taipei this August, which had as its theme "A Retrospective on Taiwanese Cuisine," Lin was in charge of the "birthday dinner" segment. He instructed chefs from the Mandarin and Regent hotels in demonstrating the preparation of classic birthday courses such as "fragrant egg of the white crane" (made with chicken eggs) and "ten thousand cranes live forever" (pork, turnip, and green beans wrapped into bite-sized pieces and arranged into the character for "long life").

If you ask him what makes him different from other people, he just laughs and responds, "only that I am always learning and renewing myself." He adds, "When I relax, my brain goes right back to thinking about new dishes, and nothing else." He says he used to think about new preparations while out fishing, coming home with both his catch and new recipes.

So called "new dishes" simply refers to innovations in cooking method, spices, and ingredients. Take for example oysters. When everyone else was boiling them in water, he was the first to deep fry them. It turned out that the guests all loved it, and other chefs began to follow suit.

Or look at his creation "lupai eel," a very popular course. He took sea eel, which had traditionally only been used as an ingredient in Chinese medicine or else deep-fried, and cooked it in water thickened with potato flour.

Lin excels not only in creating new tastes, but also in his skill with a knife. Even today, when he is no longer a young man, he still says with complete confidence, "I am second to none when it comes to knife technique."

The ginger slices he produces are fine enough to thread through a needle, and his bamboo fibers have been mistaken for super-thin rice noodles. "If you want to be very precise in knife skills, you need to be decisive, and then you have to devote yourself to studying the craft," states Lin. He says that how one holds the knife is very important. The more upright it is held, the thinner and finer will be the slices produced. Moreover, the quality of the knife and the cutting surface can both affect cutting technique. He has learned through years of practice that it is difficult to cut with a short knife, but there is no force at the tip of a knife that is too long. A knife should be about six-and-a-half inches long. The best cutting boards are made of pine (with the board cut across the grain of the wood); this is because it doesn't produce chips or splinters when the knife cuts all the way through the food.

Living for catering

Lin was also the first one to have uniformed staff for a bando. Twenty-some years ago, when even hotel chefs didn't wear professional attire, Lin was putting his bando staff in uniforms.

"When you do anything, you should try to be so good that others will come just to observe you and imitate you. It shouldn't be that you just follow others." This is how Lin has been able to stay ahead of the competition for decades.

But why has Lin decided over these many years to forego the prestige of five-star hotels and stay close to the countryside and the boisterous bando banquets? It's because, he contends, "Bando is what really takes skill."

He notes that hotels operate with a highly refined division of labor. Different people are responsible for washing, cutting, and boiling. But a master bando chef has to be able to do everything from the chopping to the wok work. A hotel chef works every day in the same fixed environment, and some things can be prepared ahead of time and frozen. But a bando chef is like a gypsy--each day he must adapt to a new location and make everything right on the spot. It is much more difficult and requires a greater degree of adaptability.

A proverb has it that, "Doctors fear treating a cough, while master chefs fear noontime meals." Most chefs don't like afternoon bando because there is too little time to prepare, and they worry that everything will be disorganized. But Lin is not afraid. He relates that the biggest bando he ever undertook--more than 200 tables packed with guests (about ten per table)--was an afternoon gig. He spent the whole previous evening preparing, and called upon so many helpers that his staff alone took up eight tables.

To the bando chef the place to demonstrate his skills is away from home. But for the host, who sponsors the bando in the street just outside his residence, this is a demonstration of the hospitality of his or her home. It will only be considered a success if there is an unbroken stream of guests coming and going. This is an important reason why the bando industry still survives in this era of five-star hotels and restaurants.

A true professional

Lin is ordinarily easy-going and considerate, but he gets serious at a bando. His wife Hu Tzu recalls that once they were doing a bando in Nankang, and they forgot the tablecloths. Hurrying back home, Lin was involved in an auto accident. Seriously injured, he was in the hospital for six days, all the while mumbling in a state of semi-consciousness, "It's time already?! Hurry up and put the lobster on!"

"He used to scold me until I cried!" reveals his wife's younger sister, who is in charge of hiring the staff. At first she found being chewed out hard to take, but now she understands her brother-in-law's character and doesn't take it to heart. But not everyone is so adaptable. Lin Ming-chang laughs as he relates, "Once we had a helper coming from Keelung by train. As soon as he heard that the boss was my dad, he got right back on the train and went home."

"Nobody knows that my intentions are good," says Lin, defending himself. When he sees something that doesn't come up to his standards, he can't help getting angry. But all he really demands is cleanliness and safety.

Lin insists that all seafood must be fresh. This especially applies to items like oyster or lobster. Not only does seafood have to be delivered alive, the entire preparation process must be completed in the shortest possible time. Lin also requires his staff to wear uniforms, to remove watches and jewelry, to keep their fingernails clean, and not to get the floor wet. If there is the least bit of dirt the floor must be swept at once. In fact, the record is having the floor cleaned more than 30 times in one day.

Lin is especially careful about safety. The first thing he looks for at the location is an emergency route. He carefully observes the layout and makes sure an escape path is clear. The gas canisters must be placed outside, so that if there is a fire it does not spray onto the workers or guests. Also, the cooking and washing up areas have to be separate, so that there are no accidents caused by wet floors.

Satisfying fare

Lin Ming-chang often tells his dad, "Let the little things go, don't be so demanding." Yet Ming-chang himself is very clear that the family has maintained its reputation and business entirely because of Lin's dedication to his profession and his stubbornness.

A Mrs. Liao, who lives in Nankang, says that her family has invited Lin to handle the bando for every major family event for three generations, ever since her grandmother's time. Her own wedding was catered by Lin. The tables of the bride and the bride's uncle had matching "dragon and phoenix" dishes of cold hors d'oeuvres that still have her family members talking.

The bando business relies mainly on word of mouth, so there is a certain geographic limitation to it. Still, though most of his customers are from the Nankang, Sungshan, and Neihu districts of Taipei, Lin has not been without callers from central and southern Taiwan.

Huang Chin-lung, a resident of Changhua, came up to a family banquet in Taipei once, and was very impressed with the food, especially the "puppet chicken" and "monkey-head mushroom." Later, when Huang moved into a new home and wanted to have a party to celebrate, he asked his relative to find out about the chef. Thinking he had nothing to lose by trying, Huang called Lin. Much to his surprise, Lin agreed right away. "The people who came that day had great things to say about the food, which really made me look good in front of the neighbors. Not only that, Lin was very outgoing and helped everyone have a good time." One of his kids was fascinated with Lin's chef's hat, so Lin gave him the hat on his way out the door.

A good knife never gets dull

These days the work of bando is divided up among family members, each with his or her own duties. When clients call in, Lin draws up a menu based on the nature of the event and the budget. Mrs. Lin is in charge of getting the ingredients, while her younger sister takes care of hiring people to work, His sons Ming-chang and Ming-tsan do most of the cooking these days; Lin only comes out for really big events.

Still, he is a very busy man. He concurrently is on the board of the Republic of China Culinary Exchange Association, the Peng Ren Association, and the Taipei City Dining Industry Professional Union. And he serves as either a judge or a consultant for the annual Golden Banquet Award and Chinese Food Festival events.

In addition, Lin has gone down to the juvenile detention center to teach cooking to the prisoners. He feels that this is a very meaningful thing for him to do. "Only if they have a skill with which to make a living will they avoid falling back into the same rut," he avers.

Though still quite healthy and active, Lin plans to retire in three or four years. Despite his belief that "a good knife never gets dull" and though he has declared that he wants to "keep learning until the day I die," he also understands very clearly that sooner or later the older generation must move aside to allow the younger folks to have their moments in the sun.

"I've never tried to push my kids into following in my footsteps!" True as this may be, the fact is that his three sons could not but see and hear a great deal as they grew, and each has his particular skill. The eldest is particularly good at deep-frying, the second one at knife technique. Even the youngest, who has done landscaping professionally, has his own thing: sculpting of fruit and vegetables and preparing cold appetizers. Still, of the three, only the second has a true vocation for bando. Ming-chang, the eldest, says he is just in it to make a living, and is always talking about changing careers.

But Lin has no problems with his sons leaving the business. He understands that society is changing, and that the bando business is declining. He says that the only ways he really hopes his sons will be like him are in having mastery of many skills and being willing to work hard. Because the old master chef firmly believes that "If you have a skill, sooner or later you will find a way to put it to use." If you have the right stuff, you never need to worry that there will be no place to use it.

[Picture Caption]

p.88

Even after decades as a master chef, Lin takes nothing for granted. He is serious and focused at catered bando banquets, exuding an air of authority.

p.89

It's not very common for huge contingents from the groom's family to pick up the bride at her home anymore, but you can still often see large bando banquets on the streets.

p.90

It's not the kitchen of a five-star hotel, but rather is a bando catered by Lin Tien-sheng. Now that Lin is famous as a bando chef, commercial endorsements have followed; his staff is wearing aprons provided by a manufacturer of catering products.

p.91

These utensils, presented to Lin by his teacher and kept by him in excellent condition to the present day, represented Lin's coming out as a master chef in his own right.

p.92

At the tables of the bride and groom and of the parents, Lin not only uses the chopsticks to draw the "double-joy" character, but even fits the rest of the tableware into a pattern.

p.93

Lin not only cooks the food, he also often advises his clients on the precisely proper way to run the ceremonies.

p.94

The numerous gold medals on the wall testify to Lin Tien-sheng's glorious record of superior culinary skill. At right is Lin's wife, Hu Tzu.