“I think it’s true that many people have a deep-seated love of cooking—just look at all the do-it-yourself hotpot and barbecue restaurants. Not many people are actually good cooks, but those who are willing to try to improve their skills are already ahead of the crowd.”

A book launch for Chuang’s People Love Cooking was held at the Zhong­cheng branch of Eslite Bookstore in mid-March, 2012. Unlike many cookbooks, which tell you what to do but not why, this book goes more deeply into the skills of gourmet cooking. As well as featuring easy-to-do recipes such as five-minute European-style bread and super-simple fruit crumble, it also explores the reasons for techniques like tossing ingredients as they’re frying, or frying fish on only one side. She also includes her research into the science of the kitchen, and explores kitchen culture: the tendency of chefs to regard knife-scars as a badge of office, demand ultimate discipline and efficiency, and not worry too much about hygiene.

Chuang has a unique approach to cooking and food culture that has perhaps been influenced by her anthropology fieldwork. She has, in fact, gained the title of “anthropologist in the kitchen.”

Chuang enjoys a very close relationship with her mother Fan Yu-wen, who well understands her daughter’s desire to pursue her dream. She was able to switch careers seamlessly mainly because of her mother’s support.

A graduate of the Department of English at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), Chuang played and sang in a band at university, and even released an album called Juvenile Love. Although she had the face of a music idol, she chose not to follow a career in entertainment. In fact, she was determined to become an academic, eventually choosing to major in the extremely unfashionable field of anthropology.

But reality hit hard when she joined the master’s program at the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University. She realized her subject wasn’t as romantic as she’d imagined. When her classmates were criticizing some ethnographic theory as fallacious, Chuang, lacking any foundation in ethnography, was unable to offer an opinion. She was, in fact, dreaming about Taiwanese spicy beef noodles. Even after class, she had no desire to discuss the subject with her classmates, but rushed straight to a supermarket to buy the ingredients for beef noodles.

“I had no experience of cooking, so the dish ended up with bits of leathery beef floating in a sharply-flavored broth of soy sauce. But I was surprised to find that my strained nerves were eased during the cooking process.”

Sharing recipes for tasty and easy-to-prepare food with her readers is a real joy for Chuang Tzu-i. This Chinese cabbage salad, for example, is very easy to make. Ingredients include Chinese cabbage, peanuts, dried bean curd, coriander, and shredded chili.

After that experience, shopping for ingredients and cooking became the most important recreational activities in her rather stressful life overseas. Whenever she confronted the difficulty of an unfinished essay, she would put away everything and go to the kitchen to cook. It became a sort of second home where she could create special culinary treats for her friends. She had her American classmates over for dinner on Chinese New Year’s Eve, and at Thanksgiving she roasted a turkey and cooked pumpkin pies to share with her Taiwanese classmates.

After successfully completing her master’s degree, Chuang was admitted to the PhD program at the Department of Anthropology, UWS. While her academic performance was gradually showing some signs of progress, she took most pride in her culinary achievements, which had shown vast improvement.

In August 2006, with her doctorate underway, she moved to Boston with her husband, a US diplomat whom she had met during her field study. Chuang immersed herself in her dissertation, but progress was very slow. She suffered ­every day from stomachaches, nightmares, and night sweats. It was a battle to get up in the mornings.

One day, while doing the usual battle with her academic work, she noticed a building in Boston called the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. From outside the school building, through windows she could see a lecturer in a chef’s hat, talking to students and pointing to a map of Italy. A dozen or so students in crisp white shirts and hats were quietly taking notes, and behind them was a kitchen full of shining stainless-steel cookware.

“I couldn’t help but stand there staring at them. It felt a bit like being close to death, but then seeing light at the end of the tunnel!” Chuang wrote.

She went straight away to buy two books: the autobiography of well-known US chef Julia Child, My Life in France, and senior journalist Michael Ruhl­man’s The Making of a Chef. After reading the two books, Chuang was inspired. It felt like getting an electric shock. Suddenly, she knew what she wanted to do. “Hallelujah, I had found my career! I wanted to study cooking, and give my life to the study of food!” Shortly afterwards, with absolutely no regrets at all, she brought to an end her eight years of study in anthropology, and enrolled in the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts.

Dissatisfied with existing circumstances, Chuang had been bold enough to make a break in order to fulfill a dream. This determination was in fact inherited from her mother, celebrated vocalist Fan Yu-wen, who also found a dream to pursue at age 32, regardless of all the barriers.

Fan, born in 1946, grew up in a large military family. She had a sweet voice and had loved singing since she was a young girl, but because of her father’s strict discipline, she was unable to obtain a musical education.

After junior high school, she followed her parents’ expectations to study at the Tai­pei Normal School for Girls, where she had the opportunity to learn music theory and have singing lessons in the school choir.

After graduating, Fan taught in kindergartens and then elementary schools, eventually getting married and having a child quite early—just like the majority of women of that era. But there had always been a voice in her heart: “My life shouldn’t be just this!”

After her second daughter, Chuang Tzu-i, was born, with her husband’s support, at age 28 she applied for entry to the Department of Music at NTNU.

As well as studying, Fan had to look after her two children, unlike most of her classmates who were young and carefree. For the evening opera and chorus classes, she had a nanny to look after the younger daughter, and often took the elder daughter to class with her. Luckily, she was a good girl who always sat quietly and played by herself.

Four years later, Fan graduated top of her class majoring in singing, and gained a place for further study at the Milan Conservatory (Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi di Milano) in Italy. At the time her husband, an engineer, was stationed in Saudi Arabia for two years, so Fan saw the perfect opportunity to fulfill her dream. Although she didn’t know any Italian, at age 32 she decided to move to Italy to study. One daughter stayed with her parents and the other with a nanny. Then off she went to seek her dream.

“In order to complete my degree quickly, I practiced singing all day—almost without a break. I gained a score of 9.5 in the graduation examination, only 0.5 off a perfect mark. I was very sad about that result for a long time.”

Two years later, Fan completed her degree, and was thinking of staying to perform in Europe, but from the other end of the world, her husband complained: “How long is it since you’ve spent time with your kids!” “When I heard mention of the children, I packed my bags and headed home!” says Fan.

Fan soon found a teaching position in Taiwan, quickly becoming the island’s most prestigious prima donna, and singing in a number of operas including Rigoletto, Carmen and Turandot.

Fan has always felt a bit sorry about leaving her two daughters to fulfill her dream. But when she heard that her daughter wanted to give up her PhD to become a chef, she wasn’t terribly surprised and didn’t act like the typical Taiwanese mother to try to stop it from happening. On the contrary, Fan strongly supported her daughter and said: “It’s a shame you won’t complete your dissertation, but after all happiness is the most important thing in one’s life!”

With her mother’s backing, ­Chuang started formal cookery training, and also began to write a blog, recording the whole process of her turn to a culinary career.

The topic in the first lesson at cooking school was eggs. The instructor introduced their structure, nutrition and chemical constituents, and also demonstrated how to make standard French omelets.

At the time ­Chuang wondered: “What’s so remarkable about an omelet?”

But later on she found that making an omelet is one of the basic skills of French cookery, often the main topic in job interviews when French restaurants are recruiting chefs. The quality of any chef can be seen in just a few simple actions, from selecting a pan, beating the eggs, and controlling the temperature, to finally turning the omelet out of the pan.

Gaining an understanding of the importance­ of detail in the cooking process, ­Chuang put great effort into absorbing knowledge about ingredients and cooking techniques. She learnt how to make bread, analyze yeast, open raw oysters, and cook broth, and how to debone a chicken while maintaining its shape. In her final graduation examination, she cooked smoked chicken with tealeaves, and fried steak with layered spinach cake, earning plaudits from the examiners.

After completing the course, ­Chuang moved with her husband to Hong Kong, where she worked as a voluntary apprentice at the Michelin-starred Amber Restaurant, part of the Landmark Mandarin Oriental Hotel. At the interview, she proudly displayed her slim, burn-scarred arms to the master chef, showing she wasn’t afraid of hard work.

She worked 12 hours a day in the restaurant, often doing repetitive tasks such as slicing cucumbers for an entire afternoon or picking thousands of stems from tender salad leaves. And of course, she had to face humiliation from the master chef’s coarse language.

Has her passion for cooking ever faded because of the harsh working conditions? ­Chuang says without hesitation: “Absolutely not. The joy of cooking lies in the results you can see, smell, touch, and taste. Your contribution is rewarded. I made progress every day during my training—that was my real reward.”

Later, ­Chuang and her husband moved to Shang­hai. She has temporarily left her favorite profession because she’s expecting a child. But due to her interest in writing, her home kitchen has been the scene of a great deal of experimentation by which she creates a range of delicious dishes to share with her readers—many of whom love food and food culture almost as much as her. “I intend to continue using the methods of ethnography to demonstrate the diversity of food culture.”

Her wide-ranging knowledge, sophisticated character, and bold pursuit of what she loves to do are perhaps the main reasons why ­Chuang’s writings on food are so enchanting.