So when a gem of a cook book called Cooking the Chinese Way pops up, published in 1948, it creates a lot of interest… for everyone.

The author and chef is Bendigo’s Roy Geechoun sometimes spelt with an e on choun. It is beautifully written in English, due in no small part to Roy’s English grandmother.

Roy says in the introduction that Australians produced the best food in the world but as cooks we were hopeless.

One of five boys, Roy grew up on the family’s market garden plot along the creek at Grassy Flat, near the Bendigo Airport. It was prime land for the Chinese and ran from Strickland  Road along to where the Bendigo Airport is today.

Roy has very thoughtfully included a translation of the ingredients in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.

He has firm ideas about food, which resonates well with today’s focus on fresh and fresher.

His dedication on the fly reads –

“…It is to help clear up some of the mystery that this little book has been compiled.

The most skilled Chinese chefs are not unnaturally reluctant to reveal their secrets with the result that most of the recipes which are occasionally made available invariably have their shortcomings.

For the recipes in this book I have been fortunate to have the complete cooperation of an expert Chinese Chef who has freely made available his wide experience.

Together we have worked out all the essentials to ensure even the least competent cook can make a success of his ventures into Chinese Cooking.

Quantities are accurate and what is most important in Chinese cooking, the average times of the various stages of the cooking have been included.

I wish to express my thanks to Mr James Law, whose cooking has brought me some of my most treasured memories and who has been the source of those little secrets which give this book a true Chinese flavour.”

Rou Geechoun, Melbourne. September 1, 1948.

Helpfully, Mr Geechoun has included hints on what must have seemed strange to European tastes. Of bamboo shoots, he says the Chinese make a point of appealing to all the senses with their cooking, and the crispness you get in a bamboo shoot is especially sought in many dishes.

On sprouted bean shoots, Roy tells you how to grow them, so you will have stock of a fresh vegetable at a moment’s notice, that will improve your chicken rolls and many other dishes.

 { Take a stock of dried bean seeds and soak them overnight. Then spread them on some clean straw or hessian in a warm place where they will soon shoot. The sprouted beans are dipped in clean water four or five times a day for a further six or seven days by which time they will be about two inches long and ready for use.}

Water chestnuts are a perennial favourite according to Roy, and an important ingredient in Chinese cooking. The muddy paddy fields are ideal growing conditions for the crisp apple textured bulb.

While Roy admits the Chinese were not a scientific people, they have made some important discoveries which have a solid scientific basis. One is the use of bean curd as an everyday food item. Bean curd is a valuable substitute for dairy products which are entirely missing from their diet.

 {Bean curd is made by soaking dried soya beans overnight and then ground wet in a quern. Liquid is poured onto the ground beans and then they are strained through a coarse kind of native cheese cloth. Further water is poured through the residual pulp and strained in a similar way. Only the filtrate is used in the preparation of the bean curd. The waste pulp is fed to pigs or cattle. Next a small amount of powdered gypsum is added to the filtrate which is then boiled. The bean curd coagulates, the gypsum assisting and hastening the coagulation. The surplus liquid is then strained off and the curds set out in moulds. If you need to keep the bean curd for a length of time it can be left to dry out completely.}

Bird’s nest soup, or Yin War Tong, is another Chinese delicacy. Almost pure gelatine the Collocalia, one of the smallest swifts, build their nests on dangerous cliff faces. They are then harvested at a high cost to life and limb. 

{To cook the nest, soak in hot water for two hours then drain. Bring stock to boil and add nest. Boil for 10 minutes.}

Western tastes are more familiar with fish, and as Roy notes, China’s seas and innumerable waterways abound with fish. Seafood of all kinds, many of them unknown to us, balance the Chinese diet of cereals and vegetables.

Chinese cooks are unexcelled in the variety and tastiness of their fish dishes. Squid, cuttlefish, beche de mer or sea cucumber, and shark are used by the more fortunate Chinese. Oysters, mussels, clams, crabs, lobsters, shrimps and prawns are plentiful and add a bit of cooking genius and interesting ventures.

See you or soy bean sauce adds the essential Chinese tang to many dishes. This free flowing black liquid has a distinctive and agreeable spice flavour and is a product of the invaluable Soya bean (Glycine Hispidia). Roy recommends adding a dash to most dishes.

In all beverages except tea, the Chinese are very moderate. Many of China’s monarchs were heavy drinkers though, and some of her beloved poets were inveterate tipplers.

Li Po of the T’ang dynasty and China’s most famous poet was drowned when he fell out of a boat while trying to embrace the reflection of the moon on the placid waters of a lake.

Tea on the other hand is accorded a high place. On the counter in every Chinese store stands a pot of hot tea in its bamboo wicker cosy, for the use of customers. Tea is an essential part of the social graces, the mature art of living.

Cooking the Chinese way

Melbourne: WD Joynt & Co., 1948

Violet Geechoun on the day of her marriage to Charles Quon

Around 1905

She was seventeen and Australian-born of Chinese market gardeners in Bendigo in central Victoria. He was 32, had migrated from China when he was a young boy and settled in Rutherglen in north-east Victoria, where there was a small community of Chinese market gardeners and grape-vine labourers. Theirs was an arranged wedding. Although he kept the traditional Chinese queue, or pigtail, he wore western dress all the time. Charles Quon's first business was a restaurant, as a partnership with one Charles Lim Kee. After that he set up a general store which he built in 1907 in Main Street, Rutherglen.

Pic from http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/chinese-australian-families/9423/violet-geechoun/

Roy Geechoun

Pic With thanks to the Bendigo Chinese Association Collection

Roy’s brothers:

Far left Roy, centre back Eric, back right Leslie, front left Vern and Arthur

Pic With thanks to the Bendigo Chinese Association Collection

Illustrations by Ruth Shakel