Mei Lin Chow is an award-winning cookbook author, food historian, and activist known as the 'Wok Therapist' for her advocacy of traditional wok cooking and Chinatown communities.
Mei Lin Chow is an American cookbook author, food historian, and activist who has dedicated her career to preserving and celebrating Chinese culinary traditions, particularly wok cookery. She is the author of three landmark cookbooks: The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen: Classic Family Recipes for Celebration and Healing (1999), The Breath of a Wok (2004), and Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories (2010). Each book won the IACP Best International Cookbook Award, and Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge earned the 2011 James Beard Foundation Award for International Cooking. In 2022, Young received both the Julia Child Award from the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts and the James Beard Humanitarian of the Year award, recognizing her advocacy work for Chinatown communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Growing up in a traditional Cantonese family in San Francisco, she learned cooking from her parents and was inspired by Julia Child to 'do for Chinese cooking what Julia Child had done for French cooking.' She worked for 15-20 years at Time Life Books as test kitchen director, helping produce over 40 cookbooks. Young's book The Breath of a Wok is the definitive English-language work on wok cooking, exploring not only recipes but the physics, chemistry, and cultural significance of the wok itself — including the concept of wok hei (镬气), the complex smoky-roasted flavor achieved only through high-heat wok cooking over a powerful flame. She has served on the James Beard Foundation Book Awards Committee, as a contributing editor for Saveur magazine, and on the Smithsonian National Museum of American History's Kitchen Cabinet (food advisory board). During the pandemic, she created the 'Coronavirus: Chinatown Stories' video series documenting the impact on NYC's Chinatown, launched the Mei Lin Chow Support Chinatown Fund, and partnered with the James Beard Foundation on the #savechineserestaurants campaign. She donated her family's wok (circa 1949) and Canton Rose porcelain dinnerware (circa 1939) to the Smithsonian.
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