Food is the oldest language of humankind. A single dish can travel across mountains and oceans, and carry those who have wandered far back to where they first began.
Spring, 2026. New York City. China Institute of America brought together Yan Geling and Chiang Ching — two legendary figures of Chinese artistic life — for one unforgettable evening at China Institute’s Chinese Culinary Center. One has measured human suffering through the written word. The other has moved through the storms of history in dance. Through the long isolation of the pandemic, Chiang Ching lived alone in Sweden, recreating the flavors of her Chinese memory using whatever ingredients she could find. It was not merely cooking. It was resistance. It was survival. It was a ritual to carry her through solitude. And she poured all of it into her book, Finding Joy Through Food.
That evening, the hors d’oeuvres they made with their own hands were passed among the audience, and the distance between strangers quietly disappeared. As the night drew to a close, readers came forward — holding Youth, The Criminal Lu Yanshi, and Finding Joy Through Food — and paused, for just a moment, before the two authors. As pen met page, something was entrusted: a life, a body of words, placed gently into the hands of another soul.
This is the enduring power of food. This is the eternal warmth of the written word.
