‘It just unleashed the inner me’: how fried chicken became the focus of first cookbook by Susan Jung since ending her 25 years as the Post’s food editor
- Growing up in California, former Post food editor Susan Jung wasn’t allowed in her mother’s kitchen, but at her gran’s ‘there I was, making fried chicken’
- It’s been a favourite food ever since, and was a natural subject for her latest cookbook, Kung Pao & Beyond: Fried Chicken Recipes from East and Southeast Asia
“Somebody said I must have starved to death in a former life,” says Susan Jung in her signature deadpan.
We’re sat at her vast wooden dining table after a long lunch of fiery som tam (Thai papaya salad), fluffy steamed rice and three generous plates of fried chicken, chased up with oozing Camembert, a loaded fruit platter and a casual tasting of her favourite Japanese potato snacks (Hula’s Maui chips, sour cream flavour), but she is still very much concerned that I did not have enough to eat.
“Do you want any biscuits or anything?” she asks. I politely decline, and settle for a black coffee instead.
It’s a natural instinct for Jung – a former pastry chef and the South China Morning Post’s long-time food editor – to feed people, and to ensure that her pantry is always full, just in case.
“What if people go home hungry? I had one responsibility, and it was to feed them,” she explains.
After all, food and feeding is her calling card. For 25 years, Jung’s patient and matter-of-fact voice was a constant at the Post, where she would share weekly recipes ranging from complex French desserts – gluten-free cherry blossom macarons, for example – to comforting Chinese dishes, including wontons in a soothing soup.
