Moveable Feasts with Craig Au-Yeung of Taste Library
By Janice Leung Hayes
Over Easter weekend, we were fortunate to have Craig Ying-chai Au-Yeung introduce the Slow Food scene in Mainland China to us.
Craig is a Slow Food China ambassador, and curator of Taste Library, Asia’s largest library dedicated to food publications, and the location of our event. However, Hongkongers will know him as one of our city’s foremost food culture specialists. Although an interior designer by training, Craig is a multidisciplinary creative, and his longtime interest in food has led him to write a wide array of books about food culture.
During his time with us, Craig shared his experiences over the past few years, most of which was spent in Mainland China, discovering the foodways there. This saw him being sent to various food producers and farms all across the country to film a documentary series, as well as researching and planning an innovative real estate project centred around the concept of a “Slow Village”.
A Slow Village, Craig explained, is an ambitious project to bring city dwellers back into villages in the countryside. China, like most countries, has seen its population move rapidly out of rural areas and into cities. Almost everyone of working age has gone to seek work in the bustling metropolises, leaving behind only the very young, and the very old. More and more houses in the countryside are falling into disrepair and farms are no longer being tended to by efficient, young hands. The Slow Village concept, therefore, is to bring city people back into these villages, by repairing the infrastructure while maintaining normalcy in the villages. Set up like a timeshare holiday property, investors will essentially become “members” or part-time residents of the village.
Craig’s role is to research and develop the food offerings at the village – devising a menu that showcases the local cuisine, curating the serviceware, to hiring a local chef. He visited the kitchens of local cooks to explore their traditional recipes, and worked with pottery ateliers to create reproductions of antiques from the region.
To conclude the workshop, he cooked a simple regional Chinese dish, originally from Hunan but taught by his friend in Taiwan – green peppers stir-fried with chilli, fermented black beans and hard-boiled eggs. A hearty, rustic dish, it would fit in a Hunanese Slow Village nicely.