“Please respect the food.” said Mr. Au Yeung

出自香港新聞網 - 樹仁新傳系學生實習習作

“Please respect the food.” said Mr. Au Yeung

As a multi-media creator of the host of television program, designer and writer, Mr. Au Yeung Ying Chai amazed the Shue Yan University students about his experience and persistence towards food, while he was invited to give a speech about the taste of Hong Kong.

“Respecting the food.” Mr. Au Yeung pointed out that food is his friend, rather than a daily necessity. It is essential to spend more time on observing or investigating the values of food, not even only concern on the taste of food. He used Hong Kong people want to eat noodles during the flare up of SARS as an example, people won’t care are the noodles delicious or not, because eating noodles becomes a custom, and they have already built up a sensation with noodles. They worried about losing a friend (noodles), it can clearly be seen that the value of food is out of his understanding.

Mr. Au Yeung said that he is crazy about the culture of food, and study of the food culture is differing from other knowledge. He believes that the “milk tea”, “tea restaurant”, “egg tart” and the like, all of those are the result of culture of food; other countries won’t have such food culture except Hong Kong. However, as the time goes by, such culture should be changed or improved, otherwise, it might disappear and the new generation might not have the chance to experience it. Mr. Au Yeung reminds us to preserve our unique food culture from here and now, because it represents the taste of Hong Kong.

In 2007, he released a series of <<The Taste of Hong Kong>>, and arranges the food into 144 groups. Before writing the book, he spent not a few time to collect the data and preparation, included marking down the feeling and the origin of food, also invited his friend to taste the food together. Mr. Au Yeung thought that he enjoys the process of writing that book very much. It was because he could share the feeling of food with his friend, and understand more about his friends’ new situation when gather the data.

With regard to the television program<<Beauty’s Kitchen>>; he thought that as a diet program, not only wasting the food, but also expressing the message that female who does not know how to cook is equal to clumsiness. Mr. Au Yeung blamed that is irreverent to the food and actress.