Joyce Chen Cooks; Beef and Vegetables; 10; Joyce Chen Cooks: Beef and Vegetables

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Transcript

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION:

Wind chimes and titles announce today's recipe, Beef and Vegetables.

Fade-in on Joyce Chen at the kitchen counter. She declares it great

that she and the viewer share the same "hobby" (her word) of cooking.

Today she will make beef with vegetables. One typical vegetable for

this dish is Chinese pea pods (otherwise known, she notes, as snow

peas) and in close-up she shows how they differ from American pea pods.

But since Chinese pea pods are not readily available everywhere in

America. she offers ideas for other, more attainable American

vegetables: for instance, green peppers (found, she observes, in every

American supermarket) or mushrooms or celery or broccoli. Here, she

notes that American broccoli differs from the more flowery Chinese

broccoli but that doing a stir-fry will enable one to serve "American

broccoli [the] Chinese way" -- an example again of how Chen works to

mediate Chinese cuisine for American audiences. She shows how to cut

broccoli to preserve most of the vegetable and then demonstrates how to

add a "Chinese touch" (her phrase) to the dish by including canned

bamboo shoots and water chestnuts and, if this can be located in one's

local markets or stores, dried black mushrooms. To clarify just how dry

the dried mushrooms are when purchased, she whacks one down on the

table so the viewer hears the dryness (a typical use of the auditory

dimension to get across a sensation -- here, touch -- that a television

viewer cannot typically experience). Whatever vegetable or vegetables

one chooses for the stir fry (most vegetables can be combined although

she recommends against two green vegetables together) will then be stir

fried in oil with a slice of ginger root. "Let's go to cook," she

announces and the camera pans left to follow her along the kitchen

counter to a wok on the stove. An overhead shot (filmed with a mirror)

allows the viewer to see the vegetables cook away. She removes the

results from the wok and sets them aside. Now she begins the

preparation of the beef. She prefers, she tells the viewer, to use

flank steak as it is relatively inexpensive and easy to cut, although

more expensive cuts like sirloin would work too. The slices of beef

need to be marinated, and she uses a mixture of sherry, soy,

cornstarch, sugar, and MSG. She uses the same wok she cooked the

vegetables in and recommends not washing it between the two stir fries

as this saves clean-up time (where cooking is fun, washing dishes, in

contrast, is a hard, unenjoyable job, so she tells us). She then mixes

the vegetables with the stir-fried beef and blends everything together.

Verbally, she begins to remind the viewer of the ingredients for

today's recipe, and there is a dissolve to the Chinese figurines each

with a label indicating an ingredient (as the camera pans over these,

Chen also enumerates the items in voice-over). Chen plates up the stir

fry. Perhaps because there is little more than a minute left to the

show, she doesn't leave the kitchen for the dining area. Instead, she

displays the dish on the kitchen counter and declares this to be a

"proud moment for a cook." She shows how the Chinese cook typically

calls family or guests to dinner: namely, by clanging on the wok with

the spatula. "See you again," she announces and the camera pulls back

until the wind chimes come into view. Note: there are two differences

at the end from the previous episode. First, the end title tells us

"Joyce Chen Cooks" rather than "Joyce Chen Cooked." Second, there is no

voice-over that specifies she is the author of a published cookbook.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION BY DANA POLAN

Transcript

Transcript

Series: Joyce Chen Cooks

Program: Beef and Vegetables

Episode Number: 10

Title: Joyce Chen Cooks: Beef and Vegetables

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-m32n58ct0f

If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/15-m32n58ct0f).

Description

Credits: Director: Stevens, Mark
Host2: Chen, Joyce, 1917-1994
Other (see note): Mahard, Frances
Producer2: Lockwood, Ruth
Publisher: Presented by the Estate of Joyce Chen and the WGBH Educational Foundation

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 681dfccc58d6904b39cb6901ec2291f6240d5f9d (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: B&W
Duration: 00:00:00

Citations: Chicago: “Joyce Chen Cooks; Beef and Vegetables; 10; Joyce Chen Cooks: Beef and Vegetables,” 1966-12-22, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed April 27, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-m32n58ct0f.; MLA: “Joyce Chen Cooks; Beef and Vegetables; 10; Joyce Chen Cooks: Beef and Vegetables.” 1966-12-22. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. April 27, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-m32n58ct0f>.; APA: Joyce Chen Cooks; Beef and Vegetables; 10; Joyce Chen Cooks: Beef and Vegetables. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-m32n58ct0f