Actor, ‘restaurant kid’ Ming-Na Wen reflects on the Asian American experience in 70 recipes

Just like her mother, Ming-Na Wen will show you she cares through the love language of food.

“Whenever anyone comes to the house, it’s always, ‘Have you eaten yet?’” Wen told The Associated Press. “So that was how I came up with the title, because I wanted that as a greeting for my fans.”

Wen, who found fame in the 1993 film adaptation of Amy Tan’s novel “The Joy Luck Club” and went on to star in “Mulan,” is wading into the cookbook market. “Have You Eaten Yet? Family Recipes From a Restaurant Daughter,” out Tuesday, is sprinkled with Chinese and Western recipes and first-person anecdotes.

The recipes parallel Wen’s evolution from immigrant kid helping out at her parents’ restaurant to working actor cooking for her own children.

For generations of Asian Americans, Wen became an icon for validating the bicultural experience as June in “The Joy Luck Club.” The first big studio feature with an all-Asian cast was praised for depicting Chinese characters and Chinese food in a non-demeaning way.

Despite being more prevalent now than ever, Chinese cuisine is still at times stereotyped or devalued. Wen might be an ideal ambassador to share experiences of growing up eating Chinese and American food.

“I didn’t want it to just be about Chinese food,” said Wen, 62. “I wanted it to be about the Asian American experience.”

The cookbook is a way to honor her family

The idea for a cookbook began with Wen’s Instagram cooking videos, posted from her Los Angeles home. Fans urged “The Mandalorian” star to write a cookbook, but she didn’t feel qualified — until she learned there are “many celebrities who would write a book who didn’t cook, which to me was such a no-no.”

“It took a couple of years before my literary agent came up with this wonderful idea that we write the cookbook as my journey through food,” Wen said.

She ended up whittling a list of a hundred recipes down to 70. Among those that made the cut are Popo’s (Cantonese for grandmother) Wontons, and Chestnut Chicken, both reminiscent of her childhood in Hong Kong.

She also wanted to honor her stepfather, or “Chef Baba (Cantonese for father),” who taught her to cook Western dishes he had learned cooking in the army. He could pivot from making clam chowder to winter melon soup.

At age 7, Wen rode in an airplane for the first time when her stepfather sponsored her, her mother and brother to come to the U.S. They lived in New York City for three years before moving to Pittsburgh. There, her parents opened the Chinatown Inn restaurant. A good “restaurant daughter,” Wen helped set tables, wash dishes and other tasks.

“Being a restaurant kid was something that I sort of was either embarrassed about or rejected or didn’t like because it took time away from hanging out with my friends,” Wen said. “Looking back … it makes me so much more aware of how much that restaurant’s given and provided for my family and for shaping who I am.”

Having to cook far from home reawakened old skills

It wasn’t until the Carnegie Mellon University alum moved to New York to pursue acting that she found she had a knack for cooking. She was on a shoestring budget, and the necessity of cooking awoke all those kitchen-prep skills she had seen as a child.

“It’s interesting how all those things that I observed growing up became second nature when I did start cooking, like really feverishly,” Wen said.

She went from making ramen and eggs to Cornish game hens with Chinese plum sauce.

Wen kept up cooking even after scoring a part on “As the World Turns” in 1988, making her the first Asian American actor on contract with a soap.

The cookbook has compelled her to revisit dishes she made back then, as well as those from Chinatown Inn, which her brother and sister-in-law run today. She felt like a “mad chemist” at times since her family cooks on instinct, not written recipes.

“The egg rolls — my brother was just like, ‘OK, these are the ingredients.’ I’m like, ‘Well, how much to how much? He’s like, ‘I don’t know,’” Wen said. “I had to measure and measure and remeasure and taste-test and taste-test until I got it right.”

By all means, get a wok

Nowadays, cookbooks on Asian cuisine make up a crowded field, including niche volumes, such as vegan or noodle dishes, or ones influenced by a region of the U.S.

“In a weird way, my cookbook is going back to the basics, and yet expanding on it through other foods that people are familiar with,” Wen said.

She is eager for readers to try more challenging recipes like wontons and “lion’s head,” meatballs with napa cabbage. Wen also cannot recommend a wok enough.

“If there was ever an apocalyptic situation in L.A. and I have to leave with some essentials, I would grab my wok and my spatula, because you can cook anything in a wok,” she said.

Eddie Lin, a Los Angeles-based food writer and past “MasterChef” TV judge, was also a production assistant on “The Joy Luck Club.” Chinese food was “all over the place” in many big scenes, he recalls. So, he sees it as a nice full-circle moment that Wen is again bringing attention to the Asian American experience.

Her cookbook will stick out, he thinks, because she is willing to be so personal.

“I feel that Ming-Na’s book is probably her story on a plate or in a bowl,” Lin said.

Despite the popularity of Asian foods, there are still instances of ugly stereotypes on social media that have resulted in real harm to a restaurant’s reputation.

“It does irk me quite a bit,” Wen said. “I know how difficult it is to keep a restaurant afloat, especially these days. All we can do is just ignore the negative, ignore the toxic and just try to find joy and harmony. Food is the universal love language. So, I will go with that thought instead.”