Wok with Stephen Yan – How a Vancouver Restaurateur Made Wokking Accessible to All
Stephen Yan, a Vancouver-based chef who moved to Canada from Hong Kong in the 1960s, made wokking accessible to Canadians. He owned two Chinese restaurants in Vancouver and became a CBC television personality. Given his enthusiastic, dynamic personality, it wouldn’t be surprising if someone from the CBC had visited his restaurant and pitched the idea to him. He was also the successful author of cookbooks featuring the wok published in the 1970s with many editions (sometimes with different covers) and re-released well into the late 1980 and early 1990s by Yan’s Variety Company Limited: Chinese Recipes; Vegetables the Chinese Way; Creative Carving; Wok with Yan; and Seafood Wokbook.
Stephen Yan’s 50-minute TV cooking show called Wok with Yan taught many Canadians how to use a wok. He was a forerunner of today’s celebrity chefs that Johnston, Rodney, and Chong (2014) say “exist at the nexus of culture, media and fame. Their food-related personalities are created and elevated in the media and their image takes on a value much like a brand”[i]. Nestled in time between Canadian cooking shows featuring other male cooks such as the Galloping Gourmet (1960/70’s) and The Urban Peasant (1990’s), Stephan Yan’s use of humour and sense of fun that made Cantonese wok accessible to Canadians and also made him unique.
Wok With Yan, was produced for the first two years in Vancouver by CBC at CBUT studios and later moved to Ottawa where the series was produced by Carleton Productions. The afternoon cooking show aired from 1980 to 1995 and was syndicated in the United States and across Asia for years. Over 500 episodes of Wok with Yan were produced and he also produced travel and variety shows called Wok’s Up? for CBC, Yan’s Wokking for BCTV, and several half-hour travel specials on Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Walt Disney World, Malaysia, Singapore, and Fiji. He even appeared on the Letterman Show.[ii] According to Sahota (2007), Wok with Yan is perhaps best remembered for its host’s ebullience and propensity for the wok pun, delivered with a thick Cantonese accent. Each episode featured Yan clad in a new apron embellished with lettered sayings like: Wok Goes In Must Come Out; Don’t Wok The Boat; Keep On Wokking In the Free World; Wokkey Night In Canada; On A Clear Day, You Can Wok Forever; and Over Wok, Under Pay.[iii] The show was taped in front of live audience and he always invited an audience member to come up and eat with him near the end of each episode (there was a ticket draw in the studio audience to sit with him), and had a fortune cookie reading before the meal (first done in Cantonese, then translated in English).
His shows are still available on some television platforms and you can find some of them on YouTube, for example Beef with Broccoli[iv], which is a typical example of his approach as he describes the basic tools and ingredients, shows how to use a cleaver and gives tips on shopping for the ingredients.
According to Chao (1990), many people’s introduction to an ethnic group they do not know well is through cuisine and in general Pacific Rim countries were the first to adopt Asian ways.[v] Both Vancouver and Victoria had bustling Chinatowns in their historic pasts and many Chinese Canadians can trace their roots in this country back more than 150 years. Chinese restaurants in communities all across Canada were common. But there was a distinct absence of ethnic diversity in television cooking shows and most likely little Chinese style cooking in non-Chinese Canadian homes. Stephen Yan was one of the first to introduce to the intricacies of Chinese cooking to a general Canadian audience.
Canada is often spoken of as a country of immigrants, and we take pride in our multicultural heritage. As each ethnic group settled here, its particular foods and special ways of cooking became a part of the way we cook and eat. Although some suggest that Stephen Yan’s cooking technique was too narrow (focusing on just using the wok) and his approach stereotyped, nonetheless it did serve to a make a wok standard equipment in many Canadian kitchens and demonstrates how chefs who cook, teach, entertain, and write about food have a measurable impact on how and why different foods are prepared in Canadian homes. Because his program originated in BC we claim Stephen Yan as part of BC Food History.
[i] Johnston, J., Rodney, A., & Chong, P. (2014). Making change in the kitchen? A study of celebrity cookbooks, culinary personas, and inequality. Poetics, 47, 1-22.
[ii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9-vxC0YqFg
[iii] Sahota, A. (2007). You are Wok you Eat. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/asianheritage/2007/05/wok_a_delight.html
[iv] www.youtube.com/watch?v=idGvS0pKiC4
[v] Chao, P. Sh. (1998).TV cook shows: Gendered cooking. Jump Cut: : A Review of Contemporary Media, 42(December), 19-27.
I remember Stephen Yan! Thanks for the memory.
As an American kid growing up in Detroit, CBC Windsor Channel 9 carried Wok With Yan. Even as a child in grade school, I found his show fascinating. It didn’t hurt that I happened to think that the Chinese food I could get at my local carry out place was the greatest treat in the world too…..It’s a shame Stephen was a bit too early for the celebrity chef craze of these days….
I s Yan still alive? We knew him in the ’80s
As far as I can determine, he is still alive.
Does anyone know how to get in contact with Yan or a representative … he’s a childhood icon of mine being chinese myself and we’d like to feature him in a docu-series. HELP!!!
Unfortunately we do not have any contact information.
I live in Thailand
Big fans of yours since i was 15. Now i’m 40 🙂
Mr. Yan! I don’t know why I started thinking of you again but I wanted to tell you that I watched you at my babysitter’s house when I was around 4 years old. At 4 years old I tried to copy that trick you did by rolling up the towel and placing it on the edge of my babysitter’s wok but it caught on fire, and later it was explained to me that it should be wet…hahaha. Thanks for the wonderful memory and making good television. I wish I could buy a DVD of the show and your cookbooks. Happy retirement and Bless you!
I worked for Mr Yan in 1981. One day I had to go have my hands photographed by a Port Coquitlam photographer for a box cover in which were Stephen’s chopsticks. I think they were the kind that were joined together. The photo was my hand holding the chopstick. If there’s any old pictures of that merchandise I’d love to show my kids.
I haven’t come across images of his chopsticks. Were they for sale along with his cookbooks?
Does anyone know how to get a hold of Stephen Yan at all??? He’s seems to have disappeared!
There was an article about him from the CBC back in 2007 and Stephen Yan commented that he has retired from the limelight. https://www.cbc.ca/asianheritage/2007/05/wok_a_delight.html
I remember watching Yan daily in the late 70s…being newly married and only 19 I wanted to learn to cook for my wife. I remember he had some kind of a deal with “The Bay” and you could buy all his cooking gear and condiments at their stores. I’m a pretty damn good gourmet cook now but you always have to throw back….tonight’s it’s chicken and baby corn stir fry….thanks Stephan…I’m sure you launched a great number of cooks in your time….
I was a kid growing up in Northern Alberta… I was 12 or 13 when I was a huge Stephen Yan fan and I asked for a Wok for Christmas… There were ZERO chinese ingredients (except in cans) in Peace River.
Thank you so much to Stephen Yan for igniting the interest in cooking and expecially asian cuisine…
I always loved watching his show.
I loved mr tan’s shows I wish they could do a revival of his food menus. It made it look so simple. Loved the guy. He helped my mom an I to make Chinese night a delight.