''Yan Can Cook'' is a Chinese-oriented

cooking show A cooking show, cookery show, or cooking program (also spelled cooking programme in British English) is a television genre that presents food preparation, often in a restaurant kitchen or on a Television studio, studio set, or at the host's p ...

starring

Chef A chef is a professional Cook (profession), cook and tradesperson who is proficient in all aspects of outline of food preparation, food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term (), the di ...

Martin Yan Martin Yan (; born 22 December 1948) is a Chinese-American chef and food writer. He has hosted his award-winning PBS-TV cooking show '' Yan Can Cook'' since 1982. Early years and education With ancestral roots in Hoiping, Yan was born in ...

that featured recipes for stir fried foods and an assortment of various other

traditional A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examp ...

Chinese

meals A meal is an occasion that takes place at a certain time and includes consumption of food. The English names used for specific meals vary, depending on the speaker's culture, the time of day, or the size of the meal. A meal is different from a ...

and

cooking Cooking, also known as cookery or professionally as the culinary arts, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or Food safety, safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from ...

techniques. The series originated in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, Canada ( CFAC-TV), from 1978 to 1982 as a daily syndicated cooking show, ''Yan Can'', for 250 episodes until Yan moved to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States, in 1982 starting ''Yan Can Cook'' on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

( KQED). Yan also wrote several

cookbooks A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (appetizer, first cours ...

which serve as companions to these various television series.

Presentation style

Chef Yan's style of presentation was infused with (and today continues to feature) humor using witticism, and international or local cultural references. During this program's original run he became known for his main catchphrase, "If Yan can cook, so can you, zai jian (goodbye in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

)/zoi gin (goodbye in

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

)!", with which he signed off on each show. He used a second catchphrase, "Something fishy here! 'sic'', used whenever he cooked seafood. One of his other trademarks was to chop food frantically making music with a sharp cleaver while grinning toward the camera and audience. This show is shot on stage.

References

1982 American television series debuts 1980s American cooking television series James Beard Foundation Award winners 1970s Canadian cooking television series {{food-tv-prog-stub