Hong Kong grandmother's eel dish enters UNESCO culinary archive
A personal story of a grandmother's eel recipe, despite her fear of eels, has been selected for the Forever Flavors Project's culinary memory archive by UNESCO and Lee Kum Kee. Chef Ricky Kong's work preserving Hong Kong's culinary heritage is also highlighted.
A Hong Kong woman's family recipe has been preserved for posterity. Isabelle Hon, a former editor turned chef, said her grandmother's Shanghai-style stir-fried eel was chosen for the Forever Flavors Project's culinary memory archive. The archive is supported by UNESCO and Lee Kum Kee.
Hon recalled that her grandmother prepared the dish for weekly family gatherings, even though she was afraid of eels. “It was only years later that I discovered she had always been afraid of them,” Hon wrote. She described the dish as the favourite of everyone at the table.
The Forever Flavors Project aims to preserve culinary memories. Hon said the recognition means the love her grandmother expressed through cooking “has found another way to live on”.
The article also profiles Chef Ricky Kong, a third-generation chef and president of the Hong Kong Chinese Chefs Association. Kong is dedicated to passing Chinese culinary traditions to the next generation. He designed a banquet celebrating Hong Kong's intangible cultural heritage, incorporating traditional techniques and ingredients. One dish paired shrimp paste with premium sea cucumber, bringing a humble local flavour into fine dining.
Kong also uses Chinese literature as inspiration. His nine-course banquet based on Dream of the Red Chamber brought the novel's 12 female characters to life through food, with each course accompanied by a poem.
“A dish may be gone in minutes, but the love, memories, and cultural heritage it carries can live on for generations,” Hon wrote.