Joyce Chen Cook Book

Cambridge; Boston: Joyce Chen Associates; Designed and printed at The Nimrod Press, 1962. Square octavo (23 x cm.), 223, [4] pages. Illustrated. FIRST EDITION. The original self-published cookbook that was to become an evergreen classic of Chinese-American cooking, a book which perhaps did more to introduce Chinese home cooking to Americans than any other before. Cambridge-based Joyce Chen (1917-1994) was a chef, author, television personality and enterpreneur. She had several acclaimed restaurants in Cambridge. Chef Ming Tsai called Chen the Chinese Julia Child [...] Joyce Chen helped elevate what Chinese food was about. She didn't dumb it down. She opened people's eyes to what good Chinese could taste like." Laid-in are five related items, including a four-page "Christmas Thoughts", an insert printed a year later for the 1963 holiday season; a four-page Mail Order Catalog with envelope, and a typed letter signed, introducing a special pastry service at Chen's restaurants. Interior is clean and sound. In original pictorial boards, printed in brown and grayish blue. No dust jacket as issued; later printings of this edition were issued in tan cloth and a dust jacket that mimics the design on the original boards. Fine. Signed by the author, "Joyce Chen" on a preliminary blank.