Asian Cuisine for Western Tables

📚New Books on Asian Cuisine!🍜

Asian Heritage Chefs in White House History: 

Cooking to the President’s Taste

By Adrian Miller, James Beard Award-Winning Author 

and Former Policy Analyst 

& 

Deborah Chang, Chef and Former Attorney

PURCHASE BOOK (5/8/2026)

Miller and Chang expand on the history of the many Asian Heritage chefs who have prepared meals for the presidents at the White House, at State Dinners, on Presidential Yachts, and at Camp David. He explains that he was able to identify presidential chefs with roots in China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. His research is enriched by the biographies, memoirs, cookbooks, and news coverage of the early chefs, and by his own interviews with former and current White House chefs. 

Chop Fry Watch Learn: 

Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food

By Michelle T. King, Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

PURCHASE BOOK (5/7/2026)

In 1949, a young Chinese housewife arrived in Taiwan and transformed herself from a novice to a natural in the kitchen. She launched a career as a cookbook author and television cooking instructor that would last four decades. Years later, in America, flipping through her mother’s copies of Fu Pei-mei’s Chinese cookbooks, King discovered more than the recipes to meals of her childhood. She found, in Fu’s story and in her food, a time when a generation of middle-class, female home cooks navigated the tremendous postwar transformations taking place across the world.

Simply Donabe: Japanese One-Pot Recipes

By Naoko Takei Moore, Owner, TOIRO 

(Specializes in donabe and Japanese artisan products)

PURCHASE BOOK (2/10/2026)

Donabe are the Japanese earthenware pots that have been used in Japan for centuries, and continue to be loved for their efficiency and beauty. Takei Moore showcases how you can create Japanese one-pot dishes at home. Recipes range from Sea Bream Shabu Shabu and Sweet and Sour Minced Pork Hotpot, to Egg Porridge and Miso-Simmered Ramen, as well as sides like Green Beans in Walnut Miso Cream and Quick-Pickled Napa Cabbage and sweet treats such as Sake-Kasu Pound Cake and Matcha Ice Cream.

*Books purchased through the links here support Asia Policy Point*

Books selected on the APP website are not a sign of endorsement. 

They are simply new and interesting.