Shanghai Food Blogs
The Chinese God of Cookery Blogs
By Coco Shen
It’s no small feat to earn the nickname the ‘God of Cookery’, but Jiang Liyang has spent a lifetime living up to his handle. The foodie deity has more than 30 years of experience reviewing restaurants and writing about food for Wen Hui Bao, a major print newspaper based in Shanghai, and has penned several books, including The Playfulness of Food and Eating Across Shanghai. Five years ago, Jiang wrote his first post on his blog, titled ‘The God of Cookery’, and attracted thousands of fans from his print readers and curious netizens.
“They always ask me to meet them, so we can try some restaurants together,” he says. But more than just a means to seeking the newspaper man’s company, what people really like about his blog is that he gives his honest and unbiased opinion of food and restaurants and also involves culture in his writing. Food to him is like a friend. And there are no strangers, but only unmet new friends. “I would try flies if they are well cooked,” he notes gleefully.
Jiang views the recent explosion of restaurant reviewing sites like Dianping and personal food blogs as a good thing, but worries about those online writers offering nutrition advice. “Chinese care about yin and yang in food. We try to keep an inner balance, but some advice given by those amateur nutritionists [on blogs] could cause severe health issues, like when someone with a yin body constitution sticks to a yin diet – this would break the balance and trigger health problems,” he says.
But despite his concern over the blogosphere’s adherence to health issues, Jiang admits that the food he tries as part of his job is not always healthy. “I take a little risk from time to time. Some of the food is low quality, but it is my job to try unfamiliar food in order to make a good review,” he explains.
