Yup. Hinojosa youre then born. I was born in newport beach, california. My brother and i. Hinojosa and you grow up in dayton, ohio. And we ended up in dayton, ohio. Culinary capitol of the world. Hinojosa you know, i didnt know this about dayton, ohio laughing yeah, no; not so much. Hinojosa but the questions was how was it, you know, growing up and you were the First Chinese family in dayton, or one of the few . We were. We always joked that when we had our chinese friends over to our home, we were chinatown. laughing so there werent that many, no. There werent a lot. Hinojosa so what was it like in terms of food . Because you know what . Kids can be kind of intense when youre like, suddenly bringing Something Different to lunch thats not Peanut Butter and jelly. No, youre right, youre right. We actually. We did both. Being in dayton, and. There probably was 50 chinese people, so we did want to blend in, so we absolutely had turkey for thanksgiving, and wed have the pot roasts, and mom had the famous clay pot that she would always do the chicken in. So we certainly had american food, and dads famous one was his texas toast and steak. You know, getting big steak from woodys market, and hed buy these big steaks. Texas toast was just a thick sliced bread on a griddle. But thank god, they also cooked tons of chinese food as well. It was, one, it was just the best food in the world. I still say that. Ill say that to my grave. But its also part of our culture, and all. Everything that happened in our family, it usually started at the dining room table. Hinojosa what do you mean . Any decisions where do you want to go for vacation, or what are you thinking about schools, how come youre not doing this or doing that . The discussion was always at 5 30, keep in mind. This is in the midwest; you ate dinner at 5 30. Hinojosa right. And but the dining room table was when i had one brother the four of us would get together, and thats any family issue or discussion would happen there over great food. Hinojosa so was there this whole pressure or not pressure, but the sense of wanting to blend in from a culinary place . Like, what would you take to lunch, for example, when you were a kid growing up . Yeah, thats a great question. I mean, wed do two things. Sometimes i would just take the baloney sandwich or that turkey sandwich, and id be normal with the fritos or whatever. Keep in mind, though, back then there was. The school lunch was 40 cents, so we would actually buy lunch as well. Hinojosa okay. So this is at south elementary school, and as a side note, 40 cents, everyone got a dime. I used to cross the street to buy a case of hot tamales for 5 cents a piece and sold them for ten, and i said. Hinojosa laughing . And they would say, why is it ten cents . I said, because you dont have them, and do you want it or not . So thats how i started my entrepreneur. Hinojosa oh, my god absolutely. Hinojosa you were. This was fifth grade. Fifth and sixth grade. Hinojosa . Fifth grade business man in food yeah, exactly. Well, im not sure hot tamales is food, but. All right, well, okay, thats true. Its sugar. Hinojosa thats true, true. But sometimes, mom would then back a thermos of hoisin pork and. Served hot with this potato bread. So i would break this open, right . And people are eating their tuna fish and pbjs, and id take. And id. And then literally the crowd would form. Hinojosa laughing and id be like, two sandwiches for half of this, and i would barter. So i would end up, sometimes, with eight sandwiches. I should be obese, considering how many sandwiches i got, and id be like, give me the two pieces fruit banana and a sandwich, ill give you one hoisin pork. Teachers, too, started getting involved, and then im like, okay, come on, guys, enough that was funny. Hinojosa so but still, so you got the whole food thing, right . But there was still this like, well, ming, youve got to go to yale. Absolutely. I mean, you used to see these pictures. Hinojosa and be an engineer, right . I had a couple rules growing up. One is, ming, get any grades you want my brother and i had the same rules any grades you want, as long as theyre straight as. Be anything you want, as long as its a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, and if you marry asian, thatd be great too. I am 0 for three laughter hinojosa no kidding laughing no, not even close my. All those aside, though, my wife, polly, speaks fluent chinese, so. And is loved by my parents to death. I never got straight as, and i did study Mechanical Engineering at yale, i did graduate. Hinojosa you did make it to. You made it to yale. I got my diploma. My motto was d is for diploma my senior year because i had to get the piece of paper, but literally two weeks after graduating i went to paris and started cooking. Hinojosa so you knew food was it . You. How did you know that . I knew. I mean, at age six i made my first duncan hines cake. I thought it was fascinating that you could take eggs, oil with this mix and poof in 30 minutes there was a cake. And yeah, all my friends are playing baseball and whatnot, and theyd be like, making fun of me a little bit until the game was over and i had then i had this cake. Im like, oh, you want some cake . laughing hinojosa and so you were like, the hit lets go to ming; hes going to eat yeah, lets go to mings and eat some cake. And then at age ten and this is what really. I remember this story to death a couple showed up at our door. This was back in dayton, ohio, where the doors are unlocked, right . It was very safe for everyone in the world. And this couple was driving through, but i recognized them. They were. We called everyone uncleand auntie, but they were not, you know, blood. But the first thing you ask in Chinese Culture is not, how are you, but chifanle le ma, which is have you eaten . Because we. Although we care how you are, were more concerned about, are you hungry, which gives me an opportunity to eat, as well. So of course, they said, oh, im starved. I quickly made fried rice. I never had made fried rice, which was an issue im ten years old but id seen my grandparents and parents make tons of it. So i said, well, ill do it. I made it. It was about a six out of ten in quality. I think i put too much soy sauce, too much oil, but what i did see is they smiled and they were happy, and they were like, this is fantastic stuff. And that stuck that you can make people happy through food. And then eventually, my mom opened the Mandarin Kitchen in dayton, ohio. She taught a lot of cooking classes and was encouraged by her friends. Both my brother and i went to andover to prep school so we were empty nesters. They were nesters early on. And that was my summertime job age 14, 15, 16, working at the Mandarin Kitchen. And then once again, it kept continuing i can make people happy through food, give them good value, and it stuck that that restaurant bug as they call it; i got it early on. Hinojosa ming, talk a little bit about that experience at cordon bleu. What did it mean in terms of your career and understanding that no, you were not going to be an engineer from yale; you were going to do Something Else . It was significant because up until cordon bleu, i cooked only chinese, so i learned about primarily beijing style food mandarin style food from both my parents and grandparents. So i ended up going to cordon bleu and i had a wonderful french family, the moussards, that i got to stay for free in france, which is huge. I go to cordon bleu, i realize that wow the french can cook, too hinojosa laughter because up until that point, i thought it was all chinese, chinese, chinese especially with desserts, right . We dont have desserts in chinese cuisine. You know, milk was never. You know, cream was not around in china, so the pastry cream and souffles and creme anglaise and all that stuff was like, just. It just completely opened my world. And the first thing i actually thought about was, why cant i take chinese and french to combine the techniques and the ingredients . Why cant there be that flavor combination . Because it seemed to work i mean, we call it a wok, they call it a saute pan. I mean, its the same technique, the knife skills are the same, and that really got me thinking i can not only perhaps be a chef, but i can cook what i like to eat by combining the cultures that ive learned from. Hinojosa and so how would you categorize, or if you had to, kind of describe what your cooking ended up becoming . Because youre not. Youre like, i dont want to be a fusion cook, so what. How do you describe. I dont like the term fusion, because fusion is so forced. Thats what you do with atoms, so thats. Thats what scientists do. Food is blending, so i call it east west cuisine which in a nutshell is the blending of eastern and western techniques that produce a food that is bold in flavor so if you say its a ginger broth or a lemongrass coating, you want to really taste that that has contrasting textures and temperatures. I love crunchy and smooth, i love hot and cold, so hot shrimp toast on a gazpacho or a banana split, right . You have hot fudge and cold ice cream and crunchy nuts. And at the end of the day. A lot of my food at the end of the day is inherently healthy. Im not a health nut. I dont really care about calories and fat, but because of the steaming and the braising and even flashfrying which is with flour versus a batter you can cook more healthily with without sacrificing flavor, which i think is the key. Because anyone can make a granola blah, blah, blah with no fat and is great for you, but it doesnt taste very good. So how do you make food that does really taste good and people come back for it thats also good for you as well . Hinojosa now, you say that in the Chinese Culture the first thing is like, are you hungry . Right. Hinojosa so you would think that if everybodys kind of always being offered food that you would have a population that would be obese. Not so. No, not at all in china. Its the. A lot of people are studying it. I mean, talk about the food pyramid. But its really a combination of like, a steak here you go to one of these steak houses in boston, that meat would feed a family, probably, for a week. That, you know, 18, 22 ounce rib eye. And i think its the ratio of carb to protein to sauce and to veg. Theres much more vegetables in chinese food. And you dont eat. You dont sit down and eat a huge. You know, you might eat a lot of little things, but youre not eating that much quantity. Hinojosa so portion control. Absolutely. Same in europe. I mean, look at the french. Theyre eating foie gras and blah, blah, but theyre eating this. Whoever invented supersize really should be taken. Hinojosa what is that about . What do you think, i mean, when you think about kind of, you know, lets talk foodie culture here. Right. Hinojosa . What is that about in the United States . Its like, youve got to have the biggest, grand slam, you know, allyoucaneat. Yeah, i think its parallel with whats going on everything with this country with wall street, as well its excess. We somehow became the country of excess, and more is better. The bigger the house, the better. The more cars, the better. The bigger the plate of food, the better. Its very warped, and its a shame, because its quality, not quantity, that should matter. Hinojosa so i feel like theres something thats happening in the United States, that on the one hand you have the most availability of food shows, the food channel, food cooking, everything on the other hand you have massive bombardment of fast food, you know . So its like this double thing. Like, cook at home, do this, but at the same time, when. You know, with working families its going to be like, oh, wow, i really could do that great ming recipe, or call, or drive through. How do you see it . Well, i think on top of that is people. Its really. Its warped, but people, by watching cooking shows, are getting their fix of cooking and so end up not cooking themselves, which is the exact opposite of what were doing. Hinojosa like, you guys have actually looked at this statistically . Like there is a. That is one of the theories that. I mean, Michael Pollan said this. I mean, its amazing. Theres so many more cooking shows than ever before, but less and less americans are actually cooking. And we actually think its because, oh, that looked great. Okay, thats my fix, but im just going to go order out. Its sad, because the reason im people how to cook, to hopefully make them eat, or help them eat, more healthily, and talk about different cuts of meat or fish and all the omega3 and all the wonderful things you can get through food. But at the end of the day. And it is im glad youre talking about this its one of the major problems is obesity in this country. And that starts with school cafeteria, that starts with the food source, that starts with everything that we can effect a little bit. But the reality of the situation is if youre a single mom with two kids and you have ten dollars, you can actually get sustenance at a fast food place for five bucks for each kid. And without the knowledge and the time yeah, you can buy organic carrots and this and that, but if they dont know how to put it together. Thats reality. Hinojosa well, and what about when you have these communities that are now being called food oasis, where for example, youre in a poorer community and you cannot find a place to get fresh vegetables, you cannot find a place thats going to sell you fresh fruits, so all you can get and youve seen this the kids walking out with soda pop for breakfast . Thats horrible. Hinojosa as a foodie as an insider what do you do about taking on the food industry, right . Because this is, like, a lot of people dont want to talk. Were all about supposedly getting healthy and doing the right thing and eating smaller portions what about the food industry, ming . Its such. This world is run by money and corporations with money, and thats the challenge. Because its easy to go to a coca cola or any one of them and say, you need to stop putting so much sugar, and this and that, but theyre making billions of dollars, so why would they listen to someone like me or anyone . And what has to happen is that the government has to get much more involved. The fda and everyone on down has to really make law. I mean, its absurd, but whats going on now in new york is they post, you know, fat and calories at all the fast food places. Hinojosa and no trans fat. And. But what has happened i was speaking to one Large Company whats happened is people now realize that this Chicken Salad actually has as much fat as their pasta primavera, so now theyre going to eat the primavera, because if theyre going to go out, they might as well eat the primavera instead. So it doesnt. Just because youre giving the information doesnt necessarily mean people are going to change their habits. I think it has to go back to just educating. I think we have to teach families and children starting in second and third and fourth grade about you are what you eat. And that old adage has been here for years and years, but is so true. And you really need to think about what you can eat and how government can help the schools starting with the cafeterias to educate. Because in some instances, the kids will then educate the parents. Because some of these parents are working their two or three jobs. They dont know about what is good food, or they could actually get a good meal making this soup or whatever. Hinojosa so we actually need just young mings at home waiting for us, cooking at nine years old, cooking, you know, a little bit of fried rice. A little fried rice, a Little Chicken soup, a little sauteed spinach, i mean, any of that stuff. Hinojosa so take me inside for a little bit, because im not a foodie. Right. Hinojosa i would love to be a foodie. Honestly, i dont think i can afford to be a foodie, because its expensive out there to be a real foodie. But lets talk about foodie television the politics behind foodie television. Like, when youre looking at these new cooking shows, are things better, or are we looking at cooking shows where actually its like, you know, open up a can and make it seem like youre really. What do you see . Well, i think theres two types of cooking shows now. I think theres the ones that are based on entertainment and theres nothing wrong with that, and theyre entertainers, and theyre nielsen rates. You know, theyre the ones that talk about nielsen ratings, and theyre trying to get higher neilsen, theyre trying to get more demographics, so theyre entertaining people and food is just kind of the conduit. So theyre not really chefs, per se. I mean, look at the food network, and theyre a huge success, but theres really one chef left at the food network theres bobby, right . I mean, a true chef that owns a restaurant, that still cooks for a living . The rest are entertainers. And theres nothing wrong with the rachel rays of the world. I mean, shes done fantastic, but shes not a chef. So fortunately, they do have some shows that are called, you know, the Healthy Cooking shows and what not, so theyre trying to promote that, but i think it is our responsibility as chefs and as an industry to be able to show easily how you can make goodtasting food. And that is not the emphasis and the focus, i think, when people are trying to create new cooking shows. I think theyre all talking about, okay, what do people want . How can we make it popular . How can we make it successful . If it happens to be healthy too, great, but thats not the focus. Thats not what theyre thinking. If it ends up at the end of the day, fine, but their focus is on entertainment. Hinojosa so not necessarily so good for a chef like you. Well, if you take. One of the reasons i actually came to Public Television was because in the Public Television arena, you can still do a true cooking show. So simply ming for me is im still honestly cooking the food i love to eat and do. Its simpler than what we do at blue ginger, but its still true cooking. And you look at lidia bastianich, you look at rick bayless, all. Theres mario batali now all of us are really cooking on Public Television, and i think thats the new forum where most of the chefs are. Hinojosa all right, so i just love the fact. Because like you, im an immigrant. Born in mexico. My mom is a great cook; and amazing cook with six kids in the family. Or six of us all together fresh meal every single day. Wow, did we love watching julia child. You actually met julia child. Oh, ive met her a bunch of times. Ill tell you one of my two favorite stories. One the first time she came to blue ginger, i was petrified. I mean, i dont really get nervous for people, right . I dont care if youre the president of this or ceo of that, but when julia child was coming in, im like. Hinojosa well, how did you know . Did they call . Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah; they called. They fortunately gave me the warning, so, you know, so everyone stood at attention, and of course i did the best meal i possibly could. And i ended up serving this foie gras course. Its a shumai, its steamed, and i knew shes never had this preparation, and after she ate that, she. The waiter says, julia wants to speak to you. So im thinking, as im walking over with my shoulders up like, oh, shes going to say its the most creative, or the tastiest, or the best, and i have an open kitchen, right . And she goes, ming, you dont have one woman line cook im like, oh, god hinojosa oh, my god right into my chest im like. And she was right. And look, i love women i married one but. At that point at blue ginger, there was not a woman line cook. And you know, theres only 5 women in our industry anyway, and oh, i was so crushed. I went back to the line and the cooks are like, what did she say . I go, shut up, keep cooking fast forward a few months later, i get invited to her home. She was shooting a show with jacques pepin, right . Julia and jacques. It was a sandwich show. And she started with an ice cream sandwich, and she started the segment with, when i was an itsy, bitsy girl, i loved ice cream sandwiches, took a bite, and then jacques like, well, in the south of france where i grew up, i had pain au chocolat, hed take a bite. They were like, cut. They had to redo the lighting. There was some bad movement. So they grabbed jacques sandwich, they grabbed julias, she was like, nope slurping sound she ate three entire ice cream sandwiches. She became my instant hero. Then we went to rialto, where julia cooked a fantastic six course meal. She just chowed, which is awesome, because she was someone that loved to cook, but loved to eat even more. Hinojosa so do you think that things are going to in terms of food in americans are things going to get better before they get worse . What do you see . Yeah, thats a great question. I think its still going to get worse before it gets better. I mean, i think theres a lot. You know, theres the slow Food Movement and everyones talking about cooking locally, and you know, we do as much as can. We use verrill farms, were trying to get meats that are at least from around here, we get water thats local now and not from fiji, so were all trying to be the. You know, reduce the carbon footprint, be as green as we can, cook as healthfully as we can, but thats just restaurants, and you know, not everyone in america goes to restaurants. I mean, more people still do cook at home. And i think its us continually supplying information and teaching people the simple ways to cook to make tasty food. Its not. I think if you try to shove, this is healthy for you, no ones going to eat it. No one wants to know its healthy, they just want to know if it tastes good. And is it affordable . You know, i work with the Greater Boston food bank. They move 50 Million Pounds of food a year out of their new facility, which is crazy, and theyre busier than ever. And thats part, of course, of the recession and people losing jobs and what not, but there is an opportunity at least with that, that, well, heres some food; heres what you can do with this food. And i think thats going to help our country. Again, its important to start with the children. You have to teach them. Hinojosa and the children is another reason why you are a real spokesperson for this particular issue, which is food allergies. Who would have thought that you would give birth to a son who, at the time very early in his life, as an infant had allergies to. Soy, wheat, dairy, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, and eggs. Seven of the top eight. Hinojosa peanuts. What came after peanuts . Tree nuts. Hinojosa tree nuts. So all nuts. Hinojosa all nuts. Walnuts, macadamia nuts, almonds, cashews. Hinojosa so what does that. Like, when you realize that and youre like, okay, how am i supposed to. Im a foodie ive got all this. Yeah. Well, we always joke that its the unfunny joke from upstairs. The good news, though, is im a chef, so you can never feel bad for david. David grew up eating organic new zealand lamb rack and alaskan linecaught halibut with fried rice or fried rice noodles. So. And asian cuisine too, because he was, you know, wheat allergy, rice was okay so all the Rice Products still worked. So he ate fine, but it ended up being my calling. Everyone has their calling in life, and my calling became being the National Spokesperson for faan the food allergy anaphylaxis network. And its crazy. In the last ten years, theres ten times more peanut allergies than ten years ago. Hinojosa whats that about . Why . Its. Im not a doctor, but from all the research ive done, its a combination i think primary is we overprescribe antibiotics. Hinojosa hmm. No one grown up on a farm. I dont know if you did; probably not. Hinojosa nope. So because you dont grow up on farm anymore, you dont build your immune system naturally, and nowadays, if a kid has a cough boom antibiotic. And our one salient or proof was david. In utero, my wife got an infection. She got antibiotics for the infection, so he. His immune system was compromised in utero. Because our other son, henry, has no allergies. And so we just. Were too clean. So antibiotics, the hand sanitizers everywhere. I say this in jest, but i think its. It would work. If you have a newborn, you should go to a farm and roll him in some cow manure. Hinojosa laughing seriously. Thats going to make your kid healthy. The kid needs to get sick and build up their immune system. And that plus a combination with over processed food. A carrots barely a carrot now. So food has been so processed. And you know, the environment; something. So its a combination of all of that. But its the fact that we are too clean and we over prescribe antibiotics. Hinojosa so what do you want us to take away from. You know, because my kids, for example, there has been one kid in the entire. Because theyve had the same kid in their classroom for all their years, and the kid actually was over at our house and said, yes, im the one thats allergic to peanuts. And julian was like, right, i can never take a Peanut Butter sandwich to school. How do you deal with that kind of like, theres a little bit of tension there. Oh, there totally is. And look, we were. We live in natick and we looked at the Natick School system. They did not have a peanut policy in place, although they were willing to do something. But you know, six, seven years ago that was that table did not have Peanut Butter but the other tables are okay. Well, that doesnt work, because if a kid touches a door knob and he just ate Peanut Butter and my kid touches the door knob and puts it to his mouth, he can. Its cross contamination. So we actually looked at tons of different schools, and park school, where they go, had a peanut policy a nut policy in place. And i think thats what you have to do. Thats no nuts, ever. You can never bring food into the school, so no birthday cakes. Its. Theres zero tolerance. You cant have a little bit. Theres kids that cannot walk into fenway park because they cant breathe in peanut molecules in the air. They can go into anaphylaxis. It has to be that extreme. Hinojosa and you did this for your restaurant. This is part of what you wanted to do. Well, we. We recently passed law which im very proud of to make restaurants safer. And we did not pull the peanuts out of my restaurant, though, purposely. I mean, i own blue ginger, so i could have done anything, but we have a system that shows what you need to do to guarantee that this dish does not have nuts even though there is nuts down the line, but use a new pan or you clean the grill, or you use, you know, you dont use a steamer. Its all about educating people just like obesity. Its about educating people about crosscontamination. And were a busy restaurant, so itd be one thing to pull all the allergens out of it, but i couldnt pull soy out of my restaurant, right . Between soy sauce and everything we use . So its about how you control it with a system that on a saturday night, you can look at this system and we have checks and balances. Theres seven points of checks between when the food is ordered and then its served to the child or the adult. And we go through it, and you know, i mean, weve messed up twice. Fortunately, no ones ever gotten sick. But thats twice out of, you know, 500,000 to 700,000 people. And so theres a way to be able to serve people safely. And the law right now is you have to post this poster we developed with faan that talks about crosscontamination, you have to put this blurb on your menu that if you have food allergies, notify your server while ordering. That helps everyone that helps the restaurant itself and the client and theres a serve safe training. Were developing a Training System that will talk about food allergens specifically. And my best analogy is when you talk about raw chicken. People get what theyre supposed to do when they cut raw chicken, right . They got to wash, and wash the knife, wash the board. Its the same thing with allergens. If you cut peanuts on the board, you have to wash everything completely off. Same thing. Hinojosa all right, well thanks for all those lessons, ming. Youre welcome. Hinojosa thank you, and youre going to treat me to dinner, okay, one of these days i hope so ill cook you some mexican food. Hinojosa i love it see you then. Thank you. Thank you. Continue the conversation at wgbh. Org oneonone. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org oooooo . [narrator] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the Alice KlebergReynolds Foundation and hillco partners, a texas Government Affairs consultancy and by klrus producers circle, ensuring local programming that reflects the character and interests of the greater austin, texas community. Im evan smith, hes an Award Winning novelist, shortstory writer, and academic whos 26 works of fiction over an amazing four decades include, worlds end, tortilla curtain, tooth and claw, wild child, the harder they come, and the road to wellville. His latest, the terranauts, has just been published. Hes t. C. Boyle, this is overheard. Lets be honest, is this about the ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having been taught properly . How have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa . You could say that he made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. You saw a problem and, over time, took it on