Social media is full of cooking videos today, but it was not long ago that only those who had earned their stripes in a professional kitchen – and gained the approval of a publishing house – could create culinary content for the masses in the form of cookbooks.In Hong Kong, the 1960s saw an influx of immigrants and an expanding middle class whose interest in home cooking fuelled a surge in popularity of cookbooks and food-themed TV shows.This is the starting point of “Treasured Recipes”, a new exhibition at PMQ Taste Library in Hong Kong’s Central neighbourhood.The first of three exhibitions under the library’s new Guest Curator programme – in which different creators are brought in to explore the unexpected potential of the culinary arts – “Treasured Recipes” features an extensive archive of cookbooks, from local to international and retro to contemporary.An issue from Chan Wing’s 30 Years in the Kitchen series features at the exhibition. Photo: PMQ Taste LibraryHome cooking in a bygone eraThe first two sections of the exhibition, The Taste of Home and The Witness of History, centre on texts and photographs depicting Hong Kong domestic life in a bygone era and the familiar flavours of refined Cantonese cuisine.
‘Piece of history’: old cookbook exhibition traces Hong Kong’s culinary past
‘Treasured Recipes’ at PMQ Taste Library features food-themed books and magazines spanning decades to show how the city’s food scene evolved.
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