Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food
W.W. Norton & Co., 2024

About the book
Michelle King chronicles the life and legacy of beloved Taiwanese cookbook author and television personality Fu Pei-mei, whose career reflected the simultaneous transformation of both modern Chinese cuisine and women’s roles in a post-World War II society. King weaves together stories from her own family and contemporary oral history to argue that understanding the story of Fu’s life enables us to see Chinese food as both an inheritance of tradition and a truly modern creation, influenced by the historical phenomena of the postwar era.

This event is presented in partnership with the Historic Lewes Farmers Market.

About the author
Michelle T. King is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she specializes in modern Chinese gender and food history. She was a 2020-21 National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar.

Purchase the book
Please help support local independent bookstores by purchasing this book at Browseabout Books, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Online sources and digital versions are tempting; however, supporting local brick and mortar shops helps to preserve our vibrant main streets. Drop by Browseabout, order books online, or call the store at 302-226-2665. You also may purchase a copy at biblion in Lewes.

About the Festival
The History Book Festival is the first and only book festival in the United States devoted exclusively to history. With the help of our presenting funding partners — Delaware Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices | PenFed Realty — as well as our program and community partners, volunteers, and donors, the 2024 History Book Festival will be full of great discussions with authors of newly published narrative nonfiction and historical fiction. Our Keynote event is presented by Sally Mott Freeman and John K. Freeman, and our Closing event is presented by Griswold Home Care for Sussex and Kent Counties. Saturday’s Spirited Discussion, our gathering for attendees and presenters to celebrate and discuss their day, is presented by Dogfish Head Beer & Benevolence.

Special thanks to our program partners for their continuing support: the Lewes Public Library for event promotion and venue; Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, official bookseller of the History Book Festival; Lewes Chamber of Commerce for event promotion, and the Cape Gazette and Delmarva Public Media, our media partners.

Additional thanks to our community partners: CAMP Rehoboth, Historic Lewes Farmers Market, Lewes Historical Society, Rehoboth Art League, Rehoboth Beach Film Society, Seaside Jewish Community, and Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice (SDARJ).