Why Wok with Yan still has a place in millennials' hearts

Although it's been almost 30 years since Stephen Yan appeared on TV, nostalgic audiences are still wok-ing about his early-aughts program, Wok with Yan. (Sorry, we had to.)

Now, the punny former television personality is making his first public appearance in decades, launching a merchandise collaboration with RetroKid.

Today on Commotion, Toronto Star food reporter Karon Liu talks to guest host Rad Simonpillai about growing up watching the TV show, and Yan's place as one of Canada's first celebrity chefs.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Rad: Look, I vaguely remember Wok with Yan. I was too young to really pay attention to it, but it's a memorable face. What do you remember from the show?

Karon: You're making me feel like a dinosaur.

Rad: I'm sorry.

Karon: Okay so back then, in the ancient early '90s, the typical household had one TV in the living room. You watched what your parents and your grandparents watched, and at that time Wok with Yan was kind of the middle ground for everyone. It was a cooking show. Stephen Yan did a lot of Cantonese cuisine that you would find at a lot of Canadian Chinese restaurants, like the stir fries and the chicken balls and stuff like that.

I think my parents liked watching him because he was a fellow Chinese guy on TV. And then for me, who was five or six at the time, I kind of saw him as a children's television host, almost…. So I think for me, he was just this really charismatic guy who made these terrible uncle-like puns. There was something about him that made him really appealing. I kind of saw him as a Mr. Rogers character.

Rad: I mean, he's among the first celebrity chefs. He was on the CBC, and his show was also syndicated in the U.S.. He appeared on Letterman, you know? What do you think was so widely appealing about him?

Karon: I think the show came on at a really great time because in the '80s and early '90s there was a very large immigration wave of people coming over from China into North America, Toronto specifically. So with that, there were a lot more Chinese restaurants [and] businesses popping up. We have K-pop now, but back then it was a lot of Hong Kong music. So there was this boom of Chinese culture and cuisine. So I think with that, there was a lot more curiosity about the culture, the food, so I think  Stephen Yan really tapped into that by teaching a North American audience that ate the food in restaurants, how to make it at home.

Rad: That's what I remember of that time period: if you're not going out for burgers and pizzas with your family, your special occasion is at a Chinese restaurant, because the diversity of Toronto in terms of the restaurant scene hadn't kicked in yet…. But look, I can't turn on a streaming service and revisit Wok With Yan on CBC gem, but there are clips floating around on YouTube. What's it like for you to watch that show now?

Karon: Yeah, you can find episodes on YouTube, whether or not they're official. But I love those old-style cooking shows because it's so calming. There's no quick cuts. There's no jarring music. I think that speaks to me as someone who is older, but it's just such a contrast to how a lot of people look at cooking videos now, which is on a phone, there's so many quick jump cuts, and it's so discombobulating.

But when you watch Wok with Yan, it's just him in front of a live studio audience calmly walking through the process, explaining the ingredients and making a terrible dad joke every few minutes. It's like a weird family reunion. It reminds me of watching The Great British Bake Off; it's so zen. You can just have it in the background when you're doing laundry. I really do miss those old-school cooking shows where it's just one camera and you see things cooked in real-time.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Karon Liu produced by Jean Kim.