Ducks don’t like me when they look at me. I’ve cooked countless peking ducks, probably several thousand. On my first TV series [Ken Hom’s Chinese Cookery on BBC Two, first broadcast on 29 October 1984] we did peking duck in the first programme and there was a run on ducks the next day in all the supermarkets. I’m their nemesis.
My father died when I was eight months old, he had a heart attack. So I grew up in Chicago with a single mum who, because she came from China, never spoke English. I had to speak Cantonese to her and it’s been a blessing in disguise. Because of that, I became bicultural. I spoke English in a western world, but at the same time, I kept my Chinese-ness, which I pride just as much. And it makes me proud too to do Chinese cooking and to have my books translated into Chinese. I mean, wow!
