Many food bloggers and chefs are the products of culinary schools or come from families with long tradition of being in the restaurant business.
But not Amanda, one of the most popular food blogger and cooks in China whose web-based cooking show, in Chinese language, Amanda Tastes, is something like the Pied Piper of cooking in the country. Dishes that she cooks on her show, seen over video-sharing sites Tudou, Youku and YouTube – with English subtitles – are copied by millions of viewers.
Many – and that means thousands or million clicks per episode – of Amanda’s are kitchen converts, or people who enjoy eating but not preparing the food themselves. But because she shows them how to prepare the dishes as if it is very easy, and all they have to do is copy it – voila! They have the same mouth-watering food they saw on the small screen.
If Li Rouwen, or Amanda, converts them from foodies to cooks, it’s possibly she is using her scientific knowledge, being a medical school graduate of Peking University and specializing in cognitive neurology at the University of York in England. During her stay in the country, she learned to cook Chinese dishes that she missed from home, reported China Daily.
Amanda initially started a blog in 2010 in Sina which she expanded by adding videos. In May 2013, she started to upload the videos on YouKu.com and after a year, Amanda launched the series on YouTube.
After 120 episodes, she has the 2015 YouTube Silver Button Award to her credit and has forayed also on Japanese TV with the show “Amanda’s Izakaya” that she and Tastemade and a Japanese TV station launched in 2015. The show features Japanese food.
However, because the shows takes her time, Amanda’s medical career takes the backseat, in the meantime. The latest menu on her blog is Beer Potato Stew. Recipes on the blog are not just Chinese, but are international.
It includes Finland Christmas Rye Bread, Fried Pork Udon and Shochu, Japanese Fried Chicken and Beer, Swedish Meatballs, Grapefruit Stains Radish and Steamed Clams with Awammori. The variety of dishes are appreciated by her millions of followers, including overseas Chinese.