Martin Yan Shares His Astonishing 36th and 37th Cookbooks With Us
Yan Can produce more recipes than anyone!
Martin Yan’s 36th cookbook
I had the pleasure of interviewing Martin Yan again for my GOOD TASTE column at 48 Hills this week. He casually mentioned that he self-published his 36th and 37th books this year: Best of Yan Can Cook and My Asian Kitchen.
They are in addition to shooting over 3500 episodes of his acclaimed TV series Yan Can Cook on PBS and two seasons of Wok Around the Bay on local station KTSF.
“In the early days, nobody believed the Yan Can Cook show would be watched by anybody,” he told Chef Brandon Jew and I during the conversation. “Nobody. And everybody told me, ‘Don’t waste your time, nobody’s going to watch it.’ And then it happened three weeks later, the phone rang off the hook because everyone asked for recipes.”
Martin Yan’s 37th cookbook
“I didn’t have a cookbook then,” he continued, “so I had to borrow money to publish a cookbook. And we only had enough money to print 3000. It sold out in six weeks.” (If that isn’t inspiring, I don’t know what you need to see. . . )
I sorely miss Yan’s M.Y. China restaurant in San Francisco, which closed during the pandemic — especially the yearly invites to try multiple preparations of in-season Dungeness crab! So I couldn’t resist asking him if he might ever open another restaurant in the Bay Area.
“Every day, people ask me to open a new restaurant!” he said, non-answerily.
His cookbooks are currently on sale for a discount in the Yan Can Cook store.
