Remembering Fu Pei-mei, who taught a generation to cook Chinese food

Seven decades ago, long before Fu Pei-mei became a beloved authority on Chinese cooking, she was struggling to make jiaozi.

These boiled dumplings from northern China were her husband’s favorite and one of the few dishes she knew how to cook from memory. He watched intently as Fu stuffed, folded and boiled his meal — plump purses of prawns, pork and seasonings. According to her autobiography and a new book about her, after he tasted the food he spared no kindness: “How could anyone eat these jiaozi? Every single one is just a bag of water.”