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Ken Hom recounts the European holiday that changed his life

A trip through Europe was formative for a young Ken Hom - ANDREW CROWLEY
A trip through Europe was formative for a young Ken Hom - ANDREW CROWLEY

Interrailing in Europe as a student inspired in Ken Hom a passion for food – well, most of it

In 1971, I was a student reading History of Art at the University of California. I was also studying French for the first time and my wonderful teacher, Germaine Callet, painted such a fabulous picture of France that I was determined to go.

I was born in Arizona but after my father died when I was only eight months old, my mother moved to ­Chicago to be closer to family. We were Chinese Americans and family was everything back then.

So I’d already done a bit of travelling before I moved to Berkeley. To get ­anywhere in the US, be it Florida or New York, you had to take a flight. It was just what you did.

I decided if I was going to go to France, I might as well see the rest of Europe. So to fund this crazy idea, I approached someone at university to see if they’d be interested in buying some photographs I had taken of works of art, and they agreed. With that, and some savings, I bought a really nice Nikon camera. A three-week Interrail Europass cost $300 (£233).

On the day I left, I felt very excited. I’d made some plans, including stops in Paris, Amsterdam and various parts of Italy. This was going to be fun. However, my first long haul to London via Iceland was cattle class, a very long journey indeed, so I was relieved when we finally got into Heathrow.

London's Chinatown - getty
London's Chinatown - getty

I stayed with friends in Blackheath and one of my first ventures into London on the Tube was to find food. Having worked in a Chinese restaurant since the age of 11, I thought I knew about Chinese food, but what was on offer in Chinatown was just bizarre. Chips in a curry sauce? And some other strange concoctions I had never heard of. It was all very odd.

After a few days, I hopped on a train to Amsterdam, and ended up sleeping in a park, hanging out with hippies, and smoking dope with fellow travellers. It was the era of the flower child and par for the course.

From Amsterdam, I got a sleeper train to Paris. A flatmate in California had put me in touch with a friend there. I slept on a sofa in their flat and I remember going to Versailles – such an incredible sight. I also met my French teacher’s brother, who had made this incredible feast in my ­honour. It was the first time I had fresh oysters, and they were just out of this world. And of course, I was smitten by French white wine.

On the weekends, these new Parisian friends of mine drove me around to see all the cathedrals, such as in Caen and Amiens. I also went to Lyon to see my French teacher’s sister. My hosts just rolled out the red carpet for me, they were so hospitable. And from there, I actually went to Marseille just ­because I’d seen it in movies. I thought it might be like Chicago, but it wasn’t at all. I fell in love with the place and at the back of my mind, I thought about how I’d really love to live in France one day.

In Italy, I went to Florence, then Naples and Rome, sleeping on the trains to save money. I’d once met an Italian man called Alessandro Biocca back in California when we were both hitching across the Bay Bridge and he’d said to me, “Oh, if you are ever in Rome, come and stay.” So I’d written to him and when I arrived, he said, “My flat is so small, can you stay with my parents instead?”

Piazza del Popolo, Rome - getty
Piazza del Popolo, Rome - getty

He took me to this building in the Piazza del Popolo, right in the centre of Rome, and I was thinking, OK, maybe his parents are ­porters there or something like that – but no, he took me up to the penthouse, which I discovered his parents owned.

So there I was, a scruffy, dishevelled traveller from Berkeley with hair desperately in need of a cut, in a room with a view of the ­Vatican. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The food in Italy, particularly discovering the markets, was sensational too – I was struck by the ­Mediterranean cuisine and hungrily absorbed as much as I could about what was going on.

And that was it. I was in love with Europe. Those trips changed the course of my life. Back in California I started teaching Italian cookery classes, followed by French cookery classes and then, ironically enough, Chinese cookery later! One thing led to another and my teaching and catering career took off.

After my big break with Ken Hom’s Chinese Cookery, the BBC series in 1984, my dream of ­living in France could be realised. I bought a studio flat in 1986 in Paris for £22,000. I later sold it and bought a bigger place as well as a house in south-west France. If I hadn’t had that warm, wonderful summer full of fabulous friendship and explored some European cuisine, who knows where my life might have gone.

Doors opened and I wrote the first book on mixing Eastern and Western styles of ­cooking, which came from those experiences.

Ken Hom is an ambassador for Action Against Hunger. His latest book is My Stir-fried Life (Robson Press). kenhom.com