Chinese food pioneer Cecilia Chiang dies at 100

Cecilia Chang showing Janny Hu how to make recipes for Chinese New Year at her home in San Francisco. [File Photo: San Francisco Chronicle / Polaris]

Described as "the mother of Chinese food in America," Cecilia Chiang has died at the age of 100. Her death has evoked a wave of reminiscence on how she changed the way Americans think about Chinese cuisine.

Born into a wealthy family in Shanghai and the seventh daughter in a family of 12 siblings, Cecilia Chiang showed early interest in cooking. However, becoming a chef and restaurateur was a matter of coincidence.

After arriving in San Francisco in 1960, she invested in two friends' restaurant but ended up running it herself. It would later become The Mandarin, an internationally renowned restaurant that offered a far more refined and complicated style of Chinese cuisine than just chop suey and chow mein.

The menu included specialties from different parts of China, such as Chongqing-style spicy dry-shredded beef, peppery Sichuan eggplant, and, of course, Peking roast duck.

The celebrated restaurant become a favorite among renowned chefs, food critics, and celebrities from Mae West to John Lennon. It was also featured in a survey of the ten restaurants that changed America.

"Good food is good food. It doesn't matter whether you are an American or a Chinese. If it's good food, everybody will like it," Chiang once said.

She co-authored two cookbook memoirs, "The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey from Beijing to San Francisco" and "The Mandarin Way," and was the subject of the documentary, "Soul of a Banquet."

Her son, Philipp, is the founder of P.F. Chang's, an Asian restaurant chain with over 210 branches across the U.S.