When the Confucius Institute at Texas Southern University (CI-TSU) conducted a survey earlier this year, it took its director Yi Xiao by surprise that Chinese food, not martial arts, turned out to be the most popular pursuit people wanted to learn about, and she happily obliged their wish by starting a Chinese cooking class.

"CI has more than 10 years of history since its inception. We focused on Chinese language learning during this period. Now many people have learned Chinese well. A lot of them visited China. Entering the second decade, we want to expand our scope of cultural learning by going beyond language," said Yi.

CI-TUS has been offering cultural courses such as martial arts, chess, Chinese calligraphy and painting. To better serve the community, Yi initiated the survey that led to the cooking class.

"I am glad that there is a large Chinese community here in Houston, that we are able to collaborate with chef Ding to have him teach this class. This is just a test; if it goes well, we will do more," said Yi.

More than 60 people applied for 36 class spots, Yi said.

"We have faculties, staff members, students and people from outside of the university applying for the class; it's really popular," Yi said.

Scores of faculties, staff and students from TSU attended the opening ceremony for the cooking class. People enjoyed food prepared by Sarah Place's chef Ding Dezhong, who will teach the class with assistance from lecturer Koji Okina.

Ding, a professional chef, had cooking experience at the famous five-star Jinjiang Hotel where the Shanghai Communique was signed when China and US normalized their diplomatic relation. He also taught cooking in Suzhou Cuisine School and now runs Sarah Place in Chinatown.

The class will be conducted in TSU's teaching kitchen by cooking Chinese dishes, Ding said. The 5-week class will teach the students how to cook five dishes: Kung Pao chicken, General Tao's chicken, Salt Pepper shrimp, Mapo tofu and Yangzhou style fired rice.

"However, the cooking style will be authentically Chinese, not Americanized. For example, we will use Sichuan peppercorn oil to make ma po tofu. We will use more meat for kung pao chicken just like how it's done in Sichuan.

"However, we will use the flat pan available in the teaching kitchen, not the Chinese wok," Ding explained. "We want the Americans to learn how to cook authentic Chinese food with what they have."

Long Jie, education consul of China, commended CI-TSU's exploratory spirit. "Cooking class promotes cultural learning through people's senses - the smell, the taste, the way of making Chinese food. It's a process, and it will have a more lasting and practical impact than just one event," Long said.

mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com