He observes that his team "often gets strong feedback when making a very traditional and Chinese-style dish". For example, a particularly popular episode featuring traditional Chinese cuisine, called Steamed Chinese Cabbage in Supreme Soup, received "10 times the clicks compared to the average interactions with other videos "they uploaded.
Jiang says that, last year, the team made an episode of the Complete Manchu-Han Banquet, the palace feast that took place during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), of which 88 dishes from more than 100 years ago have been re-created. It is a banquet which features royal cuisine and local delicacies of both the Han and Manchu ethnic groups. The team spent over two months on the video.
To his delight, their effort paid dividends. The video performed impressively-it has been clicked over 56 million times on Bilibili and viewed 140,000 times on YouTube.
Jiang says that presenting ancient dishes is not easy. "When making modern dishes, there will be countless methods, but for some older cuisines, many ingredients are no longer available," he says. "Also, there might be disputes or arguments among the viewers, since we can only present them through our understanding of the available historical references."
Jiang believes that Chinese aesthetics contains many illuminating areas that can be illustrated, some of which "may get ignored, forgotten or taken for granted by us Chinese at certain times". Once they are dug out and presented, they will shine brightly. "I think it is good that such content can be mentioned and noticed again, with the help of internet influencers, such as Li Ziqi," Jiang says.
He adds that the treasure trove of Chinese cuisine is so large that no dish has been repeated in Cat's Kitchen over the past eight years. "That is the most special characteristic of Chinese food, which has also impressed the outside world."
As well as introducing archaic dishes to "inherit the history of our cuisine", which accounts one-third of Cat's Kitchen's content, Jiang also focuses on the contemporary.
"We are willing to zoom in on common dishes, such as barbecue chilled noodles, or signature snacks from Heilongjiang province, which are good representatives of contemporary Chinese cuisine that also deserve to be displayed."
