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Irene Kuo

Kuo, Irene
Born Yuan, Irene Hsingnee
June 1919
Shanghai
Died July 1993 (1993-08) (aged 74)
Glendale, California
Cause of death Pancreatic cancer
Nationality Chinese, American
Education Barnard College
Occupation Businessperson, Educator

Irene Kuo, née Irene Hsingnee Yuan, (June 1919 – July 1993) was the author of The Key to Chinese Cooking and an influential popularizer of Chinese cuisine in the United States and the West during the 1960s and 1970s. Her appearances on American talk-shows such as Johnny Carson's and Joan Rivers', as well as her successful restaurants, were instrumental in her popularization and education efforts.

Kuo was born in 1919 into a family of affluent Chinese literati intimately linked to the Qing dynasty government of China. Her uncle Yuan Li-jun was the tutor of Puyi, the last Emperor of China. She grew up exposed to the finest offerings of Chinese cuisine and showed keen interest in learning about food. She befriended the hired cooks in her household and was taught the techniques of preparing some of their more opulent dishes. Her family's influence and affluence at the time also allowed her to travel extensively throughout China, experiencing everything from the heavy meat-based dishes of North China to the fine vegetarian cuisine at family Buddhist retreats.

Kuo went to Barnard College in the United States for her undergraduate degree and returned to China upon graduation. Because of the ongoing civil war in China between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and Mao Zedong's Communists, however, she returned to the United States just after her 22nd birthday. She met her future husband, Chi-Chih Kuo, in Washington, D.C. in 1943 and was married the following year. The couple had two sons and, after traveling between her husband's posts in Washington and Italy, they eventually settled in New York City. It was here that they opened their two highly successful restaurants:


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