![]() ![]() “I was a little girl then,” recalls Chong. ![]() So Chen engaged a German engineer to design the first ever dim sim machine to churn out these delights by the thousands. ![]() “Before the next day was over, Joe rung Tom at Wing Lee and said every one of his mates were asking where he got these dim sims,” says Chong.Īs their popularity increased, the factory couldn’t keep up with demand. Joe said they were wonderful so Tom, instead of continuing with the delivery, left the box of dim sims there. Joe decided to deep fry them, as “that’s the only way you could (cook them) in a fish and chip shop,” says Chong. Ross Harrington, founder of a Facebook community dedicated to dim sims, says he eats them every weekend. If you like, I’ll cook them in your shop and you can have them for lunch.” Chong says when they got back, Tom told Joe, “I’ve got a box of these dim sims. “While my brother was on his way to deliver them, he decided it was such a fine day, he’d stop and say hello to his good friend Joe, a Greek guy who owned a fish and chip shop near the Mordialloc area.” My father asked Tom to deliver a box of dim sims to an elderly Chinese gentleman who lived in Cheltenham (a Melbourne suburb),” says Chong. “At that time, my eldest brother Tom checked into the business. Then the popularity grew and we started to employ more and more ladies.”Ĭhen called the business Wing Lee – Wing was his middle name and Lee was his wife’s maiden name.īut the hearty dumplings weren’t propelled into stardom until his son stepped in, albeit accidentally.Ī day of slacking launches dim sim to the masses “They started with four women making them by hand – my mother was one of them. “So he kind of combined philanthropy with the business,” adds Chong. Chen called it “dim sim” instead – which has the same meaning as dim sum, but in a different Canton dialect. iStockphoto/Getty ImagesĬhen came up with an idea: If he could mass produce siu mai, these men could sell them on food trucks and earn a living.īut siu mai was too much of a mouthful for Australians to pronounce back in the 1940s. Among the many dim sum dishes, siu mai – a flowerpot-shaped pork and prawn dumpling – was especially popular.)ĭim sims, which come in many shapes and sizes, are usually fried or steamed. (“Dim sum” refers to the whole collection of dumplings and delicacies served with tea. They didn’t make it back home to China and were too old for heavy works,” says Chong.Īt the same time, Chen noticed how popular Cantonese dim sum had become in Australia. “They were like the leftovers from the goldfields days. It wouldn’t be an Australian fast-food icon.”Īustralia’s dim sim story began in 1942, when Chen realized that a number of elderly Chinese men who had come to Australia to work during the gold rush of the 1800s were left jobless. “But yes, if it weren’t for my father dim sim wouldn’t be what it is. He did not invent the dim sim,” says the 90-year-old celebrity chef. “It’s often been erroneously recorded that he invented the dim sim and had a restaurant called Wing Lee. That's finally changingĬhinese Australian businessman William Chen Wing Young is often credited as being the father of dim sim.Įlizabeth Chong, Chen’s daughter and a well-known Chinese Australian cooking show presenter, tells CNN Travel otherwise. For decades, Chinese food has been under-appreciated on the world stage. ![]()
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