At TEDxBerkeley on Jan. 20 the theme of the evening’s talks will be the butterfly effect — how small changes can lead to dramatic results and consequences down the line.
It is something Oakland native and chef Tu David Phu, the first speaker announced for the event at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, knows a lot about after several small moments that led to significant change.
Phu, an Oakland native, Top Chef alumnus and former SF Chronicle Rising Star Chef, moved to New York to cook in Michelin-starred restaurants after attending culinary school and working at Chez Panisse. But soon after joining the Big Apple dining scene, an epiphany led to an early career course correction. He realized his immigrant parents, refugees from Vietnam, would likely never be able to afford to dine at the restaurants where he worked. The moment spurred a move back to California to learn more about the foods and flavor profiles he had grown up savoring. This, in turn, led to his Emmy-nominated film Bloodline, which details his parents’ cooking, pays homage to his mother’s self-taught culinary repertoire (which began in a Thai refugee camp) and his father’s life as a freediver and fishmonger in Phú Quốc, Vietnam.
TEDxBerkeley
Jan. 20, 3-5:30 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley; Tickets available at tedxberkeley.org/get-tickets
This fall, Phu will unveil his first cookbook, “The Memory of Taste,” written with co-author Soleil Ho, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, chef, and award-winning restaurant reviewer. The book will focus on Vietnamese American, no-waste, fin-to-gill cooking, and combine Phu’s modern culinary style with the food wisdom that nurtured him. The book is a tribute to his parents.
“When I was growing up, Mom would cook and it would trigger her memories, sometimes good, sometimes bad,” Phu said. “My cookbook is dedicated to her for those memories that she cooked with and the new ones she created for me. Dad was a fishmonger most of his life, and the book is also an homage to how my parents created a whole cuisine with leftover fish scraps, like heads, fish gills, salmon belly and collars before it was popular.”
He hopes the cookbook, from 4 Color Books, will educate consumers about the impact of their seafood choices, drive market demand for sustainable choices and inspire chefs, restaurateurs and culinary professionals to prioritize sustainability in their menus and business practices.
Another shift in Phu’s thinking came after working at several restaurants and pop-ups, but always ending up frustrated with the models.
“I struggled to find a business plan that worked for hospitality workers,” he said. “But, because I didn’t want to exploit their labor, I would end up working 120-hour weeks myself. Restaurants don’t work for me.”
Phu now believes he can have more impact outside of a restaurant kitchen.
“I’m not your everyday, average chef,” he said. “Working with Whole Foods changed the way I see food. I saw that retail is a way bigger industry than restaurants. If I ever want to have any impact and change the food industry, I need to lean into the foundation of food which is retail and production, farmers included. So, I’ve leveraged my Top Chef time, and any other chef accolades I’ve received, to lean into working with community spaces, wineries and media opportunities. I do a lot of experimenting with my entrepreneurial side. I’m not chasing a dollar; I’m chasing my interest and passion.”
These days Phu is often contacted to weigh in on issues related to the Oakland community or Vietnamese seafood. “I’ve done everything from advising the Obama Foundation to being a board advisor to Stanford doctors for a program called The Nourish Project,” he said. “That is a group of Asian doctors trying to figure out the issues behind the diabetic epidemic in the North American Asian community. Once they figured out the problem, they would try to go to Asian families and say ‘You can’t eat any more rice because rice spikes your glycemic index.’ Instead, they needed to say, ‘Of course, you’re going to eat rice because it’s part of your cultural identity, but then increase your fiber.’”
Phu will draw on all of these experiences for his TEDx talk, and also plans to honor his mother specifically during the presentation.
“My direction in food and community is very matriarchal based,” he said. “My mom is this incredibly marginalized person, who worked in sweatshops and didn’t see value in the food she was cooking, even though it was delicious.”
Phu also recently launched a podcast entitled Back on the Boat that explores issues of identity among the children of immigrants, and the first episode revolved around the theme of “Authentic vs. Inauthentic.” It was exactly Phu’s wide range of experiences and endeavors that moved the TEDxBerkeley planners to extend an invitation.
“We were interested in Chef Tu for his work in environmentalism and sustainable food production and for his creativity, both across his work as a chef and as a producer and director, with his documentary highlighting cultural connection and generational knowledge,” said Christine Wakayama, one of the co-curators of TEDxBerkeley.
Other speakers at the Jan. 20 TEDxBerkeley event include: Aaron Rose Philip, an Antiguan model and advocate for transgender people and those with disabilities; Neil Patel, co-founder of NP Digital; Donny Jackson, documentary film producer and director; Ben Oakes, co-founder, president and CEO at Scribe Therapeutics; Manju Kulkarni, executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance; and Clancy Wilmott, professor of geography at UC Berkeley.
