同甄起鑊 🥡
I was really surprised when YouTube decided to recommend this video channel to me recently (guess it was because I was watching a few food-related videos)!
This sure brings back memories! I remember seeing this show on TV when I was a wee kid! Didn't realise it was a long running Canadian cooking show then though.
Looking back now, Stephen Yan's jokes are the epitome of what would be called "dad jokes” nowadays! A lot of super cringe moments with his very lame jokes but(!) there's an unpretentiousness in his presentation that I really appreciate, compared to some of the too polished TV personalities today.
Anyway! In this particular episode ↓ I got to learn a new proverb thanks to Yan! (Wait, you mean to tell me those fortune cookies' 🥠 — a Chinese-American/Australian/Canadian thing apparently, by the way, no such thing in China nor where I'm from nor even in Japan, from where it likely got its inspiration from Japanese おみくじ (omikuji — fortune slips) — maxims are not all bosh?! 😸)
「牡丹雖好，還須綠葉扶持」
[🥮 maau⁵ daan¹ seoi¹ hou², waan⁴ seoi¹ luk⁶ jip⁶ fu⁴ ci⁴]
— Yan's version ↑ is basically the same as the few slightly different variations available in the dictionary I looked up (which you can see under the cut) and it does mean something like what Yan explained, that is,
"Although the Peony (flower) is good (beautiful) on its own, it still needs the green leaves to support it (help contrast its loveliness.)”
Which basically means,
“However brilliant one person may be, they still need support from others, one cannot achieve greatness on their own.”
Which Yan of course adapted to revolve round his dishes and cooking show, explaining the proverb as,
“Even a good dish requires a nice garnish touch.”
↑ What the "F” indeed! — when auto-generated captions were unable to pick up the Cantonese Yan says.
Source: [YouTube]
