Why Bobby Chinn is more than just a celebrity chef

As a successful TV host and world-famous chef, Bobby Chinn is both funny and skilled in the kitchen. A self-proclaimed problem solver—as opposed to being creative—he came up with his own rendition of popular dishes like champorado for diabetics and a revised version of his favorite Vietnamese dish, Bun bo, just because he never learned how to do it the “right” way, i.e., the Vietnamese way. Recently, Chinn, who is presently based in Vietnam, opened a new restaurant in London called the House of Ho, which is named not after Ho Chi Minh but after Soho.

On top of all this, there is still more to love about this half-Egyptian, half-Chinese culinary sensation who recently visited the country to help the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Costa del Hamilo, Inc. (Hamilo Coast) celebrate the 3rd Coral Triangle Day on June 9 in Nasugbu, Batangas.

Addressing the media, Chinn talked about conservation and why it’s important for people to “start thinking differently and why we can’t continue to keep doing what we are doing now.” He also cooked a few dishes, including tuna tartare and a seared snapper head dish, which were sourced by hand-line from Occidental Mindoro and the waters off Hamilo Coast.

Here then, in bite-size pieces, are some of the things we learned from and about Bobby Chinn, which just might bring him closer to the hearts of us “food-loving, ever-friendly and always smiling Filipinos.”

1. He has neither cooked nor served swordfish in 18 years. As a matter of fact, he wouldn’t touch endangered species because he believes that chefs can prepare delicious dishes using sustainable food. As a WWF advocate for ocean conservation, Chinn says no to dishes with shark fin, cod fish, manta rays and other exotic fish, as well as people (chefs, in particular) who would serve or cook just about anything.

He was disappointed, for example, with a popular American chef who, incidentally, used to be one of his “heroes.” Apparently, said chef would prepare anything for his customers because they just don’t care. Chinn believes that chefs should care, even if their customers don’t.

2. He started diving in the Red Sea and has known the peace and tranquility of the ocean because of it. Chinn talks about the connection of our seafood and the ocean from where it came, saying, “You gotta respect the ingredients, the environment where it comes from.”

As a diver, he realized that humans can feel safe and peaceful when they are in the ocean, which is not fair because the marine creatures are never safe from humans. “I swim in their environment and no one’s attacking me, it’s all peaceful,” he said.

Diving is a privilege, he added, because it’s an expensive hobby. That’s why divers have the responsibility to become active advocates and share with people what they see under the sea. “That’s the least I could do, since I’m actually seeing it—you become a little bit more conscious.”

3. He doesn’t usually eat tuna and he believes that we all should “eat more vegetables and start laying off a lot of the meat and the fish.” Chinn is alarmed by the mercury levels in tuna and can, as a matter of fact, taste the metal in it.

For the Coral Triangle Day celebration, however, he prepared tuna tartare but only because it was caught by hand-line fishing.

In his restaurants, he serves plenty of vegetarian options, too. He’s also got plenty to say about genetically-modified food, aspartame (from the same company that produced Agent Orange), petrochemicals, and even sugar (inflammation of cells comes from consuming too much sugar, he said).

4. He believes that one needs to fail to get to creative, and that’s why he went to Vietnam—it was a good place to fail in. “Most people are too scared of failing, so we end up doing something we don’t really want to do because we don’t want to take the risk,” he said.“I wanted to do something but I was scared. And I had to fail to get to creative. So I go to Vietnam to fail. What better place to do that—nobody knew me. I went there to do something I believed in, to fulfill my dreams, give life a try. How was I supposed to know I’d be successful?”

Chinn says that what is wrong with our education system is that it wants to put all of us inside a box, and then when we’re out of school, they want us to think out of the box. As someone who has been schooled all over the globe—Egypt, San Francisco, England—Chinn has figured out that education basically aims for conformity, and that not enough significance is placed on the arts (music, dance, etc.).

5. He believes it is better to help the women, and he does his share in Vietnam. A friend of his once told him that if he planned on helping the community, it would be better to help and teach the women because they are able to pass on the knowledge to others. Today, Chinn donates a percentage of the profits from his Hanoi restaurant to an organization called Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation, which “focuses on getting kids back into education, training and apprenticeships.”

6. He thinks Filipino chefs are not cooking enough Filipino dishes. Like Egypt, where his family comes from, the Philippines also has been stripped of its culinary identity when the colonizers came to conquer the land. Among the so-called Filipino dishes, how many are actually Spanish? Or Chinese, for that matter?

According to him, Filipino chefs are very talented, but when they come back here from studying or working abroad, they are not cooking Filipino food. “Ask your Filipino chefs to go outside and show them what Filipino food is all about—that’s what you need.”

If there is one message that Bobby Chinn would like to leave for us Filipinos, it would be this: “You have an incredible natural resource that most of the world does not have. You got to change, and it starts with us. I’ve done what I can do, and I do this all over the world.”

Now, it’s our turn to protect what we still have, while we still can—because the fishermen don’t know any of this. Protection and conservation have now become the responsibility of those who know and understand. It is now our duty to save our seas. — BM, GMA News