William Chen Wing Young

William Chen Wing Young (1896–1974) was a Chinese-Australian businessman and entrepreneur in Melbourne. He is best known as the inventor and populariser of the iconic Australian dim sim in the 1940s[1][2], known colloquially as a "dimmy"[3][4], and as the father of well-known Australian celebrity chef and cooking personality Elizabeth Chong.[5][6]

Early life and family

William was born in Wahgunyah, Victoria into a Chinese-Australian family.[7][8] His father, Chen Ah Kew, was an early Chinese pioneer, who arrived in Victoria in the 1850s from Guangdong, China and initially worked as a gold miner, before becoming a storekeeper on the Murray River.[9] In 1901, the family returned to China when William was roughly five. He returned to Melbourne as a teenager with several of his brothers[10][11] and started a number of business during the period the White Australia Policy was in place.[10][12]

Business career

William and his siblings went on to establish Wing Young & Co. in 1924-25,[7][13] a family business with interests in growing and importing bananas, fruit and vegetable wholesaling, furniture manufacturing and later food production[14][15]. He became a successful fruit merchant and operated one of the largest wholesale fruit businesses at Queen Victoria Market.[7][16]

During the 1940s, William established Wing Lee, a restaurant and food manufacturing business in Melbourne's Chinatown called Wing Lee.[17][7] He noticed Australians who dined there particularly enjoyed the Cantonese siu mai dumpling, traditionally served as part of dim sum. William thought it would be a great snack at the football,[18][19] so he designed it for Australian taste and mass production, larger with a thicker wrapper, allowing it to be frozen, transported and reheated.[20][1] He called it the "dim sim", which went on to be a staple takeaway food around the country.[5][6]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Ross, Kirstan (December 2, 2016). "A fun look at iconic Australian-invented foods and their histories". The Herald Sun.
  2. ↑ Rancie, Laura (9 August 2023). "Dim Sim Unveiled: The Surprising Origin Story from Melbourne". Australian Good Food Guide.
  3. ↑ "The Dimmy: An Iconic Chinese Australian Snack". Lion Brand.
  4. ↑ Callander, Lucy. "Will South Melbourne Market be dethroned as the region's dim sim master?". The Herald Sun.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. 1 2 Brown, Simon Leo (8 Feb 2016). "Dim sims: The history of a Chinese-Australian icon". Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
  6. 1 2 Shackell, James (13 Jan 2020). "Expand Your Snack IQ And Learn About The History Of The Dim Sim". Urban List.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Rayson, Hannie (February 21, 2020). "'We were never discriminated against': Elizabeth Chong looks back". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  8. ↑ "Dreams of Jade and Gold: Chinese families in Australia's history". Victorian Collections.
  9. ↑ "The Sunday Creek Chinese Market Gardeners". Pfeiffer Wines.
  10. 1 2 Wu, Yin (12 February 2021). "How food icon Elizabeth Chong 'missed out' on Lunar New Year as a child due to the White Australia Policy". Special Broadcasting Service.
  11. ↑ Lee, Tania (12 October 2021). "Food icon Elizabeth Chong on her ancestry that harks back to pre-goldrush era". Special Broadcasting Service.
  12. ↑ Law, Benjamin (January 18, 2020). "Elizabeth Chong: 'I don't think I could ever retire'". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  13. ↑ Young, Terry (29 November 2023). "Chen Wing Young/Leong Family". Chinese Australian Family Historians of Victoria Inc.
  14. ↑ Couchman, Sophie (1995). "The Banana Trade: Its Importance to Melbourne's Chinese in Little Bourke Street, 1880s–1930s" (PDF). Histories of the Chinese in Australasia and the South Pacific, Proceedings of an International Public Conference (Museum of Chinese Australian History): 75–87.
  15. ↑ Villafranca, Dr Ethel (2022). "HerStory: Multiple facets of Chinese Australian Women". Museum of Chinese Australian History.
  16. ↑ Fidler, Richard (25 Dec 2023). "Elizabeth Chong — Australia's queen of Chinese cookery". Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
  17. ↑ O'Brien, Mary (August 30, 2011). "Our first wok star". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  18. ↑ Callander, Lucy (August 4, 2021). "Will South Melbourne Market be dethroned as the region's dim sim master?". Herald Sun.
  19. ↑ Hayes, Janice Leung (9 Jul 2016). "From long soup to dim sims: the history of Australian-Chinese cooking". South China Morning Post.
  20. ↑ Bourget, Audrey (1 March 2019). "Six decades of South Melbourne Market Dim Sims". Special Broadcasting Service.
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