In this undated photo, Janice Lee and her father Dominic Lee pose in front of Pou Chong in Calcutta. (PHOTO / APARAJIT CHAKRABORTY)

New Delhi - A historic business in Chinatown in India’s eastern city of Kolkata is serving as a culinary bridge by making popular Chinese sauces and other food products for more than 70 years.

The iconic firm, Pou Chong, owned by an Indian of Chinese origin and located along the Lu Shun Sarani (road) is widely popular in Kolkata as well as outside of the city for making and selling a wide array of sauces such as green chili sauce, red chili sauce, garlic chili sauce and Szechwan sauce, as well as a range of gourmet sauces

The iconic firm, Pou Chong, owned by an Indian of Chinese origin and located along the Lu Shun Sarani (road) is widely popular in Kolkata as well as outside of the city for making and selling a wide array of sauces such as green chili sauce, red chili sauce, garlic chili sauce and Szechwan sauce, as well as a range of gourmet sauces.

Its products are supplied to five-star restaurants and major hotels, among other clients. And they are also popular among households in Kolkata. 

Pou Chong, which means ‘harmonious and safe journey in life’, was founded by Lee Shih Chuan in the late 1950s when he was a young lad, his granddaughter, Janice Lee, said. 

The family traces its roots to a Hakka Chinese community that arrived in Kolkata by ship from a village in Guangdong province in southern China, as one of the early Chinese settlers in Kolkata. Lu Shun Sarani and its adjacent area in Central Kolkata is one of the oldest marketplaces in the city where the Chinese community first settled since the late 18th century. Since then, the place is widely known as Chinatown.   

Lee Shih Chuan’s father and grandfather were traditional Chinese medicine practitioners. In 1958, Lee Shih Chuan took over an old sauce factory to make signature sauces with Chinese herbs. Eventually, he began mixing Indian herbs with the Chinese ones to create fresh blends and invented new varieties of sauces, including a green chili sauce that is widely popular now in India as well as abroad, said Janice Lee. 

Lee Shih Chuan got the idea and inspiration for the green chili sauce when he noticed that many local Indians, especially Bengalis, loved to eat green chilies dipped in salt while eating rice. 

When he (Lee Shih Chuan) first began making the green chili sauce, he would literally sell it for very little. Roadside cucumber sellers would use this sauce as a dressing. Eventually, there was a growing demand for it and the green chili sauce became a staple for Kolkata-style Chinese noodles, kathi rolls (paratha wraps with fillings) and most importantly, the chili chicken. It became almost indispensable to Kolkata Chinese food.

Janice Lee

“When he first began making the green chili sauce, he would literally sell it for very little. Roadside cucumber sellers would use this sauce as a dressing. Eventually, there was a growing demand for it and the green chili sauce became a staple for Kolkata-style Chinese noodles, kathi rolls (paratha wraps with fillings) and most importantly, the chili chicken. It became almost indispensable to Kolkata Chinese food,” Janice Lee said.

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Hunan sauce and oyster sauce, which are manufactured using ancient natural techniques to recreate delicious dishes, are extremely popular sauces to make Hunan chicken and Hunan fried rice. Hunan sauce, originating from China’s Hunan province, has a distinctive taste, Janice Lee pointed out.

“We use Indian spices and mix it with a traditional way of making chili sauce which was learnt by my predecessors from China,” she said.

Lee Shih Chuan was born in what was then known as Calcutta during British colonial rule. He used to work at the Kidderpore ship dock, the main port in Kolkata, as a young lad, according to Janice Lee. 

“My grandmother disembarked from ship at the same dock,” she said, adding that her grandmother had sailed to India from China during the 1940s. 

After Lee Shih Chuan founded Pou Chong and grew the business, it evolved from being just a sauce company to making many more Chinese food products like dumplings, sui mai, momos, spring rolls and Chinese sausages. In 2017, the company launched its KIM range of products, establishing a premium brand for authentic Hakka products. “Kim” in Chinese means “golden”. 

Janice Lee’s father, Dominic Lee, is currently the director of Pou Chong, where more than 90 workers are involved in making and selling various products. 

The family’s ancestors came from a Hakka Chinese village called Meixin. “We are carrying the same language and customs,” said Janice Lee, who along with her family members, traveled to China in 2014 and visited Beijing and Jinan, as well as their ancestral village in Guangdong. 

Janice Lee said, “We cater to restaurants and the locals with more than 40 varieties of sauce. Many big hotels and restaurants, including Chinese restaurants in and around the city, use our sauces.”

The product lineup from Pou Chong includes a number of specialized, expertly produced items that make Chinese cooking easier at home. There is a selection of Hunan and Hoisin sauces, as well as a variety of light, springy noodles and prawn chips. There is also a bright, zesty capsiko sauce prepared from hand-picked red peppers that is perfect for dressing sizzlers and chops.

The green chili sauce, however, continues to be the signature product because of its delicate tanginess and well-balanced savory character. 

The iconic shop is now eyeing a stronger national footing. “We want to expand more with better-equipped production facilities and trying to find the smartest way to handle orders,” Janice said, with a smile.

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Fact File: How the Chinese came to Calcutta

Records cited by historians Zhing Xian and Tansen Sen in their paper “The Chinese in South Asia” (published in the Routledge Handbook of the Chinese diaspora) show that in the latter half of the 18th century, a few hundred Chinese migrants had come to Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) on ships that arrived from canton. But the most well known “first” settler was a tea trader named Yang Dazhao, nicknamed Atchew, who received a land grant from the then British governor-general Warren Hastings in 1778 near Budge Budge, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly river. Atchew set up a sugar mill on the plot in the area, since called Achipur, and began to bring laborers from China.

Around 1857, when about 500 Cantonese and Hakka Chinese were already leaving Calcutta, engaged in shoe making, carpentry and selling opium, the community started settling in Bombay (now known as Mumbai), too, mostly around the Mazagon Dock area. But the settlement on the western coast never attained a critical mass. Hence, it is only in Calcutta that the Chinese carved out a distinct living for themselves.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.