Ken Hom: I was petrified of being in front of the camera. Doing TV was a nightmare'

Ducks don't like me when they look at me. I've cooked countless peking ducks, probably several thousand. On my first TV series we did peking duck in the first programme and there was a run on ducks the next day in all the supermarkets.

I grew up in Chicago with a single mum who, because she came from China, never spoke English. I had to speak Cantonese to her and it's been a blessing in disguise.

I started in my uncle's restaurant when I was 11. I was peeling 50kg of garlic, 100kg of prawns. I thought: God, I never want to go into the restaurant business.

The BBC interviewed more than 50 people from around the world before we made Ken Hom's Chinese Cookery. They'd been searching for more than two years for someone to do a Chinese cookery series.

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