The lecture theatre was packed for television chef and writer Ken Hom, regarded as the world's leading authority on Chinese cookery. The title of his lecture was Food for thought - food for change.

Ken Hom was delivering the Martin Radcliffe Fellowship Lecture, funded by the Savoy Educational Trust, which supports gastronomic research in the Department of Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism Management at Oxford Brookes.

With the assured confidence of one who not only knows his subject, but lives it, he spoke with an infectious passion about the role food has played in his life.

He began by telling of his school days in Chicago when the aromatic Chinese meals his mother packed for him in a lunch tin were the envy of his class. He spoke of how they offered to swop their peanut and jelly sandwiches for a taste of his meal and how comforting, pervasive aromas and delicious tastes were part of everyday life for Ken and his widowed mother.

"We may have been poor materially, but we were rich in the culture of food and family." he told his audience of students, academics and food experts.

Despite his mother's culinary skills, he admits that cooking for a living was not what he wanted then. Being Chinese in the US in the 1970s meant that you were labelled as a restaurant cook or dishwasher which was not how Ken envisaged his life. But when he became a troublesome teenager, Ken was taught the ethics of work by an uncle who owned a restaurant.

This uncle, who became a father figure to him, was determined that hard work would sort his nephew out. First he taught him the rudiments of kitchen hygiene and food preparation, then how to make noodles. It was Ken's job to keep the kitchen meticulously clean and to make the fresh rice noodles each day, working on four woks at a time, running from one to another, stirring as fast as he could.

He hated it. He hated the atmosphere and everything it represented. He became attracted by the more tolerant attitudes of the hippy culture of love, peace and happiness, which is why he moved to California, hoping to leave the kitchen behind.

But before long, Ken began calling on those cooking skills to earn money. By 1977 he was teaching professional cooks at the newly formed Californian Culinary Academy.

Twenty chefs attended his first lecture. "Are they really interested in Chinese cooking?" Ken asked the principal. When he was assured that they were, he decided to show them what cooking was all about and arrived carrying a live chicken under his arm. Within moments he proceeded to dispatch it in front of them.

Most of the students rushed out to the loo before he had finished bleeding the bird. Only a few remained to hear him declare that he would cook it the next day.

Ken chuckled at that memory. The dean met him afterwards and said never again. We are keen about food, but not that keen.

So, Ken concentrated on showing the young chefs how dishes from the east could meet dishes from the west instead. This was long before fusion food became fashionable and his innovative and informative lessons did much to demystify the art of Chinese cuisine.

His big chance arrived in 1984 when the BBC was looking for a Chinese chef to produce a series. It was television chef and actress Madhur Jaffrey who, having seen him giving cookery lessons in California, recommended him. So began Ken Hom's own television career and the publication of what was to be the first of a dozen books on Chinese cookery.

Ken became involved with Oxford Brookes on meeting head of department Donald Sloan, who had heard that Ken was interested in ensuring that his library, made up of more than 2,500 gastronomic writings, was better used. They met for lunch at the Japanese restaurant Nobu in London to talk and got on so well Ken agreed to donate his entire library that he built up over 30 years to Oxford Brookes. This collection, when added to those that the university already owns - the Fuller collection, Jane Grigson and Prue Leith collections, has created one of the world's most impressive gastronomic libraries.

Ken was later invited to become a founding patron of the Food Studies Centre, an international centre to be launched soon at Oxford Brookes. It will be the first of its kind in the UK.

The centre will also become the name under which the department conducts its extensive range of consultations on food and drink for Government and business.

This includes organising the first annual International Food and Drink Festival, to be held at Blenheim Palace in May 2008.

Donald is particularly impressed with Ken Hom's support for sustainable food in the Third World and the way he promotes quality food.

"Ken's new role as founding patron of the Food Studies Centre will now bring him into contact with those students who will go on to positions of influence within the international food world," said Donald.

The fact that Ken Hom will be a regular visitor to Oxford Brookes raises the university's status in the culinary world and suggests that his lecture could be the first of many.