Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China

by Fuchsia Dunlop, Bee Wilson (Foreword by)

Overview

The modern classic that redefined the travel food memoir, with a new foreword from Bee Wilson.

Fuchsia Dunlop, the first Westerner to train at the prestigious Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, “has done more to explain real Chinese cooking to non-Chinese cooks than anyone” (Julia Moskin, New York Times). In Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, Dunlop recalls her rapturous encounters with China’s culinary riches, alongside her brushes with corruption, environmental degradation, and greed. The resulting memoir is a vibrant portrait of Chinese culinary culture, from the remote Gansu countryside to the enchanting old city of Yangzhou. The most talked-about travel narrative when it was published a decade ago, this reissue of Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper remains a thrilling adventure that you won’t be able to put down.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393357745
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/15/2019
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	89,983
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Fuchsia Dunlop was the first Westerner to train as a chef at the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine, and has been traveling around China, researching and cooking Chinese food, for thirty years. Her James Beard Award–winning and best-selling books include The Food of Sichuan, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, Every Grain of Rice, and Land of Fish and Rice, several of which are now published in translation in China. Based in London, she speaks, reads, and writes Chinese.

Bee Wilson is the author of six books on food-related subjects. The cofounder of TastEd, a food education charity aimed at giving children opportunities to experience fresh vegetables and fruits in a joyful way, she writes for a range of publications, including the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal.

Table of Contents

Foreword Bee Wilson 6

Prologue: The Chinese Eat Everything 8

1 Mouths That Love Eating 15

2 Dan Dan Noodles! 34

3 First Kill Your Fish 47

4 Only Barbarians Eat Salad 60

5 The Cutting Edge 76

6 The Root of Tastes 93

7 The Hungry Dead 114

8 The Rubber Factor 133

9 Sickness Enters Through the Mouth 150

10 Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party 173

11 Chanel and Chickens' Feet 185

12 Feeding the Emperor 199

13 Guilt and Pepper 217

14 Journey to the West 236

15 Of Paw and Bone 255

16 Scary Crabs 273

17 A Dream of Red Mansions 291

Epilogue: The Caterpillar 309

List of the Main Chinese Dynasties 313

Acknowledgements 315

Permissions 317

Index 319

Editorial Reviews

"What makes it a distinguished contribution to the literature of gastronomy is its demonstration . . . that food is not a mere reflection of culture but a potent shaper of cultural identity."

New York Times Sunday Book Review

"After devouring Dunlop's deep dive into the techniques of Chinese cuisine, you will never look at a cleaver the same way again."

Entertainment Weekly

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper is both an insightful, entertaining, scrupulously reported exploration of China's foodways and a swashbuckling memoir studded with recipes (not converted, alas, from metric measurements) . But what makes it a distinguished contribution to the literature of gastronomy is its demonstration, through one person's intense experience, that food is not a mere reflection of culture but a potent shaper of cultural identity.
—The New York Times

Dawn Drzal

Food writer Dunlop is better known in the U.K., where her comprehensive volumes on Sichuanese and Hunanese cuisine carved out her niche and eventually became contemporary classics. Turning to personal narrative through the backstory and consequences of her fascination with China, she produces an autobiographical food-and-travel classic of a narrowly focused but rarefied order. Dunlop's initial 1992 trip to Sichuan proved so enthralling that she later obtained a year's residential study scholarship in the provincial capital, Chengdu. There, her enrollment in the local Institute of Higher Cuisine, a professional chef's program, created a cultural exchange program of a specialized kind. The research for and success of her resulting cookbooks permitted Dunlop to return to China in a more experienced role as chef and writer; that led to this reflective memoir, which probes into the author's search for kitchens in the Forbidden City as well as the people and places of remote West China. One key to this supple and affectionate book is its time frame: by arriving in China in the middle of vast economic upheavals, Dunlop explored and experienced the country and its culture as it was transforming into a postcommunist communism. (Apr.)

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Publishers Weekly

Gourmet and Saveur magazine writer Dunlop (Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook) first traveled to China in 1992, unprepared for the "gastronomical assaults" that ensued. From then on, because it would be rude to leave food untouched on her plate, she vowed to eat whatever food she was offered-whether it was mixed vegetables or frog casserole and stir-fried snake-though to do so was often risky. With provocative chapter titles such as "Only Barbarians Eat Salad," "The Hungry Dead," and "Chanel and Chickens' Feet," this book does not disappoint. Readers are taken on a culinary journey throughout the various regions and provinces of China and are treated to recipes at the end of each chapter. Back home in England, Dunlop finds herself hesitant to eat a caterpillar that made its way into her steamed vegetables. Dare she cross that cultural boundary of eating an insect in the Western world? Dunlop's latest is a fascinating look at Chinese food and customs. Recommended for all libraries.
—Nicole Mitchell

Library Journal

Freelance scribe, almost-professional chef, restaurant consultant and ardent Sinophile Dunlop ensures that you'll never again look at General Tso or his chicken in the same way. In this, her first non-cookbook, she examines the entire spectrum of Chinese food culture, from the mystery of MSG to the melding of food and politics to Chinese culinary schools. As was the case with Trevor Corson's terrific Japanese food treatise The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, From Samurai to Supermarket (2007), Dunlop successfully inserts herself into the narrative, discussing her methodology, her feelings and theories about China and, periodically, her love life. She's so slick about it that the technique enhances rather than detracts from her episodic story line. In a clever gimmick, each chapter concludes with a recipe, a menu, a glossary or some other sort of culinary tidbit; the recipe for Mu gua dun ji, chicken and papaya soup, looks particularly tasty. It's become trendy, if not tired, for a food writer or television personality to eat a seemingly repulsive dish, then rave about how shocked they were at its yumminess. Dunlop periodically takes this approach-for example, her encounters with caterpillar and with snake stir-fry-and while she doesn't add anything new to the formula, her enthusiasm and linguistic dexterity keep it engaging. That's the case throughout this charming, informative textbook/memoir/travelogue, one of the more noteworthy recent food studies. Readers definitely won't be hungry an hour after finishing this satisfying history from a witty Chinese food authority.

Kirkus Reviews

"Destined, I think, to become a classic of travel writing."

The Observer - Paul Levy

"An insightful, entertaining, scrupulously reported exploration of China’s foodways and a swashbuckling memoir…What makes it a distinguished contribution to the literature of gastronomy is its demonstration…that food is not a mere reflection of culture but a potent shaper of cultural identity."

New York Times - Dawn Drzal