What do you think?
Rate this book
鱼翅与花椒
这本书是对于中国菜出乎意料的美好，也是一个英国女孩在中国的冒险故事。
获得英国饮食作家工会大奖肯定的扶霞在一九九四年前往中国长住。打从一开始她就发誓不论人家请她吃什么，不管那食物有多么古怪，她一律来者不拒。在这本难得一见的回忆录中，扶霞追溯自己和中国饮食之间的关系演进。透过扶霞的眼睛，我们得以用全新的角度来了解我们熟悉的中国菜。原来不同地方的食物，都有其独一无二的气质。川菜的辣带着一丝丝的甜味，就像悠闲而迷人的四川人，总是带着一丝甜甜的体贴；湘菜直接又毫无妥协余地，就跟那里培养出来的军队领袖一样；扬州菜则是太平盛世的食物，温暖而抚慰人心。
从四川热闹的市场到甘肃北部荒僻的风景，从福建的深山到迷人的扬州古城，书中呈现了中式料理让人难忘的美妙滋味，也深刻描绘出中西饮食文化差异，且兼具人文观察与幽默趣味。
获得英国饮食作家工会大奖肯定的扶霞在一九九四年前往中国长住。打从一开始她就发誓不论人家请她吃什么，不管那食物有多么古怪，她一律来者不拒。在这本难得一见的回忆录中，扶霞追溯自己和中国饮食之间的关系演进。透过扶霞的眼睛，我们得以用全新的角度来了解我们熟悉的中国菜。原来不同地方的食物，都有其独一无二的气质。川菜的辣带着一丝丝的甜味，就像悠闲而迷人的四川人，总是带着一丝甜甜的体贴；湘菜直接又毫无妥协余地，就跟那里培养出来的军队领袖一样；扬州菜则是太平盛世的食物，温暖而抚慰人心。
从四川热闹的市场到甘肃北部荒僻的风景，从福建的深山到迷人的扬州古城，书中呈现了中式料理让人难忘的美妙滋味，也深刻描绘出中西饮食文化差异，且兼具人文观察与幽默趣味。
265 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
446 people are currently reading
5,545 people want to read
About the author
Fuchsia Dunlop
11?books374?followersFuchsia Dunlop is a cook and food-writer specialising in Chinese cuisine. She is the author of Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, an account of her adventures in exploring Chinese food culture, and two critically-acclaimed Chinese cookery books, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, and Sichuan Cookery (published in the US as Land of Plenty).
Fuchsia writes for publications including Gourmet, Saveur, and The Financial Times. She is a regular guest on radio and television, and has appeared on shows including Gordon Ramsay’s The F-Word, NPR’s All Things Considered and The Food Programme on BBC Radio 4. She was named ‘Food Journalist of the Year’ by the British Guild of Food Writers in 2006, and has been shortlisted for three James Beard Awards. Her first book, Sichuan Cookery, won the Jeremy Round Award for best first book.
Fuchsia writes for publications including Gourmet, Saveur, and The Financial Times. She is a regular guest on radio and television, and has appeared on shows including Gordon Ramsay’s The F-Word, NPR’s All Things Considered and The Food Programme on BBC Radio 4. She was named ‘Food Journalist of the Year’ by the British Guild of Food Writers in 2006, and has been shortlisted for three James Beard Awards. Her first book, Sichuan Cookery, won the Jeremy Round Award for best first book.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 515 reviews
September 26, 2017
I'm a member of several Facebook groups for various reasons, and every time someone asks for a recommendation for a Mexican restaurant, it starts an argument. One person will recommend this place, but someone else will disagree, saying, "I'm from San Diego; I know REAL Mexican cuisine." Another person will suggest a different restaurant, and again an argument is started by someone saying, "I'm from Corpus Cristi; I know REAL Mexican food." And here I sit, not an expert on Mexican food by any stretch of the imagination, but intelligent enough to realize that Mexico is a large(ish) country with differing regions that have their own cuisines.
Chinese food gets lumped into this same bland and broad category. Even people who eschew the fast food options like Panda Express think they know real Chinese food when they visit their local restaurants and enjoy a plate of lo mein (which, by the way, varies greatly depending on whether you're on the East or West Coast of the US). In this book, Dunlop shows us how incredibly vast the differences is in Chinese food, depending on what part of this huge country one is in. From Sichuan to Shanghaiese to Hunan to Yangzhou, the ingredients and the preparations and the finishes of the dishes are varied and unusual from one another. How one eats in one region will be totally different from how one eats in another.
Dunlop also makes the reader a bit nostalgic for a country she's never visited. In the beginning of this memoir, Dunlop begins her Chinese journey in Sichuan and falls in love with this region. But it's the 1990s, and Communism is just starting to ease its grip. Old parts of towns are still inhabited, and the manufacturing boom hasn't taken off yet. Just 15 years later, Dunlop mentions that she can barely recognize parts of China through all the pollution and the razing of the old towns. She also discusses the issue of food security. Now China and its neighbors are eating much more meat and dairy products, which is straining the resources of our earth and causing prices to rise across the globe. Eating a more traditional Chinese diet is much better for the planet, but the Chinese are working hard to catch up to the excesses of the West.
I appreciate how acclimatized Dunlop became to China. As a Navy wife, I would be frustrated along with my husband when he'd tell me stories of his fellow sailors making a beeline to the nearest McDonald's, no matter what country they had just pulled into. Dunlop eats like I would want to eat in a nation that wasn't mine -- exactly what the locals eat on a daily basis. I admit that some of her descriptions of her meals were difficult for the Western mind to wrap its brain around (I would have to do some major work to enjoy animal lungs, though I honestly don't have a problem with eating cat or dog, as long as it wasn't someone's pet), but she does an excellent job of explaining why the Chinese people love these odd-to-Westerners food. It's not just about the taste but also the play of textures within a dish.
I'm very impressed with Dunlop's hard work in learning not just Mandarin, but also attempting to speak whatever dialect of the region she's visiting at the time. She definitely immersed herself as much as possible in the culture, which I admire highly.
This is less of a personal memoir and more of a memoir on how Dunlop lost quite a bit of her Englishness and became nearly Chinese in her eating and thinking. I highly recommend this book, though I suggest never reading it on an empty stomach.
Chinese food gets lumped into this same bland and broad category. Even people who eschew the fast food options like Panda Express think they know real Chinese food when they visit their local restaurants and enjoy a plate of lo mein (which, by the way, varies greatly depending on whether you're on the East or West Coast of the US). In this book, Dunlop shows us how incredibly vast the differences is in Chinese food, depending on what part of this huge country one is in. From Sichuan to Shanghaiese to Hunan to Yangzhou, the ingredients and the preparations and the finishes of the dishes are varied and unusual from one another. How one eats in one region will be totally different from how one eats in another.
Dunlop also makes the reader a bit nostalgic for a country she's never visited. In the beginning of this memoir, Dunlop begins her Chinese journey in Sichuan and falls in love with this region. But it's the 1990s, and Communism is just starting to ease its grip. Old parts of towns are still inhabited, and the manufacturing boom hasn't taken off yet. Just 15 years later, Dunlop mentions that she can barely recognize parts of China through all the pollution and the razing of the old towns. She also discusses the issue of food security. Now China and its neighbors are eating much more meat and dairy products, which is straining the resources of our earth and causing prices to rise across the globe. Eating a more traditional Chinese diet is much better for the planet, but the Chinese are working hard to catch up to the excesses of the West.
I appreciate how acclimatized Dunlop became to China. As a Navy wife, I would be frustrated along with my husband when he'd tell me stories of his fellow sailors making a beeline to the nearest McDonald's, no matter what country they had just pulled into. Dunlop eats like I would want to eat in a nation that wasn't mine -- exactly what the locals eat on a daily basis. I admit that some of her descriptions of her meals were difficult for the Western mind to wrap its brain around (I would have to do some major work to enjoy animal lungs, though I honestly don't have a problem with eating cat or dog, as long as it wasn't someone's pet), but she does an excellent job of explaining why the Chinese people love these odd-to-Westerners food. It's not just about the taste but also the play of textures within a dish.
I'm very impressed with Dunlop's hard work in learning not just Mandarin, but also attempting to speak whatever dialect of the region she's visiting at the time. She definitely immersed herself as much as possible in the culture, which I admire highly.
This is less of a personal memoir and more of a memoir on how Dunlop lost quite a bit of her Englishness and became nearly Chinese in her eating and thinking. I highly recommend this book, though I suggest never reading it on an empty stomach.
December 19, 2017
Fuchsia Dunlop has tons of personality and a real talent and fascination with food from around the world. The Chinese eat a large number of things non-Chinese do not, so when she said she'd eat anything, I have be impressed, though I do think she might be slightly mad.
She went to live in China in mid-1990's, and has noticed many changes to the way of life there since then. When she went she could eat for fifty cents or a dollar and be perfectly sated. She often ate at small establishments and tried to learn the local tricks to very special dishes. She gives recipes in this book, but mostly it is an account of her living and traveling in-country.
This would be a particularly good book for someone similarly food-struck or China-struck. Dunlop has a terrific writing style and a keen eye. I grew weary, however, reading someone else's memories. I wish her well & am impressed with her ability to make friends and influence people. I am planning to take a look at .
She went to live in China in mid-1990's, and has noticed many changes to the way of life there since then. When she went she could eat for fifty cents or a dollar and be perfectly sated. She often ate at small establishments and tried to learn the local tricks to very special dishes. She gives recipes in this book, but mostly it is an account of her living and traveling in-country.
This would be a particularly good book for someone similarly food-struck or China-struck. Dunlop has a terrific writing style and a keen eye. I grew weary, however, reading someone else's memories. I wish her well & am impressed with her ability to make friends and influence people. I am planning to take a look at .
November 22, 2020
Fuchsia Dunlop apparently lives to eat Chinese food, loves Sichuan cuisine, and possesses a boundless curiosity about ingredients and techniques. Her Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China strikes me as an odd and confusing mélange: her writing about Chinese cuisine, and above all about Sichuan cuisine, is typically marvelous, and it’s this spirited and voracious writing that thankfully dominates throughout. Her writing about her life and experiences in China leaves me puzzled, a sometimes discomfiting mixture of warmth towards her friends and hosts, and occasional cringe-inducing generalizations about regional character. Palpable yearning for Dunlop’s favorite Sichuanese dishes sometimes interrupted my reading of Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, together with fantasies of breaking quarantine and accompanying Dunlop on her culinary tours. But then I ask myself: what did I learn about Dunlop the person and the personality beyond her as an eater and cook and gourmet? Finally, finally, Dunlop reveals more of herself in the final two chapters and epilogue.
Five shining stars as food writing, three stars as memoir, and two stars as travelogue and introduction to current China.
Five shining stars as food writing, three stars as memoir, and two stars as travelogue and introduction to current China.
November 27, 2012
There are books about the food of a place, and there are books about culinary adventures. Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper is more of a food ethnography, as the reader experiences the specific food cultures of China along with Fuchsia. She morphs from being scared of gelatinous texture to thinking more like a Chinese person than an English person in regard to food.
"Texture is the last frontier for Westerners learning to appreciate Chinese food. Cross it, and you're really inside. But the way there is a wild journey that will bring you face to face with your own worst prejudices...."
The majority of the book focuses on food from the Sichuan Province, as she spent many years there, first as a student and then just as an expatriate. Other chapters dabble in other regions and their cuisines, serving as a reminder of what a variety of people groups and heritages various parts of China encompasses.
This is a journey I could never take, largely because I do not eat meat, but even more so because this was a journey that spanned fifteen years. This is not a tourist encounter with "weird food" that lasts only two weeks. This is an adulthood-long dive into the layers and history of Chinese food. Her background as a journalist, and growing up in an international-student-friendly home, both contributed to her ability to take on this type of adventure.
This book made me HUNGRY. I ordered dan-dan noodles locally, knowing they don't even come close to the version she was describing that she purchased from a street vendor. I also made out of desperation.
"Texture is the last frontier for Westerners learning to appreciate Chinese food. Cross it, and you're really inside. But the way there is a wild journey that will bring you face to face with your own worst prejudices...."
The majority of the book focuses on food from the Sichuan Province, as she spent many years there, first as a student and then just as an expatriate. Other chapters dabble in other regions and their cuisines, serving as a reminder of what a variety of people groups and heritages various parts of China encompasses.
This is a journey I could never take, largely because I do not eat meat, but even more so because this was a journey that spanned fifteen years. This is not a tourist encounter with "weird food" that lasts only two weeks. This is an adulthood-long dive into the layers and history of Chinese food. Her background as a journalist, and growing up in an international-student-friendly home, both contributed to her ability to take on this type of adventure.
This book made me HUNGRY. I ordered dan-dan noodles locally, knowing they don't even come close to the version she was describing that she purchased from a street vendor. I also made out of desperation.
April 15, 2009
I loved the premise of this book; travel writer paired with a English born Chinese trained, Sichuanese chef. This is a fun, interesting and easy read but I have to say, I read many parts of this book with my face scrunched. I was able to (barely) get through the "tantalizing" recipes and dishes whose main ingredient was dog, cat, rabbit tongue, deer tail (I can't even fathom that one) chicken feet, goat testicles and rat brains, but it was a bit too much information when the author described the very inhumane ways of killing (or really not killing) many of the animals before cooking. If you can skim over those parts, and have a bit of a foodie in you, I think you will enjoy this book.
February 5, 2013
First off I should say that I love eating in China. In fact, that is what I most look forward to when I am heading to China. The variety and quality of the various cuisines in China is truly extraordinary. I really related to this book, not only for the eating adventures, but also because I also was once a young student in China trying to figure things out around me. Dunlop was a young girl studying Chinese in Chengdu when she became distracted by the heady smells and tastes that surrounded her. She enrolled in the local cooking school and dove headfirst into the wonderful world of Chinese cuisine, specifically 川菜 chuāncài, or Sichuan cooking, in her case.
What makes this book so readable, and persuasive, is Dunlop’s ability to engage the reader with personal and intimate stories of regular people and homestyle cooking. As a speaker of Chinese she is able to share experiences with ordinary Chinese that would not be possible without a knowledge of the language. For example, she befriends the cook at the local noodle shop and eventually persuades him to give her the recipe for his famous dandan noodles, which she shares with the reader. I know I have said this before in other book reviews, but knowing Chinese really opens up all kinds of doors and allows one to experience a China that would not be possible if you did not know the language.
She correctly states on page 206, “Food has always been of exceptional importance in Chinese culture. It is not only the currency of medicine, but of religion and sacrifice, love and kinship, business relationships, bribery, and even, on occasion, espionage. ‘To the people, food is heaven,’ goes the oft-repeated saying.” Though the book focusses on Sichuan cuisine, she does give insight into China’s other culinary traditions as well.
The book is engaging, entertaining, and very informative. It is obvious that she has done her homework and knows her stuff. She gets added credibility because she experiences all this first hand while she lived in China and on subsequent trips back after returning to the UK.
The reader comes away from this book fascinated with Chinese food, and really hungry. The food she describes in the real thing. This is a well written memoir and I highly recommend it.
What makes this book so readable, and persuasive, is Dunlop’s ability to engage the reader with personal and intimate stories of regular people and homestyle cooking. As a speaker of Chinese she is able to share experiences with ordinary Chinese that would not be possible without a knowledge of the language. For example, she befriends the cook at the local noodle shop and eventually persuades him to give her the recipe for his famous dandan noodles, which she shares with the reader. I know I have said this before in other book reviews, but knowing Chinese really opens up all kinds of doors and allows one to experience a China that would not be possible if you did not know the language.
She correctly states on page 206, “Food has always been of exceptional importance in Chinese culture. It is not only the currency of medicine, but of religion and sacrifice, love and kinship, business relationships, bribery, and even, on occasion, espionage. ‘To the people, food is heaven,’ goes the oft-repeated saying.” Though the book focusses on Sichuan cuisine, she does give insight into China’s other culinary traditions as well.
The book is engaging, entertaining, and very informative. It is obvious that she has done her homework and knows her stuff. She gets added credibility because she experiences all this first hand while she lived in China and on subsequent trips back after returning to the UK.
The reader comes away from this book fascinated with Chinese food, and really hungry. The food she describes in the real thing. This is a well written memoir and I highly recommend it.
February 16, 2010
This is one of the times I wish we implemented half-stars in our rating system. As a non-fiction book about food, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper is above average. It's informative, easy to read, and engaging.
The book took me a while to get into because for the first quarter of the book. I don't think this would be the case if I weren't Chinese and cynical about westerners who write about my mother-land. In the beginning, I was annoyed by the author who seemed an an over-eager, graceless, nosy foreigner trying to exploit the exotic cuisines of the orient. It's a rough start, but the book does get better after that.
Dunlop weaves historical tidbits in with anecdotal tales of color characters and friends she meets in China. There's a handful of political drama and commentary, but most of it is about the food in China.
One of the later chapters about industrialization, commercialization, and pollution in food felt out of place with the rest of the book, but I suppose it makes sense as a memoir since it describes the author's shift in thinking about food. I read most of the book as just a story about food in China, told by an English woman, but if I had paid more attention to the title when I started and realized it was a memoir, I would have read it with a different eye.
This book should be put on a must-read list for anyone who's thinking of going to China on a food excursion. It's great that someone finally wrote about the different regional cuisines of the country. Maybe now people will stop patronizing places like Panda Express when they feel like having Chinese food.
One word of warning: don't read this book on an empty stomach.
The book took me a while to get into because for the first quarter of the book. I don't think this would be the case if I weren't Chinese and cynical about westerners who write about my mother-land. In the beginning, I was annoyed by the author who seemed an an over-eager, graceless, nosy foreigner trying to exploit the exotic cuisines of the orient. It's a rough start, but the book does get better after that.
Dunlop weaves historical tidbits in with anecdotal tales of color characters and friends she meets in China. There's a handful of political drama and commentary, but most of it is about the food in China.
One of the later chapters about industrialization, commercialization, and pollution in food felt out of place with the rest of the book, but I suppose it makes sense as a memoir since it describes the author's shift in thinking about food. I read most of the book as just a story about food in China, told by an English woman, but if I had paid more attention to the title when I started and realized it was a memoir, I would have read it with a different eye.
This book should be put on a must-read list for anyone who's thinking of going to China on a food excursion. It's great that someone finally wrote about the different regional cuisines of the country. Maybe now people will stop patronizing places like Panda Express when they feel like having Chinese food.
One word of warning: don't read this book on an empty stomach.
October 17, 2022
我敢说我真的在看到全书80%的时候很认真地在思考给4星还是5星……但因為我5星的标準是“我出於个人爱好太喜欢这本书了，有机会还会反復观看”或者“我很喜欢它，它让我学到很多”，而该书虽然写的很好，但是看的过程着实有点痛苦。
书本的前半部分可以说是较為欢悦与愉快的，跟随作者日记式的记载与穿插在其中的菜谱，仿佛回到几十年前的四川，与作者一同以新奇的视角发现不同的料理。更重要的是，作者擅长以一种特??的观察视点和翔实且充满情感的笔触来记叙她所接触过的料理与人文背景。在此过程中，我数度被作者饱满的热情与好奇心所折服，佩服起她的行动力以及学习能力。
而从书本的中段到后段，叙述中处於西方人的他者视点变得尤為明显。也是在这裡，作者数度将身份认同以及对食物背后文化的思考搬上台面。其中的论点，身為东方人的我虽然无法完全认同，但可贵之处是她详细叙述了会产生这些疑问的原因，以及作出自己的合理猜测。我喜欢作者的一点是：她不会标榜自己有多了解与寄宿于某种文化下，而是会明确说出自己对身份认同的想法，无论是好的方面还是坏的方面。同时以自己的立场和视角去朴实地探讨饮食以及大环境下的每个问题，并且得出自己的结论——比起没有亲身实践与了解，只是空喊口号与倡议的作家好了太多。
书本到最后的基调越来越成熟与黯淡，在最后一章有一个小小的欲扬先抑。作者所思考的话题，我认為可以简单归类為“吃饭、祈祷、爱”，这本书中由西方人之口所叙述的观念碰撞与对民以食為天的理解，就好像每个我遇到的外国人士都知道的“阴阳”符号一样涇渭分明却圆融一体。就好像作者在最后一章思考在西方饮食的文化背景下吃下的昆虫，与在中国云南等地界吃的昆虫料理有何不同时写的一样——在这裡使用“西方人”来定义作者，是一种认同而并非排他。
书本的前半部分可以说是较為欢悦与愉快的，跟随作者日记式的记载与穿插在其中的菜谱，仿佛回到几十年前的四川，与作者一同以新奇的视角发现不同的料理。更重要的是，作者擅长以一种特??的观察视点和翔实且充满情感的笔触来记叙她所接触过的料理与人文背景。在此过程中，我数度被作者饱满的热情与好奇心所折服，佩服起她的行动力以及学习能力。
而从书本的中段到后段，叙述中处於西方人的他者视点变得尤為明显。也是在这裡，作者数度将身份认同以及对食物背后文化的思考搬上台面。其中的论点，身為东方人的我虽然无法完全认同，但可贵之处是她详细叙述了会产生这些疑问的原因，以及作出自己的合理猜测。我喜欢作者的一点是：她不会标榜自己有多了解与寄宿于某种文化下，而是会明确说出自己对身份认同的想法，无论是好的方面还是坏的方面。同时以自己的立场和视角去朴实地探讨饮食以及大环境下的每个问题，并且得出自己的结论——比起没有亲身实践与了解，只是空喊口号与倡议的作家好了太多。
书本到最后的基调越来越成熟与黯淡，在最后一章有一个小小的欲扬先抑。作者所思考的话题，我认為可以简单归类為“吃饭、祈祷、爱”，这本书中由西方人之口所叙述的观念碰撞与对民以食為天的理解，就好像每个我遇到的外国人士都知道的“阴阳”符号一样涇渭分明却圆融一体。就好像作者在最后一章思考在西方饮食的文化背景下吃下的昆虫，与在中国云南等地界吃的昆虫料理有何不同时写的一样——在这裡使用“西方人”来定义作者，是一种认同而并非排他。
April 6, 2010
It has been a long time since I read a memoir that was this good, written by an English woman who truly immersed herself in Chinese culture and gastronomy for over a decade.
Here is her first encounter in the early nineties in Hong Kong with a food that challenged her very sensibilities:
"The preserved duck eggs were served as an hors d'oeuvre in a fashionable Hong Kong restaurant, sliced in half, with ginger-and-vinegar dip. It was my first trip to Asia, and I had rarely seen anything so revolting on a dinner table. They leered up at me like the eyeballs of some nightmarish monster, dark and threatening. Their albumens were a filthy, translucent brown, their yolks an oozy black, ringed with a layer of greenish, mouldy grey."
She ate them and didn't like them. Neither did I when I tried them. She went on to eat and eat in mainland China. She became enchanted with China and the food and then disenchanted with the politics and the over-consumption and then enchanted again with the food. It is like a grandmother, whose politics and morals you don't agree with, but who you can't help admiring and wanting to be around. China is a more ancient civilization.
Rarely have I read such a witty, honest and soulful memoir. It is not only about cross-cultural gastronomy, it is about a young woman's search for meaning.
Here is her first encounter in the early nineties in Hong Kong with a food that challenged her very sensibilities:
"The preserved duck eggs were served as an hors d'oeuvre in a fashionable Hong Kong restaurant, sliced in half, with ginger-and-vinegar dip. It was my first trip to Asia, and I had rarely seen anything so revolting on a dinner table. They leered up at me like the eyeballs of some nightmarish monster, dark and threatening. Their albumens were a filthy, translucent brown, their yolks an oozy black, ringed with a layer of greenish, mouldy grey."
She ate them and didn't like them. Neither did I when I tried them. She went on to eat and eat in mainland China. She became enchanted with China and the food and then disenchanted with the politics and the over-consumption and then enchanted again with the food. It is like a grandmother, whose politics and morals you don't agree with, but who you can't help admiring and wanting to be around. China is a more ancient civilization.
Rarely have I read such a witty, honest and soulful memoir. It is not only about cross-cultural gastronomy, it is about a young woman's search for meaning.
June 1, 2021
Fuchsia Dunlop understands the concept of Chinese culinary culture very well. Reading Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper brings me an avalanche of nostalgia. I can relate to every word she says. Totally agree that "The greatness of Sichuan cuisine is indeed to make ordinary things great!" and how badly I miss the relaxed atmosphere of the old Chengdu.
If you don't see a fish head on your plate, it does not mean fish have no heads--it only means someone else has done the slaughter for you. But no, no shark's fin or bear's paw please. Nobody should eat them. "MSG is chef's cocaine." Well-said! But please don't be fooled by those cooling and heating nonsense! Food is food. That is it. And yes, using Mao's photo in your book is a bad idea.
I totally get the pressure and difficulties a woman had to face in a macho profession. I feel sorry for the racism and gender discrimination she suffered.
It is satisfying to see Fuchsia Dunlop finally came to terms with herself and the many faces of Chinese culinary culture. Eat well but don't indulge yourself. Lesson learned.
If you don't see a fish head on your plate, it does not mean fish have no heads--it only means someone else has done the slaughter for you. But no, no shark's fin or bear's paw please. Nobody should eat them. "MSG is chef's cocaine." Well-said! But please don't be fooled by those cooling and heating nonsense! Food is food. That is it. And yes, using Mao's photo in your book is a bad idea.
I totally get the pressure and difficulties a woman had to face in a macho profession. I feel sorry for the racism and gender discrimination she suffered.
It is satisfying to see Fuchsia Dunlop finally came to terms with herself and the many faces of Chinese culinary culture. Eat well but don't indulge yourself. Lesson learned.
December 25, 2009
I found the first half engrossing. It's filled with loving and knowledgeable detail of both sides of Sichuan food, the cooking and the eating. The author's probably uniquely qualified to do this (in the English-speaking world) having been bewitched by the food to drop her academic studies and become the first Westerner to enroll in the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine. She's a fine, unostentatious writer, and seems like a lot of fun.
The second half, detailing her further food adventures in China, is less engrossing, if only because she is less knowledgeable about the other regional cuisines. Here the memorable details are about the families she visits, rather than the food. But it's also less engrossing because she is less engrossed with China, until the final chapter. The epilogue is a treat.
May ruin Sichuan food for you in America. I read this on the way to NY, and proceeded immediately to a very well-reviewed Sichuan place (two stars from the Times) and... the food did not meet the exacting standards of the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine.
The second half, detailing her further food adventures in China, is less engrossing, if only because she is less knowledgeable about the other regional cuisines. Here the memorable details are about the families she visits, rather than the food. But it's also less engrossing because she is less engrossed with China, until the final chapter. The epilogue is a treat.
May ruin Sichuan food for you in America. I read this on the way to NY, and proceeded immediately to a very well-reviewed Sichuan place (two stars from the Times) and... the food did not meet the exacting standards of the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine.
August 2, 2017
Ever since about the quarter mark of Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper--when I realized I was not enjoying the book, yet was far enough in to feel committed--I've been trying to figure out why I dislike it. Some of it might just be a writing style that doesn't gel with my brain, but ultimately I think there are some deeper issues on a structural and conceptual level.
Most of Fuchsia Dunlop's chapters unfold in a very similar way:
1. Provide a light, autobiographical anecdote.
2. Build off that personal experience into larger ruminations on specific observations and historical notes about Chinese culture and political sphere (especially as they relate to food).
3. Re-engage the introductory anecdote or introduce a complementary side anecdote as needed
4. Wrap up with Life Lesson.
This mixture of the personal and academic creates for an odd tone. Neither is allowed to flex, to gain dominance over the direction of the book. Yet by themselves, neither is particularly satisfying. Dunlop, despite using a first person narration, keeps herself veiled. She's present and we see her various actions and reactions, but we're not given any deeper insight into who she is. The more detached reporting, these academic digressions, feel like a shield to protect her from having to divulge anything that doesn't directly relate to China and food.
The structure of chapters actually reminds me of a completely different type of writing: Christian spiritual help books (and, for that matter, sermons). They follow a very similar M.O. in the way they try to engage the reader using cutsey, light stories to punctuate whatever the lesson is. Maybe it's an effective way of communicating a Biblical "truth" (feel free to imply as much cynicism as needed on that), but here these stories serve no purpose. A good structure would have the chapter begin and end with the same story--build the tensions early, then provide a satisfying conclusion at the end, with as much cultural digression in between as needed. Instead, Dunlop provides the first part (with varying degrees of tension) and then either abandons the story or lets it peter out. A good example of this is the chapter "The Rubber Factor." Dunlop leads with an interesting story about the time her parents visited her in China and she takes them out to eat and orders a bunch of stuff she would want to consume, forgetting that it took her years in China to stop feeling squeamish towards eating these things. She realizes her parents aren't enjoying the food, then launches into an investigation of the way some Chinese foods are about mouth feel as much as flavor. It's interesting enough, but as a reader I'm still back with her parents, gamely shoving the fringes of Chinese adventure dining in their mouths. The end of the chapter refers back to the story, but there's no emotional resolution. The story was a tool to illustrate mouthfeel.
"The Rubber Factor" also illustrates something else, something I'm not sure Dunlop was conscious about but is present throughout Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: Her attempts to be Chinese. As if you can integrate yourself into a foreign culture so deeply that you become it. She wears losing touch with English sensibilities like a badge of honor. Look, "cultural appropriation" has been a buzzy word in social justice circles over the last five-odd years, and it's an issue I still don't fully understand (and what I do understand, I don't always agree with where the boundary lines are drawn). But while there is a whole big murky grey area, sometimes you just know cultural appropriation when you see it and Dunlop's story smacks of it. However much she loves China and Chinese culture, she acts entitled to it. Beginning to end, this is a book that oozes entitlement. As if she deserves the attention and love of Chinese people for being an English girl who self-appointed herself a "food ambassador."
She takes, takes, takes... and what do the Chinese people get for it? A couple of cookbooks that she sells with their recipes in them and this book where, in her attempts to appeal to a European and American readership, Dunlop constantly throws Chinese culture under the bus. I don't think she was being intentionally rude, but if I was Chinese, I'd be taken aback by the tone she takes here. Yes, she's trying to meet her readership halfway, but you can acknowledge cultural differences without using language that is divisive.
After writing this up, I feel like two stars might be too high, but ultimately I did learn quite a bit, so I guess that's something.
Most of Fuchsia Dunlop's chapters unfold in a very similar way:
1. Provide a light, autobiographical anecdote.
2. Build off that personal experience into larger ruminations on specific observations and historical notes about Chinese culture and political sphere (especially as they relate to food).
3. Re-engage the introductory anecdote or introduce a complementary side anecdote as needed
4. Wrap up with Life Lesson.
This mixture of the personal and academic creates for an odd tone. Neither is allowed to flex, to gain dominance over the direction of the book. Yet by themselves, neither is particularly satisfying. Dunlop, despite using a first person narration, keeps herself veiled. She's present and we see her various actions and reactions, but we're not given any deeper insight into who she is. The more detached reporting, these academic digressions, feel like a shield to protect her from having to divulge anything that doesn't directly relate to China and food.
The structure of chapters actually reminds me of a completely different type of writing: Christian spiritual help books (and, for that matter, sermons). They follow a very similar M.O. in the way they try to engage the reader using cutsey, light stories to punctuate whatever the lesson is. Maybe it's an effective way of communicating a Biblical "truth" (feel free to imply as much cynicism as needed on that), but here these stories serve no purpose. A good structure would have the chapter begin and end with the same story--build the tensions early, then provide a satisfying conclusion at the end, with as much cultural digression in between as needed. Instead, Dunlop provides the first part (with varying degrees of tension) and then either abandons the story or lets it peter out. A good example of this is the chapter "The Rubber Factor." Dunlop leads with an interesting story about the time her parents visited her in China and she takes them out to eat and orders a bunch of stuff she would want to consume, forgetting that it took her years in China to stop feeling squeamish towards eating these things. She realizes her parents aren't enjoying the food, then launches into an investigation of the way some Chinese foods are about mouth feel as much as flavor. It's interesting enough, but as a reader I'm still back with her parents, gamely shoving the fringes of Chinese adventure dining in their mouths. The end of the chapter refers back to the story, but there's no emotional resolution. The story was a tool to illustrate mouthfeel.
"The Rubber Factor" also illustrates something else, something I'm not sure Dunlop was conscious about but is present throughout Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: Her attempts to be Chinese. As if you can integrate yourself into a foreign culture so deeply that you become it. She wears losing touch with English sensibilities like a badge of honor. Look, "cultural appropriation" has been a buzzy word in social justice circles over the last five-odd years, and it's an issue I still don't fully understand (and what I do understand, I don't always agree with where the boundary lines are drawn). But while there is a whole big murky grey area, sometimes you just know cultural appropriation when you see it and Dunlop's story smacks of it. However much she loves China and Chinese culture, she acts entitled to it. Beginning to end, this is a book that oozes entitlement. As if she deserves the attention and love of Chinese people for being an English girl who self-appointed herself a "food ambassador."
She takes, takes, takes... and what do the Chinese people get for it? A couple of cookbooks that she sells with their recipes in them and this book where, in her attempts to appeal to a European and American readership, Dunlop constantly throws Chinese culture under the bus. I don't think she was being intentionally rude, but if I was Chinese, I'd be taken aback by the tone she takes here. Yes, she's trying to meet her readership halfway, but you can acknowledge cultural differences without using language that is divisive.
After writing this up, I feel like two stars might be too high, but ultimately I did learn quite a bit, so I guess that's something.
January 13, 2010
This book had all the makings of an intriguing quick read: a memoir about China written by a western woman. But in the end I was just as happy to finish it as I was to start it. Dunlop really knows Chinese cuisine and culture, but I feel like I still don't know much about her. When she spent all that time in China, did she date? Did she exerience homesickness? How did she deal with problems when she was so far away from her support system? As she points out, her first trips to China were before the internet and international cell phones came onto the scene. She tells us she had a tough time in the beginning of her year in Chengdu, but then snapped out of it when she started at the culinary institute. From then on, it seems like she adapts to Chinese life just fine. Sure, she had some rough times in Hunan, but I felt like she rushed over these personal details and told us at the end that she was burned out from China. I wish she would have taken the reader along for that ride, too. I did enjoy the chapters on Hong Kong and Hunan, maybe because she showed more of her personal struggles with China. From the other reviews I've read, it has enjoyed great popularity, so maybe it's just me, but I think the book should have been marketed as a food narrative, not a memoir.
August 22, 2016
I have been cooking my way through Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop for about two years now. I finally decided to read her memoir, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, to my great delight and enjoyment. An incredibly well-researched study of Chinese regional cuisines as well as a thoughtful, passionate, sparkling memoir.
November 8, 2021
第一次读是九年前
多年后重读政治气氛已经大為不同
跟作者叁十年前初到中国更是不一样了
虽然作者偶尔提到台湾，但都是无关紧要的点缀
现在很想政治不正确的问作者：你把台湾放到那裡去了?
至於食物的文化衝击
我等面对西餐几乎不存在什麼震惊的体验
但相反的我们习以為常的食物却屡屡不為洋人接受
这是不是也是文化霸权呢词
(不过美西出差一周还是很崩溃，超想念台湾食物)
多年后重读政治气氛已经大為不同
跟作者叁十年前初到中国更是不一样了
虽然作者偶尔提到台湾，但都是无关紧要的点缀
现在很想政治不正确的问作者：你把台湾放到那裡去了?
至於食物的文化衝击
我等面对西餐几乎不存在什麼震惊的体验
但相反的我们习以為常的食物却屡屡不為洋人接受
这是不是也是文化霸权呢词
(不过美西出差一周还是很崩溃，超想念台湾食物)
January 1, 2024
I grew up going to Chinese school on the weekends and spent some time living in Taiwan as a child, so a lot of the language in the book was really comfortably familiar (her descriptions of learning Chinese took me back to both childhood and college Intensive Chinese... ;-;) While dated by now in many respects, this memoir is a fascinating time capsule of China in the 90s/early 2000s. Dunlop steers from meditations on disgust in eating (why do we eat pigs gladly but not dogs? *this is why I don't eat pork...) to her time in Sichuan, Hunan, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang, and Yangtze region. The chapter on Xinjiang was especially interesting since my understanding is it's largely closed to foreigners now. While the book is disorganized and overly long for its subject, Dunlop is incredibly evocative and comes at her subject from a position of intellectual curiosity and open-eyed wonder. The chapter on SARS is particularly affecting to read in 2023. I well remember how the scars of SARS 2003 lingered in Taiwan during avian flu scares, and this section feels particularly resonant now.
June 21, 2018
Fuchsia Dunlop, food critic, author of cookbooks, and Sinophile, lived in China in the mid 1990s and has gone back several times over the years, making her probably the world's foremost English expert on Chinese cooking. Living and eating in small towns in various provinces and learning their cooking styles, she becomes, like the Chinese people, "a professional omnivore." She takes cooking classes, bravely becoming the first Westerner and first woman in many of these places to try her hand, and learns not only the cooking styles of the regions but their attitudes toward food.
Fuchsia Dunlop's sparkling personality comes through on the page. The only Western woman in sight, alone, she throws herself right into the unknown (on the backs on passing mopeds, into culinary classes, into people's homes), and it's quite fun to read of her bold exploits. She has a real fascination with food and the people who love food, especially Chinese. I found her travels fascinating to begin with, but I'm interested in the subject itself. Where her book really escapes the bonds of mere travel and cooking writing, however, is when she documents the changes within China over the years that then shape changes within herself. At first, she becomes more Chinese inside, seeing even a caterpillar on her salad as a possible morsel to chew on – not as a dare or adventure, but because she might actually enjoy it. After all, she ate many bugs in China. Later, though, and more interestingly, after many years she begins to develop misgivings about eating everything with legs, fins, or a face. Not only does the endless gluttony begin to pall, but two other factors start to gnaw at her. One is her disgust at the profusion of supposedly banned but readily available endangered animals on the menu. The other factor is that China's industrial revolution is literally tainting the water and air, and figuratively tainting the way she looks at things. After enjoying Shanghai's delicacy of hairy crabs, she learns to her shock that the water from which they've been pulled is putrid. She writes vividly: "In the last 10 or 15 years China has changed beyond all recognition. I’ve seen the sewer-like rivers, the suppurating sores of lakes. I’ve breathed the toxic air and drunk the dirty water. And I’ve eaten far too much meat from endangered species." Dunlop has a great ear for anecdotes (she overhears some interesting things when Chinese people assume she can't understand their dialects) and a sharp eye for detail. She knows the vocabulary for describing food and eating, from texture (there is a lot of cartilage and rubber bits in the food in this book) to heat to mouthfeel. It's a terrific book for armchair travelers and foodies.
Fuchsia Dunlop's sparkling personality comes through on the page. The only Western woman in sight, alone, she throws herself right into the unknown (on the backs on passing mopeds, into culinary classes, into people's homes), and it's quite fun to read of her bold exploits. She has a real fascination with food and the people who love food, especially Chinese. I found her travels fascinating to begin with, but I'm interested in the subject itself. Where her book really escapes the bonds of mere travel and cooking writing, however, is when she documents the changes within China over the years that then shape changes within herself. At first, she becomes more Chinese inside, seeing even a caterpillar on her salad as a possible morsel to chew on – not as a dare or adventure, but because she might actually enjoy it. After all, she ate many bugs in China. Later, though, and more interestingly, after many years she begins to develop misgivings about eating everything with legs, fins, or a face. Not only does the endless gluttony begin to pall, but two other factors start to gnaw at her. One is her disgust at the profusion of supposedly banned but readily available endangered animals on the menu. The other factor is that China's industrial revolution is literally tainting the water and air, and figuratively tainting the way she looks at things. After enjoying Shanghai's delicacy of hairy crabs, she learns to her shock that the water from which they've been pulled is putrid. She writes vividly: "In the last 10 or 15 years China has changed beyond all recognition. I’ve seen the sewer-like rivers, the suppurating sores of lakes. I’ve breathed the toxic air and drunk the dirty water. And I’ve eaten far too much meat from endangered species." Dunlop has a great ear for anecdotes (she overhears some interesting things when Chinese people assume she can't understand their dialects) and a sharp eye for detail. She knows the vocabulary for describing food and eating, from texture (there is a lot of cartilage and rubber bits in the food in this book) to heat to mouthfeel. It's a terrific book for armchair travelers and foodies.
August 12, 2018
Recently it was translated into Chinese and became the headline of Douban which is a Chinese GR and many Chines social media. So, at first I was appalled by her stereotype toward Chinese. Like in her view, maybe her despicable tongue towards Chinese, implying that everyone in China would eat every things which I feel quite upset while reading that. I don’t eat rabbit head and chew rabbit eyes-balls. Not all Chinese can do that. How she make such a stereotypical claim about Chinese. And I know Chinese were poor in 90s, but the superiority of westerners of her is revolting. She mentioned in her book when she felt like she was like Chinese, and wearing Army boots and cheap Chinese clothes. So she implying that Chinese like a natural beggars.
And not only this make me very upset, but also the Xinjiang Part and the criticism, I don’t know why she is so subjectively think Han Chinese are colonized Xin Jiang? It might be complicated but her aggressiveness and hatred makes me uneasy. She might be right in her logic but she just blurts out her thinking toward China and tend to teach China to do as her thinks. Is that a bit arrogant?
I can’t see her book is meaningless, she recorded a lot of memories of China. And the food and cuisine. I appreciate her courage and her patience. Maybe I shall see it as some personal memoir since she also says she doesn’t want to be a diplomat. So, to be honest, I shouldn’t blame her for thinking that loud, but it just puts me on nerve while enjoying the feast with officials and businessman on the one hand but criticizing corruption and greediness on the other hand, is that a bit hypocritical. Btw, I don’t think eating caterpillars is a normal habit of Chinese people. I can see she is doing it at her Oxford home in a very weird way in the end like a cult in the end.
And not only this make me very upset, but also the Xinjiang Part and the criticism, I don’t know why she is so subjectively think Han Chinese are colonized Xin Jiang? It might be complicated but her aggressiveness and hatred makes me uneasy. She might be right in her logic but she just blurts out her thinking toward China and tend to teach China to do as her thinks. Is that a bit arrogant?
I can’t see her book is meaningless, she recorded a lot of memories of China. And the food and cuisine. I appreciate her courage and her patience. Maybe I shall see it as some personal memoir since she also says she doesn’t want to be a diplomat. So, to be honest, I shouldn’t blame her for thinking that loud, but it just puts me on nerve while enjoying the feast with officials and businessman on the one hand but criticizing corruption and greediness on the other hand, is that a bit hypocritical. Btw, I don’t think eating caterpillars is a normal habit of Chinese people. I can see she is doing it at her Oxford home in a very weird way in the end like a cult in the end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 27, 2011
I'm an epicurian whose planning a trip to Taiwan, and when I came across this book in the store I knew that it was written with me in mind. Fuschia's depiction of the culinary Chinese, integration with history and current events provides the reader with a splendor of knowledge. Her ability to describe Chinese delicacies too, the range of chew factor and textures, prepares the traveler for what's to come. I enjoyed reading this book, and I'm more excited than ever to dive into the dishes that await... however, I think I may avoid some of the more extravagant dishes that she experienced. No thanks on the Camel's foot soup...
December 13, 2013
This writing sucks and I don't want to read about animal gore man.
August 9, 2009
This book has 'me' written all over it. So much so that I wish I had bought it rather than borrowed it from the library. I may have to invest. Fuchsia goes abroad under the intention of studying Chinese and having a nice cultural experience. After becoming disillusioned with the Chinese way of teaching language and realising that she's not learning a thing, she chucks in her course and starts hanging out in cafes and restaurants, chatting to the locals about what they are cooking, and eventually wheedling her way into a somewhat prestigious Sichuan cooking school. This sets her on a learning curve that ends with her becoming one of the few non-Chinese experts on Sichuanese cooking.
The part I loved the most was her slow progression from one who could not even look at a thousand year egg, to one that would happily chomp down on goose intestines and duck tongues. Personally, I haven't made it that far yet. And my experiences have been mostly of a Japanese nature. But having been a vegetarian for 25 years and then slowly starting to become accustomed to eating flesh in the form of seafood (and the unavoidable bacon that is in EVERYTHING in Japan)I felt an affinity to Ms. Dunlop when reading this.
I think anyone who has gone abroad to study and/ or work and has lived in a foreign culture for a period of time could relate to her stories. If you are actually interested in Chinese cooking and the history of said cuisine, all the better.
The part I loved the most was her slow progression from one who could not even look at a thousand year egg, to one that would happily chomp down on goose intestines and duck tongues. Personally, I haven't made it that far yet. And my experiences have been mostly of a Japanese nature. But having been a vegetarian for 25 years and then slowly starting to become accustomed to eating flesh in the form of seafood (and the unavoidable bacon that is in EVERYTHING in Japan)I felt an affinity to Ms. Dunlop when reading this.
I think anyone who has gone abroad to study and/ or work and has lived in a foreign culture for a period of time could relate to her stories. If you are actually interested in Chinese cooking and the history of said cuisine, all the better.
December 5, 2010
Very informative book about Chinese food culture and particularly Sichuanese cuisine. When a Brit discusses Chinese food culture, inevitably a lot of analysis of Anglo (and by extension Anglo-American) food culture comes us. Americans and Brits with our chicken breasts and fish filets…so very different from the Chinese, who value food textures that many people of mainstream UK/US background have not been raised to appreciate in this era! I learned a lot about classical Chinese food culture as well as modern, popular ways of eating. Dunlop is a good writer and her books, including this one, are very accessible even if you know nothing about Chinese food. I gained a lot of foodie knowledge from this book, and have been inspired to try out some Sichuanese recipes as well.
May 18, 2013
I've heard Fuchsia Dunlop's work on NPR as a Chinese food expert and checked out her book on Sichuan food from the library. As I was browsing, I noticed she had a memoir too, was interested in how an English woman became an expert in Chinese cooking and cuisine, so I borrowed the memoir too.
Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper is not for the faint of heart. As an American, I'm often removed from what exactly meat is. Not so much for the Chinese. Chicken feet, rabbit heads, any and all animal offal, Fuchsia Dunlop describes and eats it all.
As always, a problem with food writing (and food television) is that even with the best description, the reader cannot taste the food (although that may be best in this situation). This is compounded that some of the food that Dunlop is describing is outside of my experience so I can't reference any analogs. Finally, the lack of any pictures in the book means that I was frequently lost about what exactly she was eating with the street food and noodle dishes.
As a memoir, Dunlop's story is interesting. She goes to China on a whim, drops out of school, and manages to turn her curiosity and passion about the food into a career and a life long pursuit. Her transformation from someone with a Western perspective into food into one with a more Eastern sentimentality was a thread that worked well, but was often ignored for parts of the book.
The structure of the book is somewhat problematic as well with each chapter is basically its own anecdote and not connected well with each other. For instance, one chapter is about Dunlop's visit to Beijing, the Forbidden City, and her sampling of the food there, with nice historical tidbits about the Last Emperor and life in the Forbidden City, but it doesn't tie much into the rest of the book or her life actually.
There are scraps of three different books or so in this one book peeking out through the pages and I wish there was much more of each of them.
There's the Chinese history, with Dunlop frequently mentioning Mao and the Cultural Revolution in particular, which broke China off from his tradition, especially cooking (A Spanish chef named Mao as one of the most influential people on cooking because he singlehandedly destroyed Chinese fine cuisine for a generation). China had a long and proud history of fine eating and cooking, with many of the old philosophers praising cooking that I wish was explored a bit more.
There is a book about the rapid growth and change in China. Dunlop had entered Chengu in the early 90's before the mayor had destroyed all the old buildings. In a way, the city is completely unrecognizable now from when Dunlop had lived there 2 decades ago. Likewise, there was a pronounced surge of wealth, fine dining opportunities and of course the pollution. Previously, one could easily eat some street food, but now it's somewhat a crapshoot. I wish there was more of this as well.
Finally, the part that works very well, is Dunlop's own transformation and how she learned to love China (yummy food!), then fell out of love (treatment of ethnic minorities and traditional buildings and the environment), then back into love. Sometimes this thread gets dropped for a chapter or two, but it's there.
In the end, it was a really interesting look into China. I just wish it had some focus to it rather than give me glimpses of really interesting topics.
Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper is not for the faint of heart. As an American, I'm often removed from what exactly meat is. Not so much for the Chinese. Chicken feet, rabbit heads, any and all animal offal, Fuchsia Dunlop describes and eats it all.
As always, a problem with food writing (and food television) is that even with the best description, the reader cannot taste the food (although that may be best in this situation). This is compounded that some of the food that Dunlop is describing is outside of my experience so I can't reference any analogs. Finally, the lack of any pictures in the book means that I was frequently lost about what exactly she was eating with the street food and noodle dishes.
As a memoir, Dunlop's story is interesting. She goes to China on a whim, drops out of school, and manages to turn her curiosity and passion about the food into a career and a life long pursuit. Her transformation from someone with a Western perspective into food into one with a more Eastern sentimentality was a thread that worked well, but was often ignored for parts of the book.
The structure of the book is somewhat problematic as well with each chapter is basically its own anecdote and not connected well with each other. For instance, one chapter is about Dunlop's visit to Beijing, the Forbidden City, and her sampling of the food there, with nice historical tidbits about the Last Emperor and life in the Forbidden City, but it doesn't tie much into the rest of the book or her life actually.
There are scraps of three different books or so in this one book peeking out through the pages and I wish there was much more of each of them.
There's the Chinese history, with Dunlop frequently mentioning Mao and the Cultural Revolution in particular, which broke China off from his tradition, especially cooking (A Spanish chef named Mao as one of the most influential people on cooking because he singlehandedly destroyed Chinese fine cuisine for a generation). China had a long and proud history of fine eating and cooking, with many of the old philosophers praising cooking that I wish was explored a bit more.
There is a book about the rapid growth and change in China. Dunlop had entered Chengu in the early 90's before the mayor had destroyed all the old buildings. In a way, the city is completely unrecognizable now from when Dunlop had lived there 2 decades ago. Likewise, there was a pronounced surge of wealth, fine dining opportunities and of course the pollution. Previously, one could easily eat some street food, but now it's somewhat a crapshoot. I wish there was more of this as well.
Finally, the part that works very well, is Dunlop's own transformation and how she learned to love China (yummy food!), then fell out of love (treatment of ethnic minorities and traditional buildings and the environment), then back into love. Sometimes this thread gets dropped for a chapter or two, but it's there.
In the end, it was a really interesting look into China. I just wish it had some focus to it rather than give me glimpses of really interesting topics.
February 2, 2009
This might have been called A Culinary Tour Of China Counterclockwise, as the author spirals her way out to the corners of the country. Starting in the heartland of Sichuan Province, Dunlop makes her way past thousands of soups, noodles, dumplings and hot chillies toward Hunan Province. From there east to Hong Kong, then north to Beijing and then west to Kashgar in Sinkiang --a real 'Great Game' city if ever there was one- and then a final counterclock swing, down to Fujian Province at the coast.
If you've read or better yet have used her Szechuan or Hunan cookbooks, this is the illuminating back-story of how she came to the cuisines in question, how she found teachers & mentors, and what sparked the interest. Here's a dinner in Chongqing.....
It had a filthy magnificence, that city, in the early nineties. It's buildings, tainted by the pollution from factory chimneys, were scattered on steep slopes that fell away to the broad sweep of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers where they met in a fork far below. It was a fierce, hard-working river port, where people spent their days trudging up and down hills and battling with a humidity so stifling that, in summer, it was known as one of China's "furnace" cities.
Even in Sichuan, Chongqing was infamous for the ma la (numbing & hot) punchiness of its food. We took our seats around a wok in which an inconceivably large mass of dried red chillies, Sichuan peppercorns and other spices were stuck in a thick, pasty layer of fat. A waiter bent down and ignited a gas flame underneath the table. As the wok warmed up, the fat began to melt, and soon the chillies were bobbing around in it. The waiter brought plates of raw ingredients: beef, offal, mushrooms, beancurd and greens. We used our chopsticks to cook them in the fiery broth. Every morsel emerged from the pot in a slick of fiery oil, studded with spices; even a single beansprout came out embroiled with a mouthful of chilli.
By the end of the meal I was almost delerious with heat. My mouth burned and tingled, my body ran with sweat, I felt ragged and molten; pain and pleasure were undistinguishable.
Alright, so that's the travel-poster of the cuisine-- searingly hot and passionately addictive to the willing victim. Something diabolical like vampirism but, conveniently, just a dinner out.
That's far from the whole story, though. As noted elsewhere, the Sichuan chefs balance the heat as a kind of launching pad for other secondary flavors, the unique "manifold" flavor strategy of the province. Here's the author on that :
No one would decide to go and live in Chongqing after such a baptism of fire. But Chengdu is a gentle city. Life there is not a battle against the elements and the gradient of hills; it is a sweet, idle dream.
Chillies are used not in violence but to awaken and stimulate the palate, to make it alive to the possibilities of other tastes. They are melded with an undercurrent of sweetness, a robust beany savouriness, or a splash of mellow vinegar-sour, to seduce and delight. In Chengdu, Sichuanese cuisine is not the assault course of international stereotype, it is a teasing, meandering and entirely pleasurable journey.
So too is this memoir of Fuchshia Dunlop's chinese odyssey.
If you've read or better yet have used her Szechuan or Hunan cookbooks, this is the illuminating back-story of how she came to the cuisines in question, how she found teachers & mentors, and what sparked the interest. Here's a dinner in Chongqing.....
It had a filthy magnificence, that city, in the early nineties. It's buildings, tainted by the pollution from factory chimneys, were scattered on steep slopes that fell away to the broad sweep of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers where they met in a fork far below. It was a fierce, hard-working river port, where people spent their days trudging up and down hills and battling with a humidity so stifling that, in summer, it was known as one of China's "furnace" cities.
Even in Sichuan, Chongqing was infamous for the ma la (numbing & hot) punchiness of its food. We took our seats around a wok in which an inconceivably large mass of dried red chillies, Sichuan peppercorns and other spices were stuck in a thick, pasty layer of fat. A waiter bent down and ignited a gas flame underneath the table. As the wok warmed up, the fat began to melt, and soon the chillies were bobbing around in it. The waiter brought plates of raw ingredients: beef, offal, mushrooms, beancurd and greens. We used our chopsticks to cook them in the fiery broth. Every morsel emerged from the pot in a slick of fiery oil, studded with spices; even a single beansprout came out embroiled with a mouthful of chilli.
By the end of the meal I was almost delerious with heat. My mouth burned and tingled, my body ran with sweat, I felt ragged and molten; pain and pleasure were undistinguishable.
Alright, so that's the travel-poster of the cuisine-- searingly hot and passionately addictive to the willing victim. Something diabolical like vampirism but, conveniently, just a dinner out.
That's far from the whole story, though. As noted elsewhere, the Sichuan chefs balance the heat as a kind of launching pad for other secondary flavors, the unique "manifold" flavor strategy of the province. Here's the author on that :
No one would decide to go and live in Chongqing after such a baptism of fire. But Chengdu is a gentle city. Life there is not a battle against the elements and the gradient of hills; it is a sweet, idle dream.
Chillies are used not in violence but to awaken and stimulate the palate, to make it alive to the possibilities of other tastes. They are melded with an undercurrent of sweetness, a robust beany savouriness, or a splash of mellow vinegar-sour, to seduce and delight. In Chengdu, Sichuanese cuisine is not the assault course of international stereotype, it is a teasing, meandering and entirely pleasurable journey.
So too is this memoir of Fuchshia Dunlop's chinese odyssey.
January 8, 2010
After the first half of this book, I was resigning myself to a book by a chef and eater completely who is head over heals in love with Chinese (specifically Sichuanese) food and culture. The stories all revolved around food wrapped around personal stories experiences. It wasn't mind shattering but it was still good; if you like food. and let's face it, you are probably reading this because you love food (and maybe you love her amazingly wonderful cookbooks). And then it happens - the curveball.
She foreshadows the shift a few chapters early. Now it was a pretty blatant foreshadow, looking back on it, but I first took it as a throw away line. It was in regards to huge banquets and eating too many animals. Chapter 6 - "Guilt and Pepper" is where she begins to examine things around the food she's eaten and here is where it begins to get interesting. It is in this chapter where she starts to have the first pangs of eating too much while others are suffer. And it's here that she sees, and related to us, the dangers of corruption and rapid growth and how those two pillars of destruction can hurt everyone.
Then comes Chapter 7 "Journey to the West". It's here where her love of China is brought into question; where she has her own breaking points breached. For here she encounters an ethnic minority getting overrun, abused, and pushed aside. The Uyghurs are being destroyed. As with many things in life, by getting to know someone you get to know what is wrong with society and in the west she sees, first hand, how poor, somewhat rebellious, minorities are dealt with. Colonization by any name (and, as a US citizen, I can see the parallels with our move across the west and how we treated (and still treat) the people who were here first. But I digress). This is one of the most powerful chapters of the book. Partially because all the platitudes of the first few chapters are gone and I get the feeling we are seeing a more raw, unguarded, Ms Dunlop.
The next few chapters deal with pollution, food scares, her disillusionment at the gluttony and greed and her putting it all into context with what the west did during their industrial revolutions (only in China, this change is epic in scale). She even flirts with becoming a vegetarian! Thankfully, I don't think the latter happened. But I do detect elements of live simply, eat vegetables, with a little bit of meat and try to eat local and healthy. Words to live by I say.
Thankfully for her, and us, she visits Yangzhou and finds why she was drawn to China in the first place; friendly people who love life, food and friends. Food that tastes good and is presented for eating not for show. And she's reminded of all the friends she's made, of the openness of the people. It's here where I felt that she was able to look past China the country (and the scares, pollution, et al) and remember that what may be monolithic, isn't. That at the heart the reasons she fell in love with Chengdu (and Yangzhou) is the same reason we all fall in love with places; we are made to feel welcome.
After reading this book I found myself craving travel again and continue to respect my food. And remember that if we don't respect our food, how can we respect each other?
She foreshadows the shift a few chapters early. Now it was a pretty blatant foreshadow, looking back on it, but I first took it as a throw away line. It was in regards to huge banquets and eating too many animals. Chapter 6 - "Guilt and Pepper" is where she begins to examine things around the food she's eaten and here is where it begins to get interesting. It is in this chapter where she starts to have the first pangs of eating too much while others are suffer. And it's here that she sees, and related to us, the dangers of corruption and rapid growth and how those two pillars of destruction can hurt everyone.
Then comes Chapter 7 "Journey to the West". It's here where her love of China is brought into question; where she has her own breaking points breached. For here she encounters an ethnic minority getting overrun, abused, and pushed aside. The Uyghurs are being destroyed. As with many things in life, by getting to know someone you get to know what is wrong with society and in the west she sees, first hand, how poor, somewhat rebellious, minorities are dealt with. Colonization by any name (and, as a US citizen, I can see the parallels with our move across the west and how we treated (and still treat) the people who were here first. But I digress). This is one of the most powerful chapters of the book. Partially because all the platitudes of the first few chapters are gone and I get the feeling we are seeing a more raw, unguarded, Ms Dunlop.
The next few chapters deal with pollution, food scares, her disillusionment at the gluttony and greed and her putting it all into context with what the west did during their industrial revolutions (only in China, this change is epic in scale). She even flirts with becoming a vegetarian! Thankfully, I don't think the latter happened. But I do detect elements of live simply, eat vegetables, with a little bit of meat and try to eat local and healthy. Words to live by I say.
Thankfully for her, and us, she visits Yangzhou and finds why she was drawn to China in the first place; friendly people who love life, food and friends. Food that tastes good and is presented for eating not for show. And she's reminded of all the friends she's made, of the openness of the people. It's here where I felt that she was able to look past China the country (and the scares, pollution, et al) and remember that what may be monolithic, isn't. That at the heart the reasons she fell in love with Chengdu (and Yangzhou) is the same reason we all fall in love with places; we are made to feel welcome.
After reading this book I found myself craving travel again and continue to respect my food. And remember that if we don't respect our food, how can we respect each other?
April 28, 2019
I’ll eat anything. Well, I used to think so, but now…not so much. I wouldn’t touch half of what Fuchsia Dunlop has put in her mouth during her many years of living in and visiting China. But this book is about so much more than the inconceivably consumable. Shark’s Fin is a story I related to in different ways on different levels: as an expat, as a food-lover, as a writer. But, you don’t have to be any of those to enjoy it. She’s an intelligent writer with an amazing adventure to share.
Her memoire covers over a decade of time spent in living or researching in China, predominately Chengdu, eating basically anything that moved. She immersed herself in the culture, the language, and the cuisine (She was the first non-Chinese to enroll in the professional Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine) Each chapter ends with a related recipe, some of which you might make at home (fish fragrant eggplant) some of which might give you the heebie jeebies (stewed bear paw).
I laughed out loud when she recounted creating an English feast for her Chinese friends who - unfamiliar with the concept of dessert - simply loaded apple crumble onto their dinner plate atop the roast beef or the rat trap she fashioned out of a bra, tape cassette, plastic bin and heavy dictionary. I squirmed at the list of things she ordered up as a welcome feast for her parents - ox tripe and throat cartilage, anyone?
Perhaps what really takes this book to another level is her honesty, self-awareness and moral questioning. After years of building a career on eating anything put on her plate and even searching out some of the more bizarre bits, she questions her omnivorous habits intelligently and thoughtfully.
During her story, she falls hard for China, at times seems to tire a bit of it, and then falls back in love with it again. This is a story to which many long-term expats can relate.
Foodie memoirs and celeb chef bios constitute an entire genre unto themselves these days, but that doesn’t mean they’re always good. Thankfully Dunlop didn’t just jump in for an easy ride on this on- trend wave; instead she wrote an exceptional memoire that can serve as an example to other celeb chef-writers of how to really nail this genre.
Her memoire covers over a decade of time spent in living or researching in China, predominately Chengdu, eating basically anything that moved. She immersed herself in the culture, the language, and the cuisine (She was the first non-Chinese to enroll in the professional Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine) Each chapter ends with a related recipe, some of which you might make at home (fish fragrant eggplant) some of which might give you the heebie jeebies (stewed bear paw).
I laughed out loud when she recounted creating an English feast for her Chinese friends who - unfamiliar with the concept of dessert - simply loaded apple crumble onto their dinner plate atop the roast beef or the rat trap she fashioned out of a bra, tape cassette, plastic bin and heavy dictionary. I squirmed at the list of things she ordered up as a welcome feast for her parents - ox tripe and throat cartilage, anyone?
Perhaps what really takes this book to another level is her honesty, self-awareness and moral questioning. After years of building a career on eating anything put on her plate and even searching out some of the more bizarre bits, she questions her omnivorous habits intelligently and thoughtfully.
During her story, she falls hard for China, at times seems to tire a bit of it, and then falls back in love with it again. This is a story to which many long-term expats can relate.
Foodie memoirs and celeb chef bios constitute an entire genre unto themselves these days, but that doesn’t mean they’re always good. Thankfully Dunlop didn’t just jump in for an easy ride on this on- trend wave; instead she wrote an exceptional memoire that can serve as an example to other celeb chef-writers of how to really nail this genre.
September 3, 2009
I have read only two noteworthy books on China, this and Peter Hessler's amazing Journey Through Time. Notably, both were written by gifted young journalists who cut their teeth in Sichuan Province. I am just a few chapters into Dunlop's engrossing romance on the adventure of discovering China and Sichuan's legendary cuisine. Thusfar, every word she has penned to evoke the sensory explosion of life in Chengdu rings true for me. Like Dunlop, I went to Chengdu ostensibly for academic purposes, but soon lost interest in the state-appointed agenda I was signed up for, and spent as much time as possible away from lecture halls and hospital rotations to explore the sights and sensations of this bewitching city in southwest-central China. Dunlop's book is an innovative fusion of travel log, diary, and culinary journalism, complete with recipes that I doubt are available in any other English-language source. A gifted writer, she has not surprisingly won major awards for this book and others. If you can read this book without immediately searching the Yellow Pages for your nearest Sichuanese restaurant, there's something lacking in your sense of adventure.
October 21, 2009
I have never read a culinary memoir before, so I wasn't sure of what to expect. I was in line to buy a copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to read on a flight, and saw this book, and on a complete whim decided to get it as well. I opened it to read only a few pages to make sure I didn't just throw away $16.95, and didn't put it down. I love this book. One: it makes me really hungry. Two: the descriptions remind me of Singapore and all of its deliciousness. Three: in learning about the food of Sichuan, I am reminded of how integral food is, not just in a physical, survival terms, but also in anthropological ones as well. Four: cool culinary information like how Chinese cooks use one knife in the "kitchen", a cleaver, to do all sorts of amazingly intricate cuts, or and how the cooking time determines the way something's cut (it's not just artistry, form follows function). Five: the meanings and stories behind Chinese words, expressions and characters.
Dunlop has also written two cookbooks: Land of Plenty, and Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, that I will definitely be checking out.
Dunlop has also written two cookbooks: Land of Plenty, and Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, that I will definitely be checking out.
March 27, 2015
A really gripping collection of essays, and one particularly suited to my tastes. Dunlop manages to pass along a deep love and interest in Chinese food and culture without romanticizing or exoticizing her subjects. The first few personal essays find her discovering her interest in Sichuanese cuisine while studying in Chengdu in the early 1990s. Then the essays morph into a broader travelogue, reflections on experiencing and understanding Chinese food culture as a Westerner, and narrative essays that veer into history and politics. Finally, it returns to the personal, when she confesses to a midlife career and moral crisis as the China she first fell in love with rapidly changes into something far different.
I saw that at least a couple 欧宝娱乐 reviews fault this book for not being revealing enough. It is not always the most intimate of memoirs, but is that the standard by which all personal narratives should be measured? It is full of exciting stories, interesting facts, Britishisms (“cookery book”) and vividly described meals and settings. Definitely worth a read.
I saw that at least a couple 欧宝娱乐 reviews fault this book for not being revealing enough. It is not always the most intimate of memoirs, but is that the standard by which all personal narratives should be measured? It is full of exciting stories, interesting facts, Britishisms (“cookery book”) and vividly described meals and settings. Definitely worth a read.
April 17, 2018
This was ok for a memoir I enjoyed learning about Chinese culture and how very different not only the food but also the people and culture are in different regions.
At times, the book was overly self-congratulatory. At other times, the foods describes were gag-worthy and I thought I'd scream if I read the words "offal" and "stench" and "tang of urine" describing foods anymore.
Ok, I just changed my rating from a 3 to a 2 - ick.
By the end, I was skimming to get through it. The book should have ended 4 chapters earlier. The book became depressing and boring as the author felt the need to wax on about endangered species, pollution, and climate change. While all of these topics are real issues in modern day China, the way in which they were presented was pretentious and boring.
The final chapter tried to lighten the mood but only mildly succeeded.
And the epilogue went right back to self-congratulatory pretentiousness.
Is this worth reading?
Sure, but I skip around to the good parts
At times, the book was overly self-congratulatory. At other times, the foods describes were gag-worthy and I thought I'd scream if I read the words "offal" and "stench" and "tang of urine" describing foods anymore.
Ok, I just changed my rating from a 3 to a 2 - ick.
By the end, I was skimming to get through it. The book should have ended 4 chapters earlier. The book became depressing and boring as the author felt the need to wax on about endangered species, pollution, and climate change. While all of these topics are real issues in modern day China, the way in which they were presented was pretentious and boring.
The final chapter tried to lighten the mood but only mildly succeeded.
And the epilogue went right back to self-congratulatory pretentiousness.
Is this worth reading?
Sure, but I skip around to the good parts
Displaying 1 - 30 of 515 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.