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Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China | 
 enlarge | Author: Fuchsia Dunlop
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.52
You Save: $10.43 (42%)
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Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 16070
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0393066576
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5951
EAN: 9780393066579
ASIN: 0393066576
Publication Date: April 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
A new memoir by the most talented and respected British food writer of her generation.
Award-winning food writer Fuchsia Dunlop went to live in China as a student in 1994, and from the very beginning she vowed to eat everything she was offered, no matter how alien and bizarre it seemed. In this extraordinary memoir, Fuchsia recalls her evolving relationship with China and its food, from her first rapturous encounter with the delicious cuisine of Sichuan Province to brushes with corruption, environmental degradation, and greed. In the course of her fascinating journey, Fuchsia undergoes an apprenticeship at China's premier Sichuan cooking school, where she is the only foreign student in a class of nearly fifty young Chinese men; attempts, hilariously, to persuade Chinese people that "Western food" is neither "simple" nor "bland"; and samples a multitude of exotic ingredients, including sea cucumber, civet cat, scorpion, rabbit-heads, and the ovarian fat of the snow frog. But is it possible for a Westerner to become a true convert to the Chinese way of eating? In an encounter with a caterpillar in an Oxford kitchen, Fuchsia is forced to put this to the test.
From the vibrant markets of Sichuan to the bleached landscape of northern Gansu Province, from the desert oases of Xinjiang to the enchanting old city of Yangzhou, this unique and evocative account of Chinese culinary culture is set to become the most talked-about travel narrative of the year.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
fantastic personal journal of a cusine and a culture April 15, 2008
Online Acquirer (Silicon Valley, CA USA)
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
Fuchsia Dunlop has a yen for Sichuan cuisine and culture, having spent her graduate school years in Chengdu and attending various cooking schools there. A true pioneer in cross-cultural exploration, she was one of the first expatriates who went "native", at least in a culinary sense.
This easy reading book is more travel journal rather then cook book. You follow her step by step as she goes deeper and deeper into the culinary technique, aesthetic and philosophy that makes up Chinese cooking and eating. Besides her kitchen and dinner table encounters, the book also portrays the torrid pace of change that China has undergone this past decade. She covers the major differences between Occidental and Chinese ideas of good eats - freshness, texture/mouth-feel, the idea of what's edible. A very fun read - I finished this book in three nights.
Thoughtful and insightful memoir June 30, 2008
Sun Wukong
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is an excellent book on many levels. The quality of the writing is a definite step above most books of this sort. The discussions of regional cuisines, culinary training, and attitudes towards food both contemporary and historical are fascinating. This book, however, is about more than food. Ms. Dunlop lived in Sichuan in a particularly interesting time, when rapid changes in the economy, politics, and society were laying the groundwork for the huge economic growth of the late 90's and present. I lived in China for two years in the early 90's (though in a different city from Ms. Dunlop, and I've never met her) and her descriptions of many of the contradictions and complexities of being a foreigner in China at the time are truly spot on. She looks at her experiences with a degree of self-awareness that is rare in books of this sort. There is little romanticism here, and when she does romanticize her experiences, she quickly pulls back and comments on the contradictory impulses she feels. This book richly deserves all five stars. Please note that the one single-star review it receives is by someone who admits she has not read the book and simply objects to the practice of shark-finning. Had the reviewer read the book, she would see that Ms. Dunlop ends up taking a highly critical perspective on many aspects of Chinese culinary practices, including the needlessly cruel methods of preparation, etc. This is as interesting and intelligent a memoir about food and China in this period as one is ever likely to encounter. I highly recommend it.
 Real Food, Real China June 29, 2008
Warren Liebold (Kew Gardens, NY USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've accumulated a lot of cookbooks over the years and I actually do use most of them. A few years ago I vowed to stop buying cookbooks with very few exceptions since so few were unique or contained information you can't find online. Two of the very few exceptions were Fuchsia Dunlop's "Land of Plenty" on authentic Sichuanese cooking and "Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook" about Hunan Province. Both gems that provide insights on the differences between Chinese cooking there are here. Now we have "Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper," the story of her life and travels in China, learning Chinese cooking through Chinese methods and traditions. Chinese food as an integral part of Chinese culture and the differences between provinces and regions. You may come away thinking that you could never be worthy of the skill of the cooks who are featured in these pages, but you will also come away with an appreciation for the crossroads between people, land, culture and food conveyed by a writer who is personable and very human.
A window into a fast-changing China June 21, 2008
avoraciousreader (Somewhere in the Space Time Continuum)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A sweetsour memoir of eating in China
Fuchsia Dunlop, 2008
As the title says, this is not a cookbook or precisely a book on or about food, but a memoir of Fuchsia Dunlop's time in China, with the emphasis on her culinary experiences and endeavors. It covers an eventful -- both for Dunlop and for China -- fifteen years, from her first visit in 1992 to one (hopefully not the last) in 2007. Originally a Chinese region specialist for the BBC, she applied for a fellowship to study in China, with an emphasis on minority cultures, was accepted, and in 1994 showed up at Sichuan University in Chengdu.
She rapidly became inebriated with the vital dining scene in Chengdu, and (to hear her tell it) largely abandoned the ostensible purpose of her studies. Fortunately for Dunlop and us, Sichuan had both a deserved reputation for being slow and casual (things were possible for a foreigner there that would not have been in more modern cities), and a rich and highly developed style of cookery. Far from being the simple blisteringly hot excess of chilis that it has the reputation for in the West, Sichuan cooking as practiced in Chengdu emphasizes a careful balance of flavors and ingredients, with hundreds of unique flavors and textures; no more a one-note anvil of chilis and the lip-numbing Sichuan peppercorn than Indian food is a single all purpose "curry powder" blend.
We have a few chapters devoted to her increasing love affair with Sichuan food and life, and her gradual accomodation to the variety of ingredients, from 'offal' to rabbit heads to insects. (I can't help but think her self-description of her state of blandness on arrival is a bit disingenuous -- somewhere near the end, she mentions the English standby of steak-and-kidney pie, which to an American stomach is up there on the grossness meter at least with tripe and liver and the other organ meat she claims to be initially put off by.) And though she does devote, off and on, a few sections to the "Chinese eat everything" theme, it does not seem to me central to her book, and she is clear that it is not universal and the North and West are more conservative in their cuisine. Much more emphasized is the complexity of the food, the many different flavors and cooking techniques, even the wide variety of shapes generated with the simple Chinese cleaver, each with it's distinctive name. Dunlop, her official studies over with, stayed on in Chengdu and enrolled in a full-time course at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, the only Westerner in a class of aspiring Chinese chefs.
After the success of her first book on Sichuan cooking, Dunlop returned to China and spent time in Hunan, learning another distinct regional cuisine, the subject of her second book. Though overall chronological, and overall concerned with Chinese food, there are numerous digressions ... a chapter devoted largely to fears of the SARS epidemic; one to a trip to a friend's family in "a remote village not far from Inner Mongolia" where the "meals we ate were simple and monotonous;" her travels in Tibet and other dicey regions.
Equally as interesting as Dunlop's experiences are her reactions to them, the story arc of her becoming more and more imbued with Chinese culture and attitude until it is a wrench for her to fit in back in England. She not only experiences, but thinks about those experiences, seemingly with a notebook almost constantly at hand. And thus we feel her dismay when over the short span of a decade or so, the oddly paradisiacal corners of China that she had found, the sort of old-China crowded markets, street vendors and grubby diners shunned by tourists and New-Chinese alike, become overrun with rampant development -- favored markets, restaurants and whole districts vanishing beneath the bulldozer almost overnight, replaced by high-rises and anonymous blocks of flats. Near the end there is feeling of doom and depression, and her originally accommodating attitude is drowned out by a knell of development, pollution of the very foods she is eating (one chapter is devoted to an increasing fear of seemingly every ingredient), and the impact of increasing demand for exotic, wild and endangered ingredients. Then at the end there are two chapters which revive her attitude and our hope. She travels to the source of her treasured Sichuan peppercorns, the particular slopes that produce the best of the best. And she indeed finds another unspoiled (so far!) city that is far off the commercial or tourist tracks, redeveloping in its own middle-path way.
Dunlop may not be immediately likable .. I have the feeling that while she could be immensely charming, she could also be relentless in her goals .. but she is a wonderful guide, probably getting as much under the skin of China old and new as any Westerner is going to, and bringing us along for the ride in a thoughtful, yet personal and emotional, well told adventure.
More Dan Dan Noodles please!! August 1, 2008
C. Vor Broker (NY, NY)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been visiting China for about 5 years for business. This book had me at the very first paragraph...As an adventuresome eater myself, I have struggled with my reluctance to try many of the dishes I have been served on my various trips. Fuchsia may have bolstered my resolve with this memoir. The book is an extremely well written and informative account of her years in China. Her love for the people and cuisine is inspiring. I am not relinquishing my copy to share with friends, as I wish to keep the recipes included in the book for myself . I do, however, plan on buying the book as gifts for many of my foodie friends.
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