Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China [Hardcover]

Jeffrey Alford (Author), Naomi Duguid (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

WINNER OF THE 2009 JAMES BEARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL COOKBOOK AWARD

WINNER OF THE 2009 IACP BEST INTERNATIONAL COOKBOOK AWARD

A bold and eye-opening new cookbook with magnificent photos and unforgettable stories.

In the West, when we think about food in China, what usually comes to mind are the signature dishes of Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai. But beyond the urbanized eastern third of China lie the high open spaces and sacred places of Tibet, the Silk Road oases of Xinjiang, the steppelands of Inner Mongolia, and the steeply terraced hills of Yunnan and Guizhou. The peoples who live in these regions are culturally distinct, with their own history and their own unique culinary traditions. In Beyond the Great Wall, the inimitable duo of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid—who first met as young travelers in Tibet—bring home the enticing flavors of this other China.

For more than twenty-five years, both separately and together, Duguid and Alford have journeyed all over the outlying regions of China, sampling local home cooking and street food, making friends and taking lustrous photographs. Beyond the Great Wall shares the experience in a rich mosaic of recipes—from Central Asian cumin-scented kebabs and flatbreads to Tibetan stews and Mongolian hot pots—photos, and stories. A must-have for every food lover, and an inspiration for cooks and armchair travelers alike.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Alford and Duguid, authors of the acclaimed Mangoes & Curry Leaves, explore the food and peoples of the outlaying regions of present-day China, historically home to those not ethnically Chinese. Part travel guide and part cookbook, this collection looks at the cultural survival and preservation of food in smaller societies including that of the Tibetan, Mongol, Tuvan and Kirghiz peoples, among others. The authors include vivid color photographs of food, people and places of cultural significance. Recipes are tantalizing and mostly simple, and ingredients are surprisingly easy to find. The book is sectioned by food type rather than ethnicity, covering everything from condiments and seasonings to fish and meats to drinks and sweets. Dishes have the hint of the familiar, such as Oasis Chicken Kebabs, Tibetan Pork and Spinach Stir-Fry, and Market Stall Fresh Tomato Salsa, while others are less common but equally tempting, including Kazakh Pulao, Steamed Tibetan Momos, and Home-style Tajik Nan. Peppered throughout are the authors' personal stories, which provide insight into each culture. A handsome and engaging collection suitable for travelers and cooks alike, this book will delight anyone with an interest in this part of the world.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"With enticing recipes, engaging stories, and magnificent photographs, Beyond the Great Wall gives us thrilling insight into the fascinating world of the outlying regions of China." - Claudia Roden, author of Arabesque

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Artisan (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579653014
• ISBN-13: 978-1579653019
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 11.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Travel > Asia > Tibet
  • #25 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > Asian > Chinese
  • #49 in Books > Travel > Asia > China

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dazzling recipes and a wonderful ranging conversation with well-traveled, forthright friends, May 19, 2008

By 

Cassandra Kobayashi "playing in the kitchen" (Vancouver, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China (Hardcover)

As the Introduction states, the world's borders would look very different if based upon food and culture. Chinese Muslims don't eat pork, and in rural Tibet, chicken is considered inedible. There are papayas in the south of China, and millet in the hot arid regions.

Beyond The Great Wall layers many elements on a strong foundation of interesting recipes - maps, food anthropology, and travel notes, generously illustrated with the authors' truly spectacular location photos, and evocative studio photos by Richard Jung, each carefully captioned.

The recipes require few special ingredients, and when they do, the resulting combination is a revelation, such as chile paste spiked with Sichuan peppercorns, or pomegranate-marinated lamb kebabs. Each recipe is thoughtfully introduced with suggestions for meal combinations, the dish's origin, thoughts on timing and ease of preparation. Eating your vegetables will be more interesting with new takes on salad, soup and vegetable sides. The Beef-Sauced Hot Lettuce Salad was a huge hit in my house when I was recipe-testing for the authors.

The bread chapter includes flatbreads, a loaf baked in a lidded pot, and little stuffed breads. For experienced noodle-makers, the variations in shaping and saucing are fascinating. For those new to handmade noodles, the pinch method in Earlobe Noodles provides an easy introduction.

The book doesn't pretend to be a catalog of "authentic" recipes, which would have us searching for riverweed or camel meat, and drying yak cheese on a yak-dung fire. Rather, this is a cookbook for those who want to enjoy foods and flavors from that part of the world, respectfully translated into the Western kitchen. And for those interested in tasting at the source, there is advice on planning a trip and sample itineraries. Fans of the authors' previous books will appreciate that the travel stories are attributed to either Naomi or Jeff. Finally, the Glossary is a good read in itself - how sprouting changes the nutrients in beans, or how to choose and make the most of Sichuan peppercorns.

My advice: buy this book and engage it like you would a wonderful ranging conversation with well-traveled, forthright friends.

43 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars explore the cuisines of the other china, May 10, 2008

By 

Doc Dave "world music fan" (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China (Hardcover)

Despite the glossy cover, this cookbook has been over 20 years in the making. It dates back to the authors' travels in tibet in the 80s, and then when plans for the book were made by their book agent, of further research trips in the 00s. Having visited China during the same timeframe dating to the 80s, I can attest to the wonderment of discovering the "other" China, of meeting caucasian chinese citizens from turkic tribes who speak perfect mandarin, of tasting perfect kebobs and roasts from mongolian and muslims cooks, of the religious mysticism of tibet. and it is this exotic "other" china on which this book is based on.

Since authentic cookbooks of even relatively well known minorities such as tibetans are hard to come by in english (and I suspect in chinese as well), it is a real treat to discover the cuisines of the uighurs and the mongols, and the dai and the hani, albeit for the most part reverse-engineered by the authors. Interspersed between the recipes are the authors' travel anecdotes of varying quality.

Indeed, it is their traveller's perspective passing through and re-engineering the dishes that admittedly exposes my own bias and ultimately my reservations about the book. With the bar for cookbooks set ever higher, the gold standard is for ethnic cookbooks to be written by cultural residents in the locales where the food is from, whether native or adopted, these people have had presumably years of experience making the food, as well as, the language skills and acumen(to get published!) in order to communicate this to us in the western mass market.

i certainly await the day when an enterprising young tuvan or uighur can share her grandmother's recipes with us (perhaps most likely in a blog rather than a glossy cookbook) but until that day comes, this book will remain a treasure.

i've had the pleasure of attending a forum hosted by james oseland, inviting jeff and naomi to discuss their new book. but i paid for my copy and do not have any financial disclosures to declare.

42 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a cookbook, July 2, 2008

By 

John Peter Ferreri (Verona, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China (Hardcover)

To the gentleman from china with the one-star rating. Patriotism can be a good thing. But this is a cookbook -- it's not a political tract. I own all the cookbooks this pair of folks has put out. They're wonderful writers, photographers and cooks. They show us all part of the world we'll never get to see.
Do they have opinions about Tibet ... quite possibly. I haven't received the book yet. But you waste your energy is posting a review like you did. It works against you, sir, and undercuts your cause. Reasonable people can disagree about the China/Tibet situation (can't they?). But to think that this cookbook is being released now to make a statement against China is just not plausible. China has plenty to be proud of (as the authors have shown in several of their earlier books). Your review does not reflect well on China.