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

Fuchsia Dunlop (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 24, 2009

“Destined, I think, to become a classic of travel writing.”—Paul Levy, The Observer

After fifteen years spent exploring China and its food, Fuchsia Dunlop finds herself in an English kitchen, deciding whether to eat a caterpillar she has accidentally cooked in some home-grown vegetables. How can something she has eaten readily in China seem grotesque in England? The question lingers over this “autobiographical food-and-travel classic” (Publishers Weekly).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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

Review

“An insightful, entertaining, scrupulously reported exploration of China’s foodways and a swashbuckling memoir. . . . What makes it a distinguished contribution to the literature of gastronomy is its demonstration . . . that food is not a mere reflection of culture but a potent shaper of cultural identity.” (Dawn Drzal - New York Times )

“I didn’t realize what a self-satisfied, Western-hemisphere food snob I was until I read Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper. . . . This is not just a smart memoir about cross-cultural eating but one of the most engaging books of any kind I’ve read in years.” (Celia Barbour - O, The Oprah Magazine )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (August 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393332888
• ISBN-13: 978-0393332889
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,229 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > Asian > Chinese

More About the Author

Fuchsia Dunlop is a cook and food-writer specialising in Chinese cuisine. She was the first Westerner to train as a chef at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, and has spent much of the last two decades exploring China and its food. Her first book, 'Land of Plenty' (published in the UK as 'Sichuan Cookery') won the Jeremy Round Award for best first book, and was listed in the top ten of the Observer's '50 Best Cookbooks of All Time'. 'Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province' was shortlisted for two major awards, while 'Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China' won the IACP Jane Grigson Award and the Kate Whiteman Award for writing on food and travel. Her latest book, 'Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking', was published in 2012.

Fuchsia's articles have appeared in many publications, including The Financial Times, The New Yorker, Gourmet, Saveur, and The Observer. In 2012 she won the James Beard Foundation Award for writing on food culture and travel.

Fuchsia's favourite Chinese recipe is Fish-Fragrant Eggplants (yu xiang qie zi).

For more information, visit Fuchsia's website, www.fuchsiadunlop.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful and insightful memoir June 29, 2008

By Sun Wukong

Format:Hardcover

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.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful & adventerous culinary memoir September 26, 2008

By Darby

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is one of the relatively few books out there that I can say, without reservation, that I completely enjoyed to the least and last ... even the somewhat whimsical final chapter about the caterpiller.

Others have already reviewed the book in considerable detail, so I'll just add a few short tidbits that stood out for me in particular ...

* I absolutely adore Ms. Dunlop's adventerous spirit. Theodore Roosevelt's famous "man in the arena" speech somes readily to mind.

* I also admire, and heartily agree with, Ms. Dunlop's astute observations regarding certain silly and deeply ingrained western culinary biases ... such as a general dislike or aversion to rubbery textures, bone-in cuts, offal, bitter vegetables, etc. I also share her love for adventerous dining ... and her disapproval of those who conspicuously indulge in endangered species.

* I also deeply appreciate her efforts to not just share her culinary travels, but also her insights, immersive personal experiences, and the socio-political context of her travels ... it greatly helps to humanize the book for the reader. Disappointingly few authors succeed in that vein. Some successful examples (of fully immersive travel memoirs) are Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence", and Joseph Campbell's "Sake and Satori". Both are highly recommended - the latter in particular, for those who enjoy high-brow reading.

My one minor nit with this book are Ms. Dunlop's recipes ... she does a wonderful job in leading up to the recipes themselves in order to give full weight and background to her personal experience and attachment to each (something too few cookbook authors do in their headnotes). However, the recipes themselves are somewhat imprecise in places ... such as omiting the recommended knife-cuts to use (ironic after having learned so many in her culinary schooling), or neglecting to explain some of the more esoteric or hard to find ingredients to her western readers. I also found myself occasionally pining for some of the photographs her memoir mentioned ... none were included.

Highly recommended !

I look forward to exploring Ms. Dunlop's other published works.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic personal journal of a cusine and a culture April 15, 2008

By Online Acquirer

Format:Hardcover

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.