Fuchsia Dunlop is a British author and cook specializing in Chinese cuisine, especially Sichuan food. She went to Sichuan University to study Chinese on a British Council scholarship and also trained at the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine. Her books include Sichuan Cookery, her debut book in 2001 which won an award and the semi-autobiographical Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper.

A photograph of Fuchsia Dunlop.

Fuchsia Dunlop

Fuchsia Dunlop says her exploration of Chinese cuisine and culture has made her realize that in traditional Chinese culture; the ability to appreciate food is as important as the ability to appreciate music, art and poetry. Chinese dishes are actually a reflection of the geography, history and culture of the different regions of China.

CNS: Why did you decide to write about Chinese food culture? Since your first trip to China in the 1990s, you have written nearly a dozen books on Chinese food culture besides writing for different publications like the Financial Times, The New Yorker and Gourmet. You are also a four-time winner of the James Beard Award, one of the top awards in the culinary industry. How has the perception of Chinese food in the West changed over the past decades?

Fuchsia Dunlop: In 1994, when I went to study in Sichuan (a province in southwestern China famous for its hot peppers and pandas), Sichuan cuisine was the rage in China, but most foreigners knew very little about it. It was hard to find authentic Sichuan recipes in the UK, let alone authentic Sichuan spices, chefs and food experts, and few people had actually experienced the lip-tingling sensation caused by Sichuan peppercorns.

I thought the Chinese food culture was so vast and inclusive that Westerners should know about its richness and diversity, so I wrote my first book Sichuan Cookery. (When she revisited Sichuan later, she added almost 50 new recipes and The Food of Sichuan was published in 2019.) In 2020, it was translated into Chinese and published in China nearly 20 years after the original book was first published in the UK.

During that time, most Westerners’ understanding of Chinese food culture had changed dramatically, with mapo tofu becoming a must-order for international diners and Sichuan becoming an important culinary destination for Westerners. In the streets of London, diners can eat Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan, Northeastern and Huaiyang (the region surrounding the lower reaches of the Huai and Yangtze rivers with the Jiangsu Province at its center) food and even taste authentic snacks from ** across the world? Is Chinese cuisine overrated or underestimated overseas? Is it possible to understand Chinese culture through cuisine?

Fuchsia Dunlop: There are many people in the UK and the U.S. who love Chinese food. But the food most popular with them is not the best Chinese dish or the most iconic one. In this regard, the real Chinese cuisine culture is underrated overseas.

But the dishes that are popular around the world also belong to the Chinese food culture. In addition to the numerous dishes in Chinese cuisine, there is often a tale behind each dish. For example, there is a legend about the dish called Dongpo pork. Su Dongpo, a member of the literati of the Song Dynasty (960–1279), once taunted the people who despised this dish as a common meat dish by writing an Ode to Pork. There is also a tale behind the American favorite “General Tso’s chicken.” It was created by a Hunan chef in Taiwan for a banquet and named after a Hunan hero. Subsequently, it was introduced in New York by his apprentice. This story is not only interesting, it is also a story of the Chinese people and Chinese cuisine. “General Tso’s chicken” originated from China and was a local dish but today it has fans globally.

It is an eternal feature of Chinese culture that you can never take enough care over a dish. Early Chinese philosophers and poets used food as a metaphor for many things. Lao Zi (the founder of Taoism), said, “Ruling a great nation is like cooking a small dish”; Confucius compared human conduct and behavior with food, and emphasized an eating etiquette in which different meats had to be eaten with different dip** sauces; and the eminent poet Qu Yuan wrote that delicious food had the power to summon the soul of the dead.

In traditional Chinese culture, the appreciation of food is venerated and can even be compared to the ability to appreciate music, art and poetry. Today, the variety of Chinese dishes reflects the geography, history and culture of the different regions of China. If Westerners want to explore Chinese culture, food can be a very interesting window.

(Interviewed by He Shaoqing and Shan Peng)