Having connections in the journalistic world, I was lucky enough to interview Fuchsia and write an article on the evening for Dave’s magazine, which can be found below...
A Sichuan Sensation
It all began in Chengdu. In 1993 Fuchsia Dunlop visited Sichuan’s capital for the first time, marking the beginning of a long love affair with the city and its province. Fuchsia was captivated by the smells, sounds and, above all, the spicy tastes of Sichuan. She returned the following year to study, and stumbled upon a cookery class which would eventually result in her being the first westerner to enrol at the Sichuanese Higher Institute of Cuisine. It was a stumble in the right direction, and she published her first cookbook Sichuan Cookery, in 2001.
Since then, she has gone on to write a book about the similarly fiery and little known cuisine of Hunan, the Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, (the title an allusion to the fact that Mao’s birthplace lies in the province), and a food memoir, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper,, as well as countless articles about her Chinese food experiences. But Sichuan is still where her heart lies, and so it seemed fitting that we met at a traditional Sichuanese restaurant in Suzhou, as she hosted an event for the Bookworm Literary Festival.
A common Chinese saying boasts that, ‘China is the place for food, Sichuan is the place for flavour’, and as we sat poised and ready to embark on our Sichuan adventure, Dunlop expressed her desire to dispel any preconceptions about this cuisine; it isn’t just about sweating through mountains of tongue-singeing chillies - subtlety and variation are key. She enlightened us on the complexities of cooking methods, and the twenty-three distinct combinations of flavour that lie at the heart of Sichuanese culinary tradition, from the ‘scorched chilli flavour’ of Gong Bao Chicken (gong bao ji ding) to the salty ‘home style flavour’ of twice cooked pork (hui guo rou). Fuchsia’s aim when she began writing was to give Sichuan cuisine the recognition it deserves as one of the world’s most thrilling cuisines. As she travelled through China however, exploring and researching different food cultures, she sought to change perceptions of Chinese food altogether. ‘The object of my work has become broader’ she told me, ‘to promote understanding and appreciation of Chinese culinary culture in general…I think it’s one of the wonders of the world, and yet it’s been largely overlooked in the West.’
One by one, a never-ending stream of dishes arrived at our table, until an entire feast lay before us. It was a true awakening for the senses., with the visually exhilarating greens, yellows and reds and the warm, intoxicating melange of fragrances and wafts of Sichuan pepper transporting us to a restaurant kitchen in a Sichuanese back street. We began by opening the stomach (kai wei), following the Sichuanese custom of eating cold dishes first to arouse the senses. We feasted on the wonderful flavours of camphor and tea-smoked duck (zhang cha ya), sliced pork in garlic sauce (suan ni bai rou) and cold mung bean-starch noodles with a sour-and-hot dressing (chuan bai liang fen), while Fuchsia waxed lyrical on the joys of the region’s cuisine. She described to us the art of the cutting technique, of the quirkily named ‘Ox tongue’ and ‘horse’s ear’ slices, which are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also allow the ingredients to cook quickly and evenly, and of her many enchanting tales of discovering and savouring the delights in her beloved Chengdu.
By the time we began the main course, I was truly convinced that Sichuan is the place to eat in China, and that if anybody can to tell you about it, it’s Fuchsia. She highlighted the contrasting textures of our dishes, which maintain a balance and give variety to the dishes, something not entirely appreciated in the West. Here we dined on Sichuan staples: the sublime, buttery fish fragrant aubergines (Fuchsia’s favourite dish - yu xiang qie zi), Gong Bao Chicken (gong bao ji ding) with crunchy peanuts, juicy dry fried green beans (gan bian si ji dou) and the silky, pock-marked “Grandmother” (ma po dou fu), in all its peasant glory. In the centre of the table lay a dish piled high with dried, bright red chillies, a true testament to the fiery reputation of Sichuan cooking. Crisp pieces of chicken were hidden within the mountain, although the chilli to chicken ratio was enormous and Fuchsia assured us that they were there more for show than to eat. The highlight for me was qing xiang hui shu gu, a dish of celery, smoky bacon and mushrooms in broth served on a tabletop burner. The combination of the slithery, smoky mushrooms and bacon with the crunchy celery was delicious, and really brought the play on textures to light.
As we ate, Fuchsia continued to enlighten us on her adventures. She is a true adventurer in every sense, fuelled by her passion and desire to discover more about regional food cultures. For a true taste of China she follows her nose, and has often gained access to the kitchen of people’s homes or restaurants to gather their cooking secrets. One such tale, recounted in an article for the New Yorker last year, charmingly tells of a foraging expedition with an avant-garde restaurateur who serves entirely natural, chemical-free produce at his restaurant in Hangzhou, using traditional cooking methods (a real rarity in China nowadays). She described how on one day of this trip she ate scalded slices of pork from a pig whose slaughter and dismemberment she’d watched less than half an hour before, which emphasized the fearlessness she demonstrates in her eating habits. She is willing to try almost anything, admitting ‘I’ve broken so many psychological barriers in eating that most of the things I might mention don’t seem strange anymore!’
As the meal winded down we snacked on sweet potato cakes, and those courageous enough tucked into a soup of a tough but flavoursome smoked pig’s foot with beanthread noodles. We discussed various food issues; the use of MSG in Chinese cooking today (which Fuchsia disregards as the aptly named ‘cook’s cocaine’) and of her concern for food safety, which she examines in her memoir Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper. She told me that she had become ‘increasingly worried about what I eat here, especially when it comes to the meat, fish and the animal other products that have been the subject of so many food scares’. As she spoke, she displayed great enthusiasm and understanding on these subjects, effortlessly reeling off dates and snippets of information.
When asked about her opinion of Chinese food in the West today, she replied frankly, ‘it is a pale reflection of really good Chinese cooking…[it gives] you no idea of the vastness and diversity of China and its food culture’, and it’s thanks to Fuchsia that perceptions of Chinese food in the West are beginning to change. Her knowledge, and her efforts to popularize Chinese cuisines, have not gone unnoticed. Her work has won her numerous awards and much recognition, and she has being ranked alongside the greats of food writing such as Elizabeth David and Claudia Roden. But despite such accolades she remains humble, and you sense she’ll never lose her enthusiasm for the streetstalls and restaurants of the province that inspired her to write. ‘I will always love Sichuan’ she says, smiling, ‘there is something about the warmth and humour of the people, the dialect, the teahouses and the food that is irresistable'.
sistable’.
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