Author:Fuchsia Dunlop Availability:
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Editorial Review:
The Chinese call the province of Sichuan in southwest China "the land of plenty" and "the place for flavor." Although it is mostly known in the West for its hot-and-spicy dishes, the Chinese love Sichuan food for its inventive use of seasonings and its many styles of preparation. Fuchsia Dunlop immersed herself in Sichuanese cooking and culture for two years, gathering from regional chefs and home cooks a full range of recipes from soups to desserts. She provides glossaries of Sichuan's ingredients and cooking methods, and Chinese characters for and definitions of the twenty-three flavors at the heart of the Sichuanese culinary canon. Equally valuable for novices and experts, Land of Plenty teaches everything from how to wield a cleaver to how to make delicious Kung Pao chicken, offering a unique user-friendly introduction to one of China's richest cuisines. 16 pages of color photographs.
Elizabeth David had it easy. All she had to do was eat her way through France and Italy and translate the essence of the encountered cuisines for a ravenous, literate, English-speaking public. Fuschia Dunlop, on the other hand, went to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan in China, where she ended up the first foreign student enrolled at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine. That was nearly 10 years ago. After annual return visits and endless research she has produced, in English, a magnificent introduction to the food and foodways of Sichuan. She is in every way the dharma inheritor of Elizabeth David.
You too may start to salivate halfway through the introduction to Dunlop's magnificent Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking. Perhaps it begins when she explains xian, "one of the most beautiful words in the Chinese culinary language." It describes an entire range of flavor and sensation, "the indefinable, delicious taste of fresh meat, poultry, and seafood, the scrumptious flavors of a pure chicken soup..." Before you know it you are running headlong into a world of 23 distinct flavors and 56 cooking methods (they are all listed at the end of the book). Sichuan is the place where "barbarian peppers" met up with a natural cornucopia and a literary cooking tradition stretching back to the fifth century A.D. Innovation with cooking technique and new and challenging ingredients remains a hallmark of Sichuan. After describing basic cutting skills and cooking techniques, Dunlop presents her recipes in chapters that include "Noodles, Dumplings, and Other Street Treats"; "Appetizers"; "Meat"; "Poultry"; "Fish"; "Vegetables and Bean Curd"; "Stocks and Soup"; "Sweet Dishes"; and "Hotpot." Yes, you will find Gong Bao (Kung Pao) Chicken with Peanuts--Gong Bao Ji Ding. It's named after a late 19th-century governor of Sichuan, Ding Baozhen, which brought on the wrath of the Cultural Revolution for its imperial associations. Until rehabilitation, the dish was called "fast-fried chicken cubes" or "chicken cubes with seared chilies."
Land of Plenty is literary food writing at its best, as well as a marvelous invitation to new skills and flavors for the home cook. Read it. Cook it. Eat it. And take pleasure in the emerging career of Fuschia Dunlop, a big new voice in the world of food. --Schuyler Ingle
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
Truly Amazing... Truly Authentic:
So far this is the BEST cookbook I've seen on Sichuan Cuisine. The author does an incredible job with the research on both the recipes and even the histories of the dishes and factoids on Sichuan cuisine. If I could wish for an improvement, it would be for more pictures. But trust me, that is not a reason to detract from the excellence of this book. If you are looking for an authentic Sichuan Chinese cookbook, this is as close as it gets.
Sichuan Cooking "Bible":
My sister in law is Chinese and from Sichuan province. She and my brother call this book the bible of Sichuan cooking. After visiting China and enjoying the amazing food I longed to have it at home. This book is a must-have for anyone who loves this type of food.
Fuschia Dunlop rocks!:
I was so giddy when I heard about this book on NPR that I immediately went home and ordered the book. I made the Gong Bao chicken tonight and it was just as delicious as I had imagined. I've made "Kung pao" chicken before, but not quite like this!! It tastes incredibly authentic. I also made the flowering chives with smoky bacon and the stir-fried amaranth leaves. Yum yum!! The recipes are so easy to follow. Such simple combinations of spices and sauces but the dishes turn out so vastly different than... more info
Surprisingly useful!:
I initially bought this cookbook to learn more about Sichuan cuisine, but quickly realized the recipies are extremely practical and easy to follow. They do not require much specialized equipement (unless you consider a wok specialized) and the ingredients can be found at a local Asian market or online. I prepared several bean curd recipes this week. Once I had the ingredients prepped, the actual cook time was only 3 minutes or so (at a very high heat). In addition to being simple, economical, and fast... more info
