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 Xi’an (a city in central China known for its Terracotta Warriors.)

One of the reasons for this change is that more and more Chinese are traveling, studying and working in the West, while a large number of Westerners are coming to China or have Chinese friends. This has led to a rise in the demand for authentic traditional Chinese food in the British and American markets, and Chinese restaurants overseas have an incentive to offer more Chinese dishes.

Another important reason is that now you can find much more information about Chinese food culture in the West than in the past. Many Chinese food bloggers and chefs like Li Ziqi and Wang Gang post cooking videos online, familiarizing Western netizens with authentic Chinese food.

CNS: What are the common misconceptions about Chinese cuisine in the West? What are the Chinese misconceptions about Western food culture? How do you view these prejudices?

Fuchsia Dunlop: When it comes to Chinese cuisine, many Westerners think it is “greasy” or “unhealthy” because most of the Chinese food they have is from restaurants, not Chinese home-cooked food. For most Chinese families, the staple food is usually a bowl of steamed rice or noodles, with plenty of simply cooked seasonal vegetables, a variety of soy products, and a little dried fruit and a little fish to add flavor and nutrition. This is the best diet in my mind, as it is a combination of meat and vegetables, rich in variety, seasonal, and balanced in nutrition, and greatly satisfies the eye, nose, tongue and the stomach.

Although oil is essential for the heat and flavor of Chinese cuisine, not all the oil in every dish is consumed. If Westerners follow the Chinese way of eating and use chopsticks, most of the oil will be left on the plate. Also, most Westerners have difficulty in appreciating the taste of Chinese food. Once, during a talk, I gave each member of my audience a duck tongue that I myself had cooked. The traditional Western view is that duck tongue or chicken feet are inedible while the Chinese add flavors to the “uneatable small things.” I told my audience to throw away their insular ideas and get the taste of the East.

Chinese cuisine’s openness and inclusiveness in its choice of ingredients demonstrates a philosophical wisdom. A truly skilled chef does not label an ingredient “edible” or “inedible” but uses technique to highlight its strengths and cover up its weaknesses. Sichuan chefs even turn the chewy upper jaw of the pig into a spicy snack called “heaven.”

In China, some of my Chinese friends gave me their opinions about Western food, and most of them had common misconceptions about Western food culture. Western food culture encompasses the cuisines of different countries, and it is difficult to describe Western cuisine with only one type of food or one country.

The root cause of these prejudices is lack of understanding. Although there are fewer misunderstandings in recent years with more extensive communication between the East and West, it will take time to eliminate them completely. Each country’s food culture is unique and needs to be experienced with heart.

CNS: Sichuan cuisine was created by collision between Western and Eastern culture. If chili peppers had not been introduced into China at the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), there would have been no spicy and tasty Sichuan dishes such as mapo tofu and boiled beef, not to mention the Sichuan cuisine known for its rich flavors. What do you think of the inclusive food culture created from the collision of East and West?

Fuchsia Dunlop: As early as the fourth century, the people of Sichuan had already developed a preference for spicy flavors. The ancient Chinese historian Chang Qu once commented that “(Sichuan) people love flavorful dishes filled with spices.” However, it must be noted that this spicy flavor did not come from chili peppers, but from ginger, pepper and dogwood. The cuisine section of Lüshi Chunqiu (an encyclopedic Chinese classic text compiled around 239 BC) also regards Sichuan ginger as a prime ingredient.

It was not until the late Ming Dynasty in the late sixteenth century that chili peppers were introduced into China. Because of their lovely white flowers and beautiful red fruits, chili peppers were once considered an ornamental plant in China, and it was one century later that records of chili peppers being used in dishes appeared. According to research by Jiang Yuxiang, a professor of Sichuan University, chili peppers did not become a common crop in Sichuan until the Jiaqing period (1796–1820) of the Qing Dynasty, although one source mentions cultivation of chili pepper in Sichuan in the mid-eighteenth century.

Western food culture has also been influenced by the East. In the 1980s, a famous Chinese-American introduced Chinese cuisine in Britain when he did a television program. Many British households now have a Chinese wok, and many Britons have mastered the “stir-fry” method of cooking. They cut vegetables and meat into small pieces and stir and fry them in a wok, but of course it’s much simpler than Chinese stir-fry.

In fact, all existing food cultures, whether Eastern or Western, are constantly evolving, with new influences and new collisions. Some of the dishes I ate and loved in Chengdu in the mid-1990s have nearly disappeared today. When I returned to Chengdu in 2019, I found new ingredients such as salmon and wheatgrass had appeared on the local menu.

CNS: Is it Chinese cuisine or “Western-style Chinese cuisine” that is sweeping 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 dipping 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)