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Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food
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About This Book
The world's most sophisticated gastronomic culture, brilliantly presented through a banquet of thirty Chinese dishes. Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese laborers began to settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake. Yet Chinese has the curious distinction of being both one of the world's best-loved culinary traditions and one of the least understood. For more than a century, the overwhelming dominance of a simplified form of Cantonese cooking ensured that few foreigners experienced anything of its richness and sophistication―but today that is beginning to change. In Invitation to a Banquet, award-winning cook and writer Fuchsia Dunlop explores the history, philosophy, and techniques of Chinese culinary culture. In each chapter, she examines a classic dish, from mapo tofu to Dongpo pork, knife-scraped noodles to braised pomelo pith, to reveal a distinctive aspect of Chinese gastronomy, whether it's the importance of the soybean, the lure of exotic ingredients, or the history of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. Meeting food producers, chefs, gourmets, and home cooks as she tastes her way across the country, Fuchsia invites readers to join her on an unforgettable journey into Chinese food as it is cooked, eaten, and considered in its homeland. Weaving together history, mouthwatering descriptions of food, and on-the-ground research conducted over the course of three decades, Invitation to a Banquet is a lively, landmark tribute to the pleasures and mysteries of Chinese cuisine.
Reviews
"If you don't live within 100 miles of a real Chinese restaurant, or an H Mart, this book will not only entertain and instruct you — it might make you go mad with longing."
"Dunlop delves into a complex, subtle cuisine with an insider's expertise."
"As understandable as it is for Dunlop to want to defend Chinese food against its critics, her eagerness to assert its superiority over other cuisines nonetheless prevents her book from doing what the best histories of China do, which is speak to its present ..."
"Offers food tours to help people like me develop a deeper appreciation of the varieties of Chinese cuisine ..."
"Impressive here is not just her evident mastery of her material, but also the skill with which she translates it to her audience ..."
"Dunlop has developed a vocabulary equal to the daunting challenge of conveying the huge range of values, ambitions and experiences embedded in Chinese gastronomy ..."
"As a whole, however, this book is an erudite joy that makes you yearn to taste the delights Dunlop describes."
"Dunlop's China and her themes become more nuanced ..."
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