A taste for China

A succulent stir-fry of chicken with crisp young ginger, Zhejiang style. [Photo by Yuki Sugiura/Bloomsbury Publishing]

From 'oil-exploding shrimp' to red-braised pork, food writer Fuchsia Dunlop shares her passion for the subtleties of Chinese food with a wider audience, Mike Peters reports.

One spring afternoon on a lake in Zhejiang province, a fisherman rowed up and offered Fuchsia Dunlop some live shrimp he had caught a few moments before. Later that evening, she writes in her new cookbook: A chef in the group "cooked them up in a typical Zhejiang style, deep-frying and then stir-frying them over a high flame with a sweet, rich sauce laced with rice wine and vinegar. The deep-frying in very hot oil is known as 'oil exploding' (you bao), and it shocks the papery thin shells away from the flesh, making them delectably crisp and crunchy. The fragrant sauce clings to the prawns like lacquer, so they look as beautiful as they taste".

Dunlop has been immersed in the food culture of China, particularly of Sichuan province, for more than a decade. Until recently, however, she doubted Western readers would buy into her passion.

"For a long time people saw Chinese cuisine as cheap and junky," she says.

"A lot of Chinese restaurants in the West were started and run by Cantonese immigrants who weren't chefs－they were just trying to make a living. The selling point was 'cheap and tasty'."

Things have changed in recent years, she says, which has prompted this year's publication of Land of Fish and Rice: Recipes from the Culinary Heart of China－her fifth and most lavishly detailed culinary journey in print.

"Immigrants are not just Cantonese anymore－so in many Chinese communities－in New York, London, wherever－you have people who are from Shanghai, Dongbei (Northeast), Hunan, and they have spread out to small cities, too.

"So the market is no longer just about ignorant Westerners," she says, grinning during a Skype interview from her home in the UK. "Chinese customers want proper Chinese food, and that's raising the standard."