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Loading... Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cookingby Fuchsia Dunlop
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  surreality | Jun 18, 2007 |  One of the few books in English which really engages with the regional cuisine of China. (  ) jontseng | Jan 4, 2007 | Fiona Dunlop is one of the best writers on regional Chinese cooking. She studied at what used to be China's only professional cooking school, in Chengdu the capital city of Sichuan province.This book covers the cooking of that region in great depth. Dunlop gives the reader a culinary history of Sichuan, the 56(!!)cooking methods, cutting methods - which are extremely important in Chinese cooking, and introduces you to the ingredients which are commonly used in a Sichuan kitchen. The recipes are carefully explained with clear instructions. This is not a book I use very often, but I have twice attempted an entire meal from it and both times it turned out very well. ( ) herschelian | Nov 21, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0393051773, Hardcover)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 (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:53 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
Extensive extra sections cover cooking and cutting styles as well as cooking utensils and the proper composition of meals. This book is priceless for real Sichuan recipes. (