Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China

This is one of the best books I have read about China, in my whole life. It is really a memoir about the author's escapades in China's kitchens and restaurants, but it is also so much more. The author, Fuchsia Dunlop, starts with her first visit to China, where she after a few months end up as the first foreigner in the chef's school in Chengdu, Sichuan province. Her fascination with the Chinese foods are truly contagious. Duck, tendon, dumplings, spicy peppers, soy sauce, all is described in exquisite prose and vivid words. It is very personal, but also very easy to relate to. Fuchsia is not afraid of showing her opinions about politics and environmental disasters, and as the author of a 'revolutionary cookbook' and someone that has show more eaten many endangered species through her time in China, she battles with her guilty conscience as well as local politicians and bureaucracy.

The book is a fantastic introduction to the Chinese culture. Aside from the food, and a few recipes too, she tackles everything from traveling undercover to areas closed to foreigners, the disdain for Western food as well as the love for it by the Chinese people (apple pie is strange, McDonald's is OK), the influence of history and famine on food culture, and the economic boom in the last 15 years and its environmental and food consequences.

Her love of China and Chinese food seeps from the pages, and it makes me want to visit some of the more remote parts. I also want to find a restaurant close to us that make real Chinese food, not the Americanized hodge-podge most serve.

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Initially very engaging, then progressively more and more...stomach-turning? Certainly I am not as gastronomically bold as the author. Descriptions of eating fish eyes, clawed turtle's feet, and pig's kidneys, have put me off reading this book before bed. But when I'm feeling a bit bolder, I think I will continue - Dunlop does tell a rollicking good story. Best travelogue of China I've read so far; often eye-opening, with a good balance between action and reflection. Thought-provoking and exciting to read, and possibly one of the few food memoirs that will not (always) stimulate your appetite.

When Fuchsia Dunlop moved to China in the early 1990s, it was still a rarely visited backwater overflowing with traditional culture and lacking in technology. She quickly abandoned her plan to study Chinese minority cultures in favor of studying Chinese cooking. A few months later, she was enrolled as the first and only foreign student in Sichuan's prestigious cooking school.

This is a truly excellent food and travel memoir. Rather than gawking at the strange (to Western taste) things the Chinese eat, Fuchsia learns to appreciate the textures of goose intestines and sauteed caterpillar. This makes for some occasionally disgusting reading, but for the most part, I admired the author's unusual ability to fully join another culture. The show more food is vividly, beautifully described in away that inspires me to open my own culinary horizons. And, although food is the focus, Fuchsia doesn't neglect the cultural, historical and ethical situations that come along with it. I particularly appreciated the last chapters, in which she wrestles with a Communist banquet thrown at the expense of struggling peasants and the environmental impact of the appetites of China's newly wealthy. This is a satisfying book on many levels, and I think almost every reader would enjoy it. show less

Very interesting memoir of food in China. Reading it a decade after publication, there are some points that are weird or a little problematic - Dunlop initially defends, then later opposes practices of eating exotic animals. The mistreatment of Uyghurs is mentioned as well, but more as a minor issue than a serious problem.

Nevertheless, the stories of Dunlop's travels to various regions and her descriptions of ingredients and recipes are captivating. The book includes a few recipes, but isn't really a cookbook.

There's a lot I like about this book. Dunlop's sympathetic treatment of the people she encounters, her boundless curiosity, her willingness to take China as it is and not as she wants it to be, are among them. But there's a certain self-centeredness here as well, and a really troubling ability to stick her fingers in her ears and go LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU when it comes to the really troubling aspects of the country; I frankly would've expected a little more skepticism from a BBC journalist.

Very good. Thoughtful and well written book about Dunlop's career as a food critic, chef and aficianado of all things culinary in China. A cut above most food books.

This is exactly what I love in a memoir - a trip to places I will never go and experiences I will never have that are fascinating, nonetheless. Dunlop explores a few of the culinary cultures of China with wonder and sadness and gluttony. Yum.