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Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper!

Posted by pesky | November 16, 2008 .

I suppose one of the reasons we are fat “c’s”, dear fellow bloggers, is that we LOVE our food. As anyone with a basic grasp of maths and biology will tell you, the amount of energy being expended should be equivalent to the amount of calories being consumed. In the case of us fatc’ers, our energy expenditure needs to be greater than our calorific input if we are to reduce weight…..
Which brings me to a marvellous book by Fuchia Dunlop, who is a sort of modern day Elizabeth David, except that she focusses on Chinese cuisine rather than Mediterranean fare. Dunlop has lived in China on and off for years, learning the language, and more importantly the authentic ways of cooking of a number of Chinese regional cuisines.
Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China
is about her time in Hunan Province, where she lived in order to research her book Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province

This is a wonderful collection of recipes from a marvellous cuisine little known outside of China. But I digress. “Shark’s Fin” is not a recipe book, although it does contain several recipes. Rather it is an insightful, warm roller-coaster of an account of her time in China, including some pretty bad times. This is a MUST READ book. You will want to go for a good walk afterwards!

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