Fuchsia Dunlop

Dumpling heaven in Adelaide

Afghan mantu

I’ve long been fascinated by the connection between Turkish mantı dumplings – and all their relatives across central and eastern Asia – and Chinese mantou (my paper on the subject from a Chinese angle will be published this summer in the Proceedings of the Oxford Food Symposium, along with a paper from the Turkish/Central Asian point of view by the Turkish food expert Aylin Oney Tan). So I was completely thrilled to come across these Afghan mantu in a gorgeous Afghan restaurant in Adelaide – the Parwana Afghan Restaurant. It’s a family business just outside the city centre where the warmth of the welcome and the charm of the ambience match the deliciousness of the food (I only came across it because the daughter of the owners was a volunteer at the Adelaide Writers’ Week and came to talk to me after one of my events, but it turns out to be highly rated by the local restaurant website, urbanspoon.com). Continue reading…

James Beard award nomination!

Totally thrilled to be nominated for a James Beard journalism award for my piece in the Chinatown issue of Lucky Peach!

Curbing our greed for meat

Scientists are again urging people in the developed world to eat less meat for environmental reasons. Here’s a quote from a piece on the Guardian website today, which outlined some of the environmental consequences of our addiction to cheap meat:

The answer, [Prof Mark Sutton, lead author of a UN Environment Programme (Unep) study published on Monday] said, was more vegetables on the plate, and less animal protein. “Eat meat, but less often – make it special,” he urged. “Portion size is key. Many portions are too big, more than you want to eat. Think about a change of culture that says, ‘I like the taste, but I don’t need so much of it.’” Continue reading…

Year of the Snake

Aperitivo (snake's blood in rice wine)

A snaky infusion of rice wine

Bizarrely, I spent this Chinese New Year’s Eve teaching cookery in Houston, and then eating Tex-Mex! (Molten cheese with tortilla chips; a San Antonio ‘puffy taco’ stuffed with smoked chicken; a great platter piled with a tamale, a couple of enchiladas, refried beans and rice – all very tasty, but incredibly rich and heavy! Could have done with a salad or some stir-fried greens. The highlight, for me, was one of the sides, the scrumptious refried beans cooked in lard.) On New Year’s Day I travelled back to Washington DC, where I was staying with friends. So no Chinese food at all – not even a fish!

Snake soup

Anyway, since it’s the Year of the Snake, I thought I’d post some pictures of snake delicacies from a visit to Fujian a few years ago.

What kind of snakes are these, in the kitchen? Anyone know?

Every Grain of Rice US edition now out!

The US edition of Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking, is out today, published, like the American editions of all my books, by W.W.Norton. It’s the same book as the UK edition, but with Americanised measurements and so on, and a different cover.

Wonderful response so far, like this lovely piece in LA Times, this review by Asian Review of Books, and this one by Carolyn Phillips on Zester Daily.

I hope it will help American readers discover the joys of Chinese home cooking, especially vegetables!

Britannia holds her own in the kitchen – finally!

I made a point of trying to prepare my Chinese friends for our Sunday lunch at St John Bread and Wine. “It’s one of my favourite restaurants, and I think the food is wonderful, but you may find it a bit simple by Chinese standards. The kitchen is incredibly careful (非常讲究) about the quality of ingredients, and the founding chef was one of the catalysts for the renaissance of British cooking. I’m taking you there because I want to show you some of the best of our local cuisine, but it’s quite meaty. And even if you’re not crazy about the savoury courses, one thing in which they excel is puddings and other sweet things, so you must try them… Etc etc.” Continue reading…

Happy Christmas!

The pleasures (and perils) of eating hairy crabs

My piece on eating hairy crabs will be broadcast on From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4 this morning – you can listen to the broadcast live at 1130 GMT here, listen afterwards here, or read it here! Hairy crab (mao xie 毛蟹) is one of the Chinese names for this delicious freshwater creature, but they are generally known as ‘big sluice crabs’ (da zha xie) because they were traditionally caught around the floodgates in the Lower Yangtze Region, especially around the Yangcheng Lake near Suzhou. As you will read in my piece, they are known as ‘hairy crabs’ because of the spiky yellow hairs that grow along their legs – but Westerners have a tendency to call them ‘mitten crabs’, possibly because that sounds less unattractive in English, but also because they have ‘mittens’ of moss cushioning the base of their claws.

Although the crab season is now drawing to a close, they are ubiquitous during the autumn months if you happen to be in Shanghai or its surrounding region. They are advertised on great billboards looming over city streets, sold, graded by size and sex, at specialist shops, and listed on the menus of many local restaurants. You can even buy boxes of live crabs at Shanghai’s airports, their feet and claws tightly bound with rice straw, and take them home with you.(They also have a history of illicit immigration, hitching rides on container ships to places like England, where they are regarded as an invasive species.)

In my BBC piece I mention the butterfly and the monk – pictures below.

The gastronomic delights of Taiwan

dan zai mian 擔仔麵

My piece on eating in Taiwan is published in today’s Observer – for me at least, it brings back some delicious memories. I first visited Taiwan in 1993, when I took an intensive Chinese course at the Mandarin Training Center, before travelling around China and Tibet for six weeks – and making my first, fateful visit to Chengdu. At that time I barely spoke Chinese and knew almost nothing about Chinese food, but a few food memories stand out from that sultry, tropical Taiwan summer. The glorious mangoes that were then in season: I remember eating them constantly, dressed in light summer clothes, with juice running everywhere (and I remember objects around the place I was staying, including telephone receivers) being helplessly sticky with mango juice. A revolting cloud of stinking tofu vapour that I passed through every day on my way to school: I thought the smell came from a rubbish dump or rotting drain, and only later

run bing 潤餅

discovered its true origin. The wonderful self-service buffet restaurants near the college, many of them vegetarian, where one could pile a plate with samples of a vast range of interesting dishes, for a modest price. Sitting on tatami mats for Japanese lunches.

Fish head at Shen Yen, Yilan

Later, in about 2004, I went back to Taipei to research an article for Gourmet magazine (unfortunately it’s not available online, but I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written). It was a fascinating and wonderful trip, and I’ve been longing to go back ever since, so it was great to be able to visit again this year.

Apart from the food, of course, you can’t miss the National Palace Museum, with its imperial Chinese treasures, including the famous ‘meat-shaped stone’ 肉形石. The hot springs are rather restorative, too, and it’s fun drinking tea in the hills of Maokong. Next time I hope I’ll be able to explore some of the stunning scenery in the centre and east of the island.

Lucky Peach Chinatown issue!

Very happy to be in the Chinatown issue of Lucky Peach, which is out now! It’s a fantastic issue, packed with interesting stuff. Londoners can find it in Foyles in Charing Cross Road.