About
Fuchsia Dunlop is a cook and food-writer specialising in Chinese cuisine. She is the author of Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, an account of her adventures in exploring Chinese food culture, and two critically-acclaimed Chinese cookery books, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, and Sichuan Cookery (published in the US as Land of Plenty).
Fuchsia writes for publications including The Financial Times, The New Yorker, Gourmet and Saveur. She is a regular guest on radio and television, and has appeared on shows including Gordon Ramsay’s The F-Word, NPR’s All Things Considered and The Food Programme on BBC Radio 4. She was named ‘Food Journalist of the Year’ by the British Guild of Food Writers in 2006, and has been shortlisted for four James Beard Awards. Her first book, Sichuan Cookery, won the Jeremy Round Award for best first book; Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper won both the Jane Grigson Award in the US, and the Kate Whiteman Award for Food and Travel in the UK.
She is a consultant to the popular Barshu Sichuanese restaurant in London, and has also consulted and taught Chinese cookery for companies including Williams Sonoma, Sharwoods and Marks and Spencer. Fuchsia has spoken and cooked at conferences and events in China, Barcelona, California, New York, Sydney and Singapore, and as part of the Transart festival in Bolzano, Italy.
Fuchsia grew up in Oxford, and studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge University, Sichuan University, and later at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She first became interested in China through a sub-editing job at the BBC, which led her to take evening classes in Mandarin, and eventually to win a British Council scholarship to study for a year in the Sichuanese capital, Chengdu. She speaks, reads and writes Chinese.
‘The best writer in the West… on Chinese food’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Fuchsia has a rare ability to convey an encyclopaedic knowledge of Chinese cuisine in a compelling and totally delicious way.’ Heston Blumenthal
‘Fuchsia Dunlop joins the ranks of literary food writers such as Elizabeth David and Claudia Roden.’Independent
‘A world authority on Chinese cooking… Her approach is a happy mixture of scholarly and gluttonous.’Observer Food Monthly