Author Fuchsia Dunlop’s introduction to meals in China included goose intestines, rabbit ears, frog ovaries, deer tendons, duck necks, chicken feet, ox throats, and a whole lot more. It was a jaw-dropping experience that transformed her life forever.
So how did this British English Literature major stumble onto a table of unusual foodie fare (some might even label “bizarre” bites) of animal parts and organs?
“I had eaten some Chinese food in England,” said Dunlop. But it never prepared her for what awaited her in Communist China.
After attaining a master’s degree in China Studies from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, she enrolled in Chinese evening classes and volunteered as a writer and editor for China Now.
In predicting Dunlop’s ultimate career choice, her path may have seemed somewhat circuitous, but a strong motivating factor was her childhood ambition to cook in a restaurant: to be a chef. Falling back to these early aspirations, in 1994 after a year-long postgraduate scholarship to study Chinese Minorities, Culture and History at Sichuan University in Chengdu, she enrolled in a 3-month chef’s training course at the prestigious Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine. The first foreigner to be accepted into the privately run culinary academy in Chengdu. Currently, approximately 1,000 overseas students now enroll yearly.
During her visits to the local markets, Dunlop witnessed “cages of badgers, cats, and tapirs,” among numerous other unfamiliar market proteins for sale. Suspicions aroused, she eventually concluded it implied a regard for most forms of life as prospective food sources.
While joining academy colleagues and associates for daily meals, Dunlop’s early intuitive market conclusion proved to be accurate. Masking outward signs of hesitancy or distaste, it was “English good manners” that compelled her to dine on all manner of unknown, unaccustomed breakfast, lunch, and dinners.
“I started out in China with my own cultural prejudices, my own food preferences and taboos, which all had to be dismantled, one by one,” she said. The more she learned about Cathay food conventions, the more fascinated she became.
“Chinese people eat things that Westerners think weird,” she said, but following her initial inaugural casseroles of curious comestibles, she quickly concluded: “China has the finest tradition of gastronomy in the world… [the food is] delicious, exciting… and always very fresh.”
It wasn’t long before her favorite Saturday night meal was stir-fried rabbit’s head “tossed in a wok with chili and spring onions.” She wrote with relish of sated pleasures, devouring the “silky richness of the flesh along the jaw, the melting softness of the eyeball, the luxuriant smoothness of the brain.”
As dauntless as she may have been in her newly discovered burgeoning tastes, Dunlop abstained from joining those participating in visits to the famous Beijing penis restaurant, Guolizhuang, whose menus highlighted a “smorgasbord… of oxen, dogs, yaks… and occasionally tiger” cocks and balls.
In defense of what might be shocking to some, “Penises (pizzles) have magical properties in Chinese medicinal traditions” and are prescribed for impotence and infertility. “Stag pizzles, fresh or dried, are a particularly prized tonic, extraordinarily expensive in China,” she said.
In the West, at the time of her first visit to the Republic of China (Zhonghua Minguo), Chinese food was generally regarded as a cheap take-out meal. Since then, the status of the cuisine has undergone a serious makeover. “Attitudes in the West have changed dramatically,” said Dunlop. “Western chefs are beginning to wake up to the fact that China has an amazing gastronomical tradition.”
In general, the author affirmed: “The cooking profession has a low social status, but the appreciation of Chinese food is something that transcends all class and cultural boundaries.”
Following her studies in China, Dunlop returned to London and began reviewing Chinese restaurants for various magazines and newspapers. In 2001, she published her first book, Sichuan Cookery, which won the guild of Food Writers Jeremy Round Award for a best first book. This was followed by a number of others: Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook (2006) focused on the fare of Hunan, accompanied with a memoir of her travels in the People’s Republic of China; Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper (2008) won the IACP Jane Grigson Award and the Guild of Food Writers Kate Whiteman Award; Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (2012) garnered a James Beard Foundation Award, so thoroughly researched that it earned a large fanbase in the People’s Republic where her books are now translated and published; Land of Fish and Rice: Recipes from the Culinary Heart of China (2016) features the food of Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.
Between 2019 to 2023, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Asia’s superpower barred entry of foreign visitors for three years. Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food was written during the lockdown. From 150 notebooks of recipes and descriptions she had compiled over 30 years, Dunlop’s focus is to advocate and promote Chinese food as the world’s most diverse and exciting cuisine. Released in 2023, the book has been lauded as “destined to be a culinary classic” and the author as “one of the best writers on Chinese food.”
While much of Dunlop’s fascinating life story and early Chinese adventures are revealed in scores of her written articles and books, Dunlop’s Invitation to a Banquet delves into the “history, philosophy and techniques of Chinese culinary culture,” bringing context to content in an approach that enriches the reading experience. “Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine… yet [it is] both one of the world’s best-loved culinary traditions and one of its least understood,” she writes. It is in her newest work that the author strives and succeeds in bringing clarity to each.
Those in search of extraordinary recipes, e.g., one half pound of “this,” two cups of “that,” etc., will be left with a sum zero count. Read my lips. There are no such recipes.”
There is, however, a work well worthy of time and legal tender. Within its 466 pages, Dunlop structures four major divisions, each with its set of subdivisions focused on a variety of dishes that relay their histories, practices and current transformations.
1. The Hearth — Origins of Chinese Food (Cha Siu Pork, Steamed Rice, Fish Stew, Bitter Melon and Pork Rib Soup); 2. Farm — Choosing Ingredients (Bamboo Shoots, Stir-Fried Chinese Broccoli, Perch with Water Shield Soup, Mapo Tofu, Dongpo Pork, Mutton Hotpot, Drunken Crabs, Braised Pomelo Pith, Catfish, Bear Paws; 3. Kitchen — Culinary Techniques (Top-Ranking Pot, Sweet and Sour Carp, Raw Sliced Fish, Steamed Reeves Shad, Stir-Fried Shrimp, Shadong Tofu, Knife-Scraped Noodles, Soup Dumplings); 4. Table —Food and Ideas — (Mother Duck Twists, Chonggqing Chicken, Dry-Fried Eels, Sweet Potato Leaves, Russian Soup, Red-Braised Pork)
The prologue introduces the author and her journey of discovery. It should not be missed. Toward the end of the book, a 10-page Chinese Culinary Chronology from the Mythical Past — making fire, to the People’s Republic of China — 1949, yields interesting details on the what-where-when-why-how of the country’s key epicurean advances.
For over 30 years, Fuchsia Dunlop has become one of the leading authorities on Chinese food culture in the English-speaking world, identifying and highlighting local ingredients often unknown in the West, for example, bridal-veil mushroom and aquatic vegetables like water bamboo and fox nuts.
She continues to visit China several times a year to study the cuisine of different regions, traveling the country to meet chefs, restaurateurs, home cooks, gourmets, local growers and suppliers of farm products to better understand the country, its people and cuisines. When visiting the provinces, people often ask why she is there, to which she simply replies: “I’ve come to eat.” Heads up, it’s an enticing, winner of a slogan for foodie T-shirts and calling cards.
Updating the world on Chinese innovations, concepts, and developments that enhance and benefit food production and consumption, Dunlop has become a powerhouse promoter and standard bearer for Chinese cuisine. A fiercely loyal champion, she celebrates the plated dishes emerging from the kitchens of the Middle Kingdom, stating, “I don’t think foreigners recognize [that]… Chinese culture has a deep understanding of how to eat well not just for pleasure, but for physical balance and for good health.”
Readily accessible, a marvelous read, Invitation to a Banquet is tantamount to a friend sharing a fascinating journey of discovery. Filled with wit and wonder, the author unveils much of what the West has yet to discover. It is an awe-inspiring narrative of Asia’s Red Dragon fare and an insight into its teeming 1.4 billion omnivores.
