Year of the Golden Pig: Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook

By JULIETTE ROSSANT It is the year of the golden pig on the lunar calendar, which comes around only every 60 years. Luckily, and just in time, Chinese cuisine scholar Fuchsia Dunlop has written Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province (Norton 2007). The book is engrossing as much for its wonderful recipes as the great scholarship and perceptive eye she brings to Chinese food from Hunan Province, home to Chairman Mao Zedung. Fuchsia is an amazing guide, having trained as a chef at China's leading cooking school, the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine in Chengdu. She reviews the history of Hunanese cuisine, that in some way resembles the development of the great cuisines of Europe: The roots of modern Hunnanese haute cuisine, now considered to be one of the eight regional schools of Chinese cooking, lie in the grand residences of imperial bureaucrats in he Qing period. There, private cooks created banquet delicacies for their highly educated and discriminating guests, stimulating a tradition of Epicureanism that spilled over into commercial restaurants in the civic sphere.(p. 16) The book is about more than haute cuisine, it is about the cuisine of the 20th century, from the most complex and esoteric to the humble dishes eaten during the famine of the 1960s and the Cultural Revolution. It is as much history book as cookbook about the food in one of China's most interesting provinces. A chapter on the Hunanese Pantry (p. 20) outlines ingredients and gives both the Chinese characters and the transliterated word for each, also included in each recipe. This is very handy for those searching for Chinese ingredients (just bring the book with you when you shop). The next chapter outlines The Cooking Arts(p. 30) with Basic Kitchen Techniques (p. 34), Cooking Methods (p. 36), and Kitchen Equipment (p. 40). The book is especially pleasing from its cover design (and background fuchsia color) to the chapter titles on what looks like gold paper, with opposing photographs of Fuchsia's notebooks. There are stunning photos of real meals laid out in street scenes (p. 12 and 13) as well as prepared dishes throughout the book. The former are, no doubt, by Fuchsia, and the latter are exellent studio food shots by Georgia Glynn Smith. This is a book that celebrates pork –- from snout to tail. The cover photograph is of Chairman Mao's Red-Braised Pork (p. 78) chunks of pork belly in a rich, spicy sauce. Fuchsia gives Chairman Mao's nephew recipe, which is just meat, plus variations that include various vegetables. "Men eat to build their brains," Chairman Mao's nephew, Mao Anpring assured me when I met him there a few years ago, "and ladies, to make themselves more beautiful." His friend and neighbor, the Shaoshan communist party secretary, told me he ate two bowlfuls a day to keep his intellect in shape. There is an interesting recipe for Steamed Pork Knuckle in Aromatic Sauce (pp. 86-87) with a Mao's communist party card on the second page. There are several recipes that call for smoked bacon, including Stir-Fried Smoky Bacon with Smoked Bean Curd (p. 94) with a tempting photograph opposite. The recipe note is a restaurant guide: In the kitchen of the Jade Belt restaurant in Zhangguying, the preserve meats hang from a bamboo pole suspended in the slow, drowsy smoke of the fire. There is pork, obviously, the fat smoked to a honey-colored yellow, the lean meat a dark crimson on the outside, pink within. But there is also wild muntjac, chicken, wild boar, catfish, and rabbit, all of which are local specialties. It is easy to imagine the characters of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon stopping at the Jade Belt for a noon meal. Fuchsia is obviously familiar with the pleasures of well prepared fat. Fuchsia is a great guide for Chinese New Year. She offers a recipe for Stir-Fried New Year Rice Cake with Smoked Bacon (p. 99) and then follows this with a wonderful essay about spending New Years with her friend Fan Qun in his village, complete with the new year's pig and ducks and several sumptuous feasts. The essay is accompanied by two photographs of girls standing next to a table set with a feast, and a table set with offerings and prayers being said to Heaven and Earth. There is plenty beyond pork to discover, including wonderful steamed vegetable dishes, the story of General Tso's Chicken along with the recipe and many variations. There is also a recipe for Peng's Home-Style Bean Curd (p. 183), with the story behind it, straight from Peng's current restaurant the Peng Yuan in Taipei. It is easy to see why Ken Hom thought Fuchsia was half-Chinese (see his forward on page 7). This is a wonderful, insightful look at an important part of China's history and cuisine. Previous articles: Chinese New Year: Martine's Chocolate Dogs [Cookbook Reviews -- complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, cookbook reviews, Chinese New Year --> back to Super Chef