Fuchsia Dunlop has been on the Chinese food scene for less than
ten years, but she made such a big splash with her wonderful first book, Land
of Plenty, that it is truly difficult to imagine thinking about Sichuan
cuisine without her authoritative voice popping into my head.
But
whenever I come to admire certain writers, the most difficult thing has been the wait
between their books. You see, it has been five long years since her last guide
to creating great Chinese food (the spicy foods of Hunan that time
around), so I have been very impatient for her newest book to appear.
Every
Grain of Rice (to be released February 4th) guides us through home
cooking, mainly in areas south of the Yangtze River, and what a trip it is.
Here is the beginning of my review for the online food magazine Zester Daily:
"British
food writer Fuchsia Dunlop focused tightly on single regions of China in her
first two cookbooks, Land of Plenty (Sichuan) and The Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook (Hunan).
But in her latest endeavor, Every Grain of Rice, she expands her scope to
easy comfort foods from a wide swath of China.
"Every Grain of Rice is the perfect introduction to cooking the way Chinese
people do at home, with simple, clear instructions opposite lovely full-color
photographs of almost every dish. For those who are just beginning to admire
Chinese food, this book could nudge them over the edge into hopeless devotion.
"The beautiful photography is enticing, helpful and very
welcome, for the lack of ample illustrations was one of the few quibbles I had
with Dunlop’s first book, Land
of Plenty. Drawing on her experience as the first foreign student at the
acclaimed Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, her debut became an instant
classic, enticing readers to succumb to the spell of central China’s
chili-laden foods...."
