A Taste For China

From 'oil-exploding shrimp' to red-braised pork, food writer Fuchsia Dunlop shares her passion for the subtleties of Chinese food with a wider audience, Mike Peters reports.

One spring afternoon on a lake in Zhejiang province, a fisherman rowed up and offered Fuchsia Dunlop some live shrimp he had caught a few moments before. Later that evening, she writes in her new cookbook: A chef in the group "cooked them up in a typical Zhejiang style, deep-frying and then stir-frying them over a high flame with a sweet, rich sauce laced with rice wine and vinegar. The deep-frying in very hot oil is known as 'oil exploding' (you bao), and it shocks the papery thin shells away from the flesh, making them delectably crisp and crunchy. The fragrant sauce clings to the prawns like lacquer, so they look as beautiful as they taste".

Dunlop has been immersed in the food culture of China, particularly of Sichuan province, for more than a decade. Until recently, however, she doubted Western readers would buy into her passion.