How western eaters get Chinese food wrong, with Fuchsia Dunlop

This is an audio transcript of the FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘How western eaters get Chinese food wrong, with Fuchsia Dunlop’

Lilah Raptopoulos
When Fuchsia Dunlop was a kid, she and her family really loved Chinese takeout.

Fuchsia Dunlop
Sweet and sour pork balls with an absolutely bright red, sweet and sour sauce was the favourite dish. And also sort of chow mein, chop suey, that sort of thing.

Lilah Raptopoulos
But when Fuchsia was a teenager, she went to Dim Sum in London with a friend who was Singaporean-Chinese, and that was a complete revelation. The food was totally different and it was really exciting. So over the years, Fuchsia went deep. She moved to Chengdu and became the first foreigner to ever study at this prestigious cooking school there called the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine. She started cooking Chinese food in her hometown of London and doing demos on TV. She wrote four cookbooks, a memoir, tons of articles. She won awards. And now, more than three decades later, Fuchsia has become really the go-to translator of Chinese food to a western audience. As far as she’s concerned, this is the best cuisine in the world.

Fuchsia Dunlop
You know, whatever you like, China has it. Fantastic roast meats, soups and stews, stir fries. I mean, after sort of 30 years of travelling around China and eating, every time I go back, I’m coming across new ingredients, cooking methods, even, you know, new cuisines, local cuisines.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes.

Fuchsia Dunlop
It’s endlessly thrilling.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Fuchsia has just come out with her sixth book, which I really couldn’t put down. It’s called, Invitation to a Banquet. The Story of Chinese Food. And it’s not a cookbook. It’s really more of a culture and history book. It dispels the many misconceptions and prejudices that the west has about Chinese food like that it’s unhealthy or cheap or that you don’t know what’s in it. And it teaches us what Chinese food really is.

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This week Fuchsia is on the show to teach us what we can learn from Chinese cuisine. And there’s a lot to learn because, in her words, good food in China is about how it makes you feel during dinner, after dinner the following day and for the rest of your life. This is FT Weekend. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos.

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Fuchsia, welcome to the show. I’m so thrilled to have you.

Fuchsia Dunlop
Hi again.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Hi again. Yeah. Welcome back. So you’ve just come out with your sixth book, Invitation to a Banquet. I’ve just been loving it. And I wanted to ask a simple question to start, which is just, why do you love Chinese food so much? Like, what makes it so special to you?

Fuchsia Dunlop
You know, in China, you have this country, which is almost like a continent with the most immense geographic diversity, with different produce all over the country, different culinary traditions. So if you sort of think of what that means to have this culture that really cares about food and cooking on such a scale, it’s quite something. And yet it’s very under-acknowledged as being one of the world’s, if not the world’s greatest and most sophisticated and most diverse cuisine.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. You wrote that they’ve been caring about terroir and seasonality for more than 2000 years. Imitation meats are like a thousand years old in China. I felt like as I was reading, a lot was blowing my mind. But I’m kind of curious. You know, you’ve been writing about this, cooking Chinese food, living it, researching it for decades. You said in your book that over time you’ve come to think that no other cuisine can compare. Can you tell me briefly why? Like, why did you want to write this book?

Fuchsia Dunlop
I wanted to write this book because having written several cookbooks over the last few years, I wanted to go deeper into the culture, the historical, the sort of question of what Chinese food actually is, what makes it distinctively Chinese, what does it mean? And there’s a limit to the extent you can do that with a cookbook. And also, just because I think it’s beyond overdue that Chinese food gets the respect and acknowledgment that it should have and that people realise that, as you’ve just said, all these things that are very fashionable in the modern west and, you know, China could be a source of inspiration and teaching place, and yet so many people in the west don’t realise that. So that was the real purpose.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, so I hope you’ll go back in time with me. I know that you loved Chinese takeout as a teenager. Many of us did. You in Britain, me in the US. What was its place in British culture back then? Like back in the 70s and 80s when you were growing up, Where did it sit?

Fuchsia Dunlop
Well, I think there was a, you know, in that era, there was a takeaway in every British town. It was very much part of the landscape of growing up. And at that time also, British people didn’t eat out as much as they do today. So there would be an Indian takeaway, a Chinese takeaway in Chinatown in London, where there were a lot of Chinese people, there were restaurants that were not only cooking for westerners, they would cook for Chinese Cantonese palates. And these restaurants did very nice Cantonese food. And because a lot of westerners at that time anyway had a problem with having bones in their chicken or, you know, they just sort of weren’t ready to open themselves up completely Chinese food, and so I think waiters tended to steer people towards sweet, sour pork, crispy dark, the sort of tried and tested favourites because they knew people would like them.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
Chinese food does hold this popular image in western culture. That folded paper takeout carton with the wood chopsticks in it, the sweet and sour packets. Fuchsia explains the history of how that came to be in her book. In the 1800s and 1900s, Chinese immigrants from the Cantonese south moved to the US for the gold rush and to build railroads. Then they also moved to Britain for jobs. They started to be seen as an economic threat and legislation was passed that made it hard for them to get work.

Fuchsia Dunlop
And the openings that were available to Chinese people were laundries and restaurants. And so many Chinese people ended up opening, you know, these small businesses, often restaurants, and take up places in very white areas. And most of them weren’t particularly accomplished chefs. I mean, the purpose was to make a living and make a life in America. And they created a formula starting really with chop suey, which caught people’s imaginations and became incredibly popular.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. Yeah. So the way we think about Chinese food in the west stems from this, right? Like boneless meats and sauces, stir fried noodles, fried rice, like very delicious fried food. But am I right in saying that that’s not what food in China is like? I’m wondering if you can explain what food in China is like.

Fuchsia Dunlop
In China, eating is all about balance. And I mean, this is one of the craziest stereotypes about Chinese food that it’s unhealthy. And I think this is a very pervasive stereotype. And this is crazy because I think more than any other civilisation, the Chinese have been obsessed for more than 2000 years with the links between diet and health and with the idea that food actually is medicine. So the way Chinese people eat very commonly, um, you have some tasty dishes, but you also have very light, refreshing broths, lots of fresh vegetables. You have steamed foods like plain steamed fish. And so a typical Chinese meal is totally different from a typical Chinese takeaway. I mean, the elements of the takeaway, sure, they’re Chinese, but it’s not really representative.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. So Fuchsia, I would love to go through a couple of misconceptions that we might have about Chinese food and then and the reality. And one of them is that Chinese food makes you full and heavy. But actually in the west we have this tendency to like gorge and detox and like eat this crazy meal and then the next day eat a bunch of carrots and then do it again. And in China you can have a feast and a fast in the same meal. You said that guests on your food tours feel good and they lose weight. And even though all they do is eat. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Fuchsia Dunlop
I mean, it’s sort of it’s all about how you compose a menu, really. And it’s very interesting that westerners going to Chinese restaurants. They typically just order all the tasty and exciting dishes and they probably won’t order the vegetables because they seem rather expensive and uninteresting, you know, just a stir fried green, and they almost never order light soup. So the way people compose a Chinese meal makes it all very strongly flavours probably quite salty, oilier than it need be. Whereas if you have someone knowledgeable in Chinese ordering a meal, they’ll have some tasty dishes, but they probably will have a stir fried green vegetable with just a bit of garlic or ginger, a light soup and plain steamed rice and already that’s a whole different thing. (laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, right. I know. I was thinking about that. I was like, man, it’s us. (laughter) Like, we’re eating Chinese food right now but we’re not supposed to spoon the oil from a dish over the rice. We’re supposed to pick up the pieces and leave the oil. We’re not supposed to, like, use fried rice as a base we’re supposed to use. You know, steamed rice.

Fuchsia Dunlop
Yeah. It just seems really unfair that westerners have always shown this unerring preference for deep fried, sweet and sour Chinese food. And then they blame the Chinese for eating unhealthily. And this is just, it just doesn’t make any sense.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Yeah. Another misconception that I’ve been thinking about a lot is that the west thinking that in Chinese food you like, quote, “don’t know what you’re eating because so many Chinese dishes are made of a lot of ingredients cut into small pieces and cooked”. But that actually in Chinese cooking that’s considered more civilised and actually more creative than like what we do, which can be a slab of meat and some steamed potatoes. Can you talk about that?

Fuchsia Dunlop
Yes, it is this idea that food is recognisable and you know, the English used to say of the French that they were somehow deceitful because they covered all their food in sauces. And I think with Chinese it’s very interesting how many of the early commentators on Chinese food from the west remarked on the fact that the food was all cut into very small pieces and that they didn’t know what they were eating. And often this sort of was then, you know, fed into a kind of racial prejudice about the Chinese as being cheapskates, wanting to cheat people, eating terrifyingly exotic ingredients. So, you know, you have a stir fry of white meat. You know, is it really chicken or is it snake? So it sort of became part of western prejudice about Chinese food.

But in China, I mean, it’s very interesting that the history of cutting food into small pieces goes back at least 2000 years. And it’s, it evolved in tandem with the use of chopsticks because, of course, if you’re eating with chopsticks, there are no knives at the table. All the food has to be either cut into small pieces that you can pick up with chopsticks or it has to be soft enough to tear with chopsticks. And it just struck me as I was researching and writing the book that there is a link here that, you know, the Chinese had this culture in which actually a huge hunk of meat was seen as rather archaic, even barbaric. I mean, that’s how the nomads on the fringes of China, that’s how their distant ancestors ate. But the Chinese people, they didn’t eat raw food. They civilise their food by cooking it and they also civilised the food in a sense by cutting it into small pieces and making it very elegant and by banishing the brutality of knives to the kitchen.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, this idea that there’s a not hearing a knife against a plate in a dining room is actually kind of savage. It’s like, kind of as, yeah, yeah. So funny. The other part of that that really interests me is, like, is the idea that it’s there’s no creativity in roasting a chunk of meat or in just like, eating something raw. Like, actually there’s something more creative and more kind of civilised to cook your raw food and transform it into something new.

Fuchsia Dunlop
The Chinese are brilliant at considering, for example, every different part of the animal and cooking it differently according to its texture and its taste and its qualities and its deficiencies. And so you cut the food and then you cut it into small pieces and you cook everything differently. So a typical Chinese meal is not like your roast chicken with two veg, as in the English conception. A typical Chinese meal is si cai yi tang, which means four dishes and a soup. So four, this is a sort of stereotype, but four dishes of combinations of cut-up ingredients and the soup.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
Fuchsia, can you tell me a little bit more about the kinds of creative questions that Chinese chefs ask themselves when they’re experimenting with food? And I ask that because you have this incredible chapter about pomelo pith like the pith of the pomelo. So like the fleshy inner rind of that citrus with which there’s a lot and no one really knows what to do with it. And actually, it’s used in these, like, gorgeous dishes in China. And it makes you ask the question, sort of like, who thought of that and what makes an ingredient? And could things that you never even thought of as food that you eat be ingredients?

Fuchsia Dunlop
Yeah. Yeah. So the way I frame this is it seems to me that a typical western chef will look at an ingredient and ask the question, “Is this edible?” And, while a Chinese chef will look at an ingredient and ask a slightly but importantly, different question, which is how can I make this edible? So you can take something that is really unpromising, like pomelo pith. It’s like cotton wool in a way. It’s tasteless, it’s fluffy, it’s bland, it’s a little bit bitter. You know, what can I do with this? And in the case of Cantonese chefs, they prepare it in elaborate preparation, which involves a couple of days of soaking and rinsing, cooking in a marvellous stock, reducing the sauce, and you end up with this gorgeous, soothing, comforting texture in a lavishly umami, savoury sauce. It is one of my favourite Cantonese dishes, I have to say. And this, to me, is just testament to the creativity and imagination of Chinese cooks. And it’s not unique.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. Yeah. Fuchsia, I wonder, like, is it complicated for you to be a westerner specialising in Chinese cuisine? I imagine in some ways it kind of serves your mission, and in some ways it can be complicated. And I’m curious about it.

Fuchsia Dunlop
I think the fact that I’m so unusual has made people really curious and possibly quite keen to support me in a way, you know, that they most of the people I meet in Chinese kitchens have never interacted socially or professionally with a westerner before, particularly, you know, I can speak Chinese and I can speak the Chinese of the kitchen. That’s a quite specialist level. And so I think people find this a bit intriguing, that I’m a foreigner, that I’m a woman, of course, because most chefs are men, and also that I’m highly educated. I mean, with being a westerner, I mean, originally I thought I was trying to write about Chinese food for westerners. And I suppose, you know, as a convert, if people see me eating chicken’s feet, then it’s like, it’s not just a Chinese habit any one. You know, so that’s something that’s quite useful.

But the surprising thing has been that actually a lot of the people who read my books and like them most are actually Chinese. When I do book tools and events in America, for example, a great proportion of the audience are Chinese, both Chinese-born and American-born Chinese. So, I mean, I see it very much as a sort of, you know, collaboration, you know, and I feel very grateful that Chinese people appreciate the work as well, really.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
My last question is just that you write about food as a portal into something bigger. And I just wanted to know, for me, I was curious to hear what is food a portal into?

Fuchsia Dunlop
Well, most importantly, into human relationships and meeting people. You know, and I think we all experience that in our families and with friends, but also in this case, into a relationship with China. So you can experience so many different aspects of Chinese culture and civilisation with food as a starting point. And of course, it’s just delicious and fun too. I mean, you know, let’s not forget the sensory pleasures of Chinese food, which are immense.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Fuchsia, this has been such a delight. Thank you so much for being with us.

Fuchsia Dunlop
Thank you. Great. Great to talk to you again.

Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show this week. Thank you for listening to FT Weekend, the Life and Arts podcast of the Financial Times. If you hear this in time, Fuchsia and I are doing a cooking demo on the secrets of Chinese cuisine at the weekend festival together in London this Saturday, September 2nd at Kenwood House. It is a whole day of talks and festivities. This is just one of them. I have a discount code for tickets in the show notes. We also have some relevant links to Fuchsia’s work in the show notes and those links will get you past the paywall in FT.com.

As you know, we love chatting with you. The show is on Twitter at @FTWeekendPod. And I am on Instagram and Twitter, but mostly chatting with you guys about culture on Instagram @LilahRap. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos, and here is my talented team. Kata Kumkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smyth is our producer. Molly Nugent is our contributing producer. Our sound engineers are Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco with original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer. Monique Malema is our intern. And our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Have a wonderful weekend and we’ll find each other again next week.