The Food of Sichuan Hardcover – Illustrated, October 15, 2019

I am not Chinese, but my wife is, and we both love the complex taste tapestries of Sichuan food --- the red spicy sauces, the vinegary boiled fish, and especially the numbing peppercorns on everything. We struggle to find good authentic Sichuan restaurants near us in the US --- many of them seem to not use fresh or good ingredients, and the tastes are so inferior to what you can get in China even at a cheap takeout place. So I have been learning to cook more of it and have found some recipes on the internet myself, but it's been hit or miss.Enter this book --- it's fabulous! My Chinese is still rudimentary, so having a book in English is mandatory still for me. It's got recipes for things I know and love to cook already like mapo tofu (hot and numbing tofu with ground pork sauce), dan dan mian (noodles with spicy sesame sauce) but adds recipes for things I like to order when in China but have never made, like shuizhu yu (spicy boiled fish) and suanla chaoshou (pork wonton in vinegary spicy broth) . My wife asked me to check for the eggplant dish we recently had in China --- yup, there it is!And then there's dishes I haven't even tried yet, but am very curious about. Some have photos which is great since sometimes I can recognize the dish by searching on the main ingredient and skimming photos better than by the name -- this is one huge advantage of owning a comprehensive paper cookbook over the internet. Another is that she goes through all the tools, common ingredients, and prepping and cooking techniques which might not be immediately clear from an internet recipe.This book is going to bring me years of cooking exploration and really fill that culinary gap of Sichuan cuisine I feel between trips to China. It's only the second cookbook I own (because internet) but it was totally worth it.

great recipes, but also wonderful explanation of ingredients and cooking techniques. I have been able to duplicate flavors experienced in Chengdu, with remarkable similarity. It's also simply "a great read", wonderful stories.

Excellent

I read this book cover to cover, barely stopping for a break. Then immediately gifted it. This is the most in-depth view into Sichuan food I could have hoped for. The recipes are wonderful (making flower tofu felt empowering...I mean you're making your own tofu from scratch!) but it's the pages and pages of history and modern context that make it spectacular.Don't expect American-style Chinese food. This is the kind of book where reading the pantry section will open you up to a whole new world of cooking (if it's a cuisine you're not already versed in). There are many ingredients that can only be found at specialty stores, but nothing that doesn't exist online.A beautiful, massive book that will throw you straight into the heart of the food of Sichuan. It was a pleasure to learn about how the region produced the cuisine and the recipes in equal parts.

My son, who is an excellent cook, was talking about this book. I purchased it for him for Christmas and he’s making some of the recipes and loves the book.

I borrowed this book from the library and decided that I needed to have it on my bookshelf. I have one other cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop and I like all the recipes. While I have only begun to read the book, it's such a nice intro to Sichuan. I so enjoy finding out about a culture from cooks who fall in love with a cuisine and culture that's not originally their own. That's what happened to her when she stayed in China during her college days. Sometimes we learn the most about a region when we see it through the eyes of a foreigner who becomes enchanted by it. The pictures really enhance the cookbook, too.

Fuschia Dunlop really knows her stuff. The recipes are amazing, the pictures are gorgeous, and the explanations really help a non-Chinese reader get into the cultural mindset of the food. Of course, with a food culture like Sichuan, there is always more that could be added. But on the whole, it's a wonderful book.

A veritable manual on authentic Chinese cooking. wonderful glossy pictures. Clear instructions for preparing dishes.