Invitation to a Banquet: A History of Chinese Food cover image
Invitation to a Banquet: A History of Chinese Food cover image

Invitation to a Banquet: A History of Chinese Food

by Fuchsia Dunlop
Publication date: January 21, 2025
Paperback
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Finalist for the 2024 IACP Award for Literary or Historical Food Writing

An NPR 2023 "Books We Love" Pick • A Food & Wine Best Food of 2023 • A Financial Times Best Food and Drink Book of 2023 • One of Smithsonian's Ten Best Books About Food of 2023

The world’s most sophisticated gastronomic culture, brilliantly presented through a banquet of thirty Chinese dishes.

Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese laborers began to settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake. Yet Chinese has the curious distinction of being both one of the world’s best-loved culinary traditions and one of the least understood. For more than a century, the overwhelming dominance of a simplified form of Cantonese cooking ensured that few foreigners experienced anything of its richness and sophistication―but today that is beginning to change.

In Invitation to a Banquet, award-winning cook and writer Fuchsia Dunlop explores the history, philosophy, and techniques of Chinese culinary culture. In each chapter, she examines a classic dish, from mapo tofu to Dongpo pork, knife-scraped noodles to braised pomelo pith, to reveal a distinctive aspect of Chinese gastronomy, whether it’s the importance of the soybean, the lure of exotic ingredients, or the history of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. Meeting food producers, chefs, gourmets, and home cooks as she tastes her way across the country, Fuchsia invites readers to join her on an unforgettable journey into Chinese food as it is cooked, eaten, and considered in its homeland.

Weaving together history, mouthwatering descriptions of food, and on-the-ground research conducted over the course of three decades, Invitation to a Banquet is a lively, landmark tribute to the pleasures and mysteries of Chinese cuisine.

Physical Info: 3.05 cms H x 20.83 cms L x 13.97 cms W (0.36 kgs) 480 pages

Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese laborers began to settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake. Yet Chinese has the curious distinction of being both one of the world's best-loved culinary traditions and one of the least understood. For more than a century, the overwhelming dominance of a simplified form of Cantonese cooking ensured that few foreigners experienced anything of its richness and sophistication--but today that is beginning to change.

In Invitation to a Banquet, award-winning cook and writer Fuchsia Dunlop explores the history, philosophy, and techniques of Chinese culinary culture. In each chapter, she examines a classic dish, from mapo tofu to Dongpo pork, knife-scraped noodles to braised pomelo pith, to reveal a distinctive aspect of Chinese gastronomy, whether it's the importance of the soybean, the lure of exotic ingredients, or the history of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. Meeting food producers, chefs, gourmets, and home cooks as she tastes her way across the country, Fuchsia invites readers to join her on an unforgettable journey into Chinese food as it is cooked, eaten, and considered in its homeland.

Weaving together history, mouthwatering descriptions of food, and on-the-ground research conducted over the course of three decades, Invitation to a Banquet is a lively, landmark tribute to the pleasures and mysteries of Chinese cuisine.

Fuchsia Dunlop is a James Beard Award-winning author specializing in the cuisines of China, where she trained as a chef in the 1990s. A fluent Chinese speaker, she is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including the IACP Award finalist Invitation to a Banquet and James Beard Award finalist The Food of Sichuan. Five of her books have been published in Chinese translation. Fuchsia has appeared as a Chinese food expert on shows including Chef's Table, Ugly Delicious, and Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown. She currently lives in London.