For 30 years, Fuchsia Dunlop has championed and celebrated Chinese food in the West – so much so that she now also has a loyal following in China
Fuchsia Dunlop’s new book is called Invitation to a Banquet and, true to her word, she has asked me to join her for just such an event: dim sum on a Monday lunchtime at the Royal China Club, a Cantonese restaurant in central London. After she has a quick conference with the waiter in Mandarin, our table starts filling up: oolong tea arrives first; followed by little domed pastry puffs encasing char sui pork; and turnip cake, which is much more delicious than it sounds. Then a long strip of Barbie-pink cheung fun, stuffed with crispy seafood; a bamboo basket with elegant sui mai, one-bite pork and prawn dumplings with little pops of crab roe on top; and – eek! – a bowl of chicken feet poking out of black bean sauce. Finally, just as I’m beginning to forget what vegetables even look like, a plate of Chinese broccoli dressed in ginger arrives.
It seems unlikely that every reader of Invitation to a Banquet will be afforded the privilege of sitting with Dunlop and having her curate a personal, multi-course feast, but you never know. Dunlop, an English food writer in her early 50s, loves nothing more than matchmaking Western eaters with what is to them unfamiliar and sometimes intimidating Chinese food. In 30 years of exploring and documenting the country, she has done for China what Elizabeth David did for Mediterranean food and Claudia Roden did for the Middle East.
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