At her home in London, England, Fuxia Dunlop turned the place reserved for the microwave oven in the kitchen into a shrine, where there was a statue of the Kitchen God, and a sign of "The Eastern Kitchen Secretary appointed the God of Fu Mansion", all of which were fragrant and waxy.
"The Kitchen God is the oldest 'god of family' in China, who protects the family life of all people in China." Fuxia hopes that the Kitchen God can travel across the sea and give her the blessing of a "gourd" who has studied Chinese cooking for more than 30 years.
Fuxia's Kitchen Fuxia from Britain has a "profound Chinese stomach" and 150 notebooks filled with food records. She has published five books on Chinese food in six years. If you talk about Chinese food with this blue eyed lady, she can start with the color, smell and taste of a dish and extend it to relevant history, classics, research and monographs. A small ingredient can tell the story of five thousand years.
When I met Fuxia in Chengdu, she was eagerly looking forward to taking her friends to eat hot pot in the evening. In her voice, there was a sense of "professionalism" of the local people: "My favorite is not hot pot, but fish flavored eggplant." She sighed, "Alas - but if you bring them 'foreigners' to Chengdu, hot pot must be eaten."
Fuxia (right) and translator He Yujia hold the Chinese and English versions of Junxing Food respectively one
The crispy fried batter is wrapped with soft and tender pork pieces, taken out from the rustling kraft paper, and dipped in bright red sweet and sour sauce when eating.
This is sweet and sour pork balls (balls) - Fuxia's favorite "Chinese food" in her childhood, and it is also a ubiquitous dish on the British Chinese menu in the 1970s. When she grew up, Fuxia realized later that "Chinese people have never liked sour and sweet food so much as westerners who eat Chinese food." When she studied at Sichuan University, she found that only foreigners would order every meal that started with "sweet and sour" on the menu of those restaurants.
Because of this, Fuxia said that she wrote Junxingshi with a very important purpose - to surprise western readers, "they would not expect so many beautiful and incredible dishes in Chinese food. Tell them what Chinese food is and how can foreigners really appreciate Chinese food?"
She found that the localized "Chinese food" not only has a single style, but also usually pursues bright colors and strong tastes of sour, sweet and salty. Fried snacks and fried noodles are popular, "which makes people blind, unable to fully experience and appreciate the diversity and subtlety of Chinese food culture... No Chinese people will eat such food at all."
Fu Xia often mentioned the interesting experience of eating "fried shredded food" with Yu Bo, a master of Sichuan cuisine, in Los Angeles. A tablespoon of shredded food was scooped on rice, with large pieces of boneless chicken, barbecued pork, shelled shrimps, cabbage, mushroom slices, and light brown multipurpose sauce.
This is indeed Chinese food, but it is not Chinese food in his concept. Yu Bo frowned as he watched, hesitantly picked up a piece of chicken and put it into his mouth. Finally, he cautiously commented, "It's OK... there's everything in it."
Fuxia's Kitchen In the UK, if she and her friends have a "localized" Chinese meal, Fuxia's choice is to take her friends to her home for a real Chinese meal without further explanation. There are some treasures in her kitchen: pickle jars and Shau Kei bought from Chengdu, save boxes made in Chengdu Lacquerware Factory, kitchen knives she took away after graduation from Sichuan College of Culinary Sciences
Kung Pao Chicken, Mapo Tofu, Fish with Bean Sauce, Shredded Pork with Garlic Stalks and so on are her favorite dishes; If you feel that you are on fire, you will also make some food to clear away heat. In order to get a "chicken with lead and feet" in England, she even started to kill chickens in the yard. When she received the chicken blood into the bowl, passers-by threw surprised eyes.
Fuxia's frying pan is full of holes Fuxia is particularly proud of the wok she has used for more than 30 years. She had found this in Chinatown before. The interior has been polished with a spatula for tens of thousands of times, and it has appeared potholes. She regarded it as a "personal history of Chinese cooking": "I have an English friend, and her husband is also a gourmet. They always thought that they did not like Chinese food until they had an authentic Chinese meal at home."
two
Open the catalogue of Junxing Food, Fuxia starts from the opening sequence of the banquet, including the kitchen fire, heaven and earth, cooking and table, and ends with the postscript of the banquet. Each chapter is a meat and vegetable match, making a good table.
Contents of Junxing Food (Part) "My book should write" balance "like a banquet, just like ordering food." Fu Xia is deeply aware of the essence of catering, "the main principle of ordering Chinese food is to focus on balance and diversity while trying to avoid repetition."
A chef in Hangzhou once told her that a chef's ability could be evaluated by looking at his menu. For example, if the guests have just eaten the fried sweet and sour fish, the next dish should form a refreshing contrast in the main ingredients, color, shape and taste, such as green leafy vegetables, hot and dry dishes, or soup made of shredded vegetables.
"The Chinese say that it takes three generations to become a gourmet. I have a good appetite. I have eaten so many things that surprised me in 30 years in China." The West advocates clean meat without bones, so Fuxia is impressed with some complicated banquet dishes, such as some special parts of fish.
"Braised in brown sauce" uses the tail of giant carp. Soup, cooking wine, soy sauce and sugar are used to stew this fish tail until the most tender colloid is integrated with the contents of the pot. Use your fingers to break off the tail fins one by one, and eat with a thin layer of sticky jelly in the middle. "It needs to be licked out like nectar, scraped with teeth, sucked with tongue, and sucked the delicious part on each tail thorn", which is very delicious.
There is also a dish called "Tubu Show Your Face". There are many small white pieces floating in the golden soup - four hundred pieces of catfish cheek meat. "Whenever someone tells me that Chinese people eat those marginal parts because they are too poor to help, I will think of this dish."
Fuxia Chinese home cooking also fascinates Fuxia, especially vegetables. She said that the vegetables in winter in Britain are often "hard and thick leaves like leather, thick roots and earthy taste", while Chinese vegetable cooking makes her feel jubilant. Fuxia likes ginger mustard greens best. "There is a trace of bitterness in the delicate and crisp flavor, which is very refreshing after eating other dishes."
In Britain, if you can occasionally find your favorite vegetables, it is a great joy for Fuxia. One day, she found sunflowers by the canal near her home in London. Fuxia said she was "almost crying with joy". Another time, she found a fresh winter bamboo shoot. She happily took it home and made boiled winter bamboo shoots and shepherd's purse porridge with her own shepherd's purse. "Most of Europe is inedible bamboo... just beautiful, useless!"
three
What is rare is that, compared with the food essays before Fuxia, Junxing Food has a clear research system, and its content is circumstantial, which closely links Chinese traditional culture with daily food.
It can be seen from the title of the book that the word "Junxing Food" comes from the "paint plate with fox and tortoise patterns" unearthed from the Han Tomb No.1 at Mawangdui, Changsha. Three cats, one turtle, and the "Junxing Food" written in the ink on the gap between the moire patterns in the food plate invite you to come and eat and drink.
Such quotations can be found everywhere in the book. Jia Sixie's agronomic works in the Northern Wei Dynasty, Bai Juyi's "Cooking Sunflower" in the Tang Dynasty, Su Dongpo's "Pork Eating" doggerel in the Northern Song Dynasty, Yuan Mei's "Ten Kinds of Tofu Recipes" in the Qing Dynasty, and so on, all come from the wisdom of ancient Chinese thousands of years ago. "This is my experience accumulated over the past 30 years." Fu Xia said that she has many friends who know this well, and they will recommend relevant ancient books and materials for this British person who wants to know more about Chinese culture.
Fu Xia's "Food Notes" Interestingly, there are even some unexpected quotations in the book. For example, Fu Xia explained what fried odds and ends were, and Bifeng turned to Journey to the West to explain: "The monster made a mess, and Monkey King threatened to make each other 'odds and ends' to eat."
Of course, the cited documents are all in English. The translator He Yujia must translate these ancient Chinese into English, identify them clearly, and then translate them back into Chinese. This is regarded by He Yujia as one of the joys of translating Fuxia books: "You can see the translation of ancient Chinese, and what will be different from the original?"
Fu Xia said that after studying Chinese food for so many years, she was pleased to find that today's Chinese people pay more and more attention to Chinese food culture. "I have seen many places begin to promote their traditional food, green food, farm condiments and so on. I have seen that Chinese people not only like to eat, but also respect cooks more."
Food made by Fuxia Fuxia was also worried about the hot topic of prepared dishes on the Internet Bacon, soy sauce meat, sausage, "It's really a pity if young people forget the practices of the older generation."
She also mentioned the "cooking robot", which can cook up to 100 kilograms of food at a time. "I really don't want the cooking robot to replace the real chef."
In the words of Fu Xia, Chinese food is like evocation to her when she cannot come to China
Red Star Journalist Mao Yuchuan, Jiang Qing, Editor Li Jie
