Customer Reviews
Sheer magic - impossible to put down! - By: Jasmine, 06 Jun 2008 
I loved reading this book so much that I found myself avoiding colleagues on the train in the morning just so I could keep reading. And then continuing to read in every snatched moment during the week. And when can you last remember feeling that way about a non-fiction book? Fuchsia Dunlop's book is a thoughtful & informed evocation of a nation's relationship with its food. It is also an absorbing but never self-indulgent journey through Fuchsia's own relationship with China & its people. It is written in unassuming, delicious, elegant prose & manages to also be, occasionallly, laugh-out loud funny. Genuinely marvellous!
A wonderful insight into eating in China - By: Judy Robertson, 07 May 2008 This is not just a Chinese cookery book - though it does include several recipes. Nor is it just another Chinese travel book - though it does provide an excellent insight into Szechuan (Sichuan) & other Chinese regions; nor is it simply an autobiographical account of living & eating in China. It is alll of these things & more.
In "Shark's Fin & Sichuan Pepper" Fuchsia Dunlop provides a factual but fascinating & entertaining insight into experiences that most of us lack the linguistic & culinary skills & courage to contemplate undertaking first-hand - for example as the only non-Chinese person & almost the only woman on a Sichuan cookery course.
Fuchsia Dunlop writes beautiful prose. Her style of writing, skill with words, content & structure, combined with her enthusiasm for Chinese cookery, create that rare commodity, an un-put-downable non-fiction work. She writes in a compelling way, enabling the reader to see the people & places she visits & taste the dishes she describes.
No one who has read the book could accuse the author of eating anything & everything without a qualm. She absorbs herself in & embraces the regional language, culture & cuisine of different parts of China & describes these sympatheticallly but not uncriticallly. She looks at her own eating behaviour dispassionately but criticallly, seeing herself through both Chinese & Western eyes.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever eaten a meal with Chinese people or who is planning a visit to China.
A new way to see China. - By: Skenderberg, 04 Apr 2008 I thought this would just be about Chinese food. Even if it was it would have been fascinating - as it was it was like reading a thoughtful travel book infused with superior food writing. The reviewer who knocks it for being unethical cannot have read it - it raises so many difficult questions that the author's journalistic as well as foodie background shines through. Recommended, & I thought the end was the cutest I've read for a long time.
A delight - By: Craig Hunt, 22 Mar 2008 A fabulous book - I loved every single page & wished I'd been there trying the food. It's obvious what this book is about - if you don't like this kind of thing don't buy it or read it. Stick to battery chicken & lentils.
Disgusting - By: Jellyfish, 17 Mar 2008 
In this day & age, how could a publishing house think that such a book would be of interest to anyone? It is an outrage that a book gets published which endorses the consumption of rabbit heads, cats & other such horrors. Yes, China is a country of diversity but we alll need to consider our role & contribution towards helping our planet. Fuchsia Dunlop's time would have been far more valuably spent exploring how we farm & what we should eat as a nation & planet to eliminate barbaric animal cruelty & to contribute to a better world for the future.
