This cooking memoir was memorable because readers are introduced to a European chef who packs her bags and moves to China. While there she will research the cooking styles of many chefs, but specifically the style of the sichuan.
Dunlop goes into many Chinese kitchens, inviting herself to the counter tops and tables of many restaurant to learn Chinese cooking and so that she'll have somewhere else to go besides her lonely apartment. Why not? she's in in a country with few friends and without a strong Chinese background.
I liked the books exotic foods like turtle soup and bird dishes. Dunlop pays a Chinese one month's worth of salary for her delicious dinners and hire illegal bird hunters, so she can examine their methods of retrieving these birds and cooking them. She'll expose the rich Chinese man's food fetishes and their extraordinary enjoyment for unique Chinese cuisine.
You'll bicycle yourself through the Chinese districts where even a European traveller can take notice to the drastic change of climate and architecture that exists in China, combined with how once desolate restaurants districts are changed into cities of multi growing high rise complexes which will later suit China's growing needs to house their population.
You'll laugh along with Dunlop, as she discusses that after a month in china, she is in need for a a friend, and how her confidence grows after making a few Chinese welcoming friends who invite her to eat and and discuss food and calligraphy.
