Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food – Fuchsia Dunlop

Thoughts: Invitation to a Banquet was recommended in Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and I though it was really good. It lays out a bunch of ideas important in the philosophy/aesthetics of Chinese cuisine, each illustrated with one or more lively stories. I’d recommend it to just about anyone with an interest in Chinese cooking.

Summary: (composed from memory, as an exercise in active recall, about a week after finishing the book. May contain inaccuracies/oversimplifications/etc.!) Important concepts/ideas:

• Fan: grain, without which a meal is incomplete. Can be in the form of rice, noodles, dumpling wrappers, congee, etc.
• Cui: the “main dish”, the thing with vegetables and/or meat and/or tofu that complements the fan.
• Geng: “stew” - several ingredients that have been cooked together, chosen to complement each other
• Teng: soup with a clear broth - Chinese philosophers have long drawn parallels between good cooking and good government, with things needing to be in balance.
• Chinese gourmands have cared about terroir for quite a long time, valuing ingredients that come from specific regions in specific seasons.
• There was a chapter on Chinese medicine as it relates to food. Dunlop notes that, when practiced responsibly, knowledge of the principles of traditional Chinese medicine is a tool for addressing health issues on one’s own before they become big enough to require more drastic interventions like drugs or surgery. E.g., “my skin is irritated - I should try eating more food with cold properties”

Dunlop, Fuchsia. 2023. Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food. W. W. Norton.

• 292: “Should Chinese pastas conquer the world as Italian pastas have already? Probably. But it’s unlikely to happen, mainly because the noodles of China are made from soft rather than durum wheat, which is unsuited to drying.”