Fuchsia Dunlop: belief

Transcript context

…But I might, say, in Malaysia. The restaurant food is so good, and I’ve never found the street food to be better, even though it can be very good. Whereas, let’s say, in Malaysia, I might find street food, on average, to be better than restaurant food. Is there anywhere in China where street food is the way to go? Well yes, in the north. I went to Kaifeng, the old Song Dynasty northern capital. This is some years ago, but they have the most incredible night market with all kinds of food. That was just amazing and delicious. I think the problem is that with China’s modernization, there’s been this big effort to clean up the streets, and they’ve seen street food as being old fashioned and something undesirable. When I lived in Sichuan in the beginning, there were actually quite a lot of street traders doing really nice food, and it’s harder to find them. Actually, if you go to Chengdu, go to the Wenshu Monastery, and in the streets around there, there are people serving some traditional snacks, dan hong gao 蛋烘糕, these little pancakes stuffed with pork or sweet things. These are lovely. I would go there. There are certain areas where it’s tolerated and where you can have really lovely street food. Dan, do you have a view on this?…

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