Fuchsia Dunlop: belief

Transcript context

…I suppose Chinese food in Ireland is similarly not very developed, like in Barbados. If there’s any non-generic Chinese restaurant in Ireland, it’s probably Sichuan. I’m interested, how did Sichuan become — maybe this is a non-accurate description — the prestige cuisine? If a first regional Chinese restaurant opens in a city, it’s most likely to be that one. How did that happen? I think that Sichuanese food travels really well. There are some cuisines, like the food of the Jiangnan region or Yunnan — we already said, there are so many really unique local ingredients that you can’t get elsewhere. When you think about Yunnan food, you think about these extraordinary ingredients. But Sichuan food — the heart and soul of Sichuanese cooking is in the artful combination of flavors. Not just mala, numbing and hot, but also yúxiāng, which is a bit of sweet and sour, pickled chili, ginger, garlic, spring onion. All these wonderful combinations of flavors. I think that because the identity of Sichuanese food is in the flavors, you can apply a Sichuanese yúxiāng fish-fragrant sauce to the kind of fish that you can get, say, in England. It doesn’t have to be a local carp. It’ll still feel like Sichuanese cooking because the flavorings and the techniques are there. The Sichuanese cook just needs a small battery of key ingredients: Sichuan pepper, dried chilies, pickled chilies, doubanjiang — pickled chili paste — soy sauce, vinegar. Then you can cook whatever’s to hand. I think, for that reason, it’s quite accessible and transportable as a concept and a practice. Lydia, could you speak to the new dish, please?…

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