Fuchsia Dunlop: belief

Transcript context

…Slightly different question for Fuchsia. I’m wondering — you write in your book about how the West — the Anglos here in particular — had this experience with Chinese food coming in the postwar period when, essentially, what you end up getting in a takeaway is not real, proper Chinese food. Do you have a sense of other regions, other continents of the world? Have they had a similar experience with Chinese food coming there? Or maybe some haven’t even had it yet? Oh, I think yes. I think that the Cantonese simplified model is in many places but with slight variations. Like in Sweden, they have something called Four Little Dishes, which is a standard menu of Chinese takeaway food. It seems to have been a blueprint that worked very well all over the place, with sweet tastes and fried foods with variations. I have to say, I haven’t traveled to Peru, for example, where they have, by all accounts, very interesting local Chinese food. Also, Kolkata has some very interesting old Chinese dishes, and I have yet to go there. Both of those are very good, but they’re very different. They don’t feel to me like quite Chinese food. But I would recommend their chifas, which you even can get in Northern Virginia, though it’s much better in Peru.…

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