Dan Wang: belief

Transcript context

…I think also it’s about not repetition. That’s the key thing. If you have a dish with one ingredient or one style, you just want to make sure the other ones are as contrasting as possible. On the subject of Fuchsia’s writing, I think that your book is wonderfully well organized, to introduce the cuisine through 30 dishes and to use that to talk about knife work and diversity and everything else. I thought it worked really well. Furthermore, what worked well was that you are just a fabulous writer in terms of making the physicality of eating very, very good. Can you speak a little bit about food writing? I think food really rewards good writing. Can you talk about how you learned that other craft that you’ve picked up so well? Well, thank you so much. I don’t know how. It’s just instinct. I suppose what I’ve been trying to do all this time is find ways of describing the intricacies of Chinese food to make it illuminating and delightful for people who didn’t grow up with it. Trying to find ways — things like texture, which is a quite difficult subject in the sense that many of our texture words in English are a bit disgusting: slimy, gristly. Trying to write playfully and engagingly so that people can both acknowledge these unfamiliar textures, but also see how they might be delicious. I did a degree in English literature, so I read lots of good books, which is the best training for any writer. But I also try to have fun with it, to just be playful and have a laugh. Also, I love eating. Since I was a teenager, I’ve always kept a journal, and it’s always turned into epic descriptions of meals, so I’ve had a lot of practice.…

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