For Chinese food — I did my entire thesis on Chinese cookbooks published in America post-WWII (a discursive analysis concerning cultural legitimation)!! *FINALLY* this information is useful to someone who is not me lol
Read cover-to-cover ~25 cookbooks, all the ones that achieved any sort of commercial/critical success (for the sake of justified “data”). My favorites are:
Dunlop: Every Grain of Rice - this is the book I reach for when I have a single vegetable in my fridge left and need to do something with it. She bills it as “homestyle” cooking, and although I find her accompanying narration really lays it on thick w/ the nouveau values of ‘distinguished’ food (“clean eating” “humble ingredients transformed” etc.), her knowledge and recipe curation is well done and the photos are exquisite. she does know her stuff!
Kuo - The Key to Chinese Cooking (1977) + Lo - Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking (2009) — if you’re looking for an encyclopedia of Chinese cuisine, these two are strong contenders as far as single volumes go. The writers’ voices come through in both, it’s delightful. Huge emphasis on “traditional technique” & taking the time & effort to do things as written/instructed. Enormously detailed.
Another one you might enjoy: Young - Stir-Frying To The Sky’s Edge (2011). The only book I read that centers & discusses the global Chinese diaspora. Very relevant to the essay this week, she travels all over the world to investigate how stir-fry recipes have been adapted by Cantonese immigrants to their new locales (Jamaica, Louisiana, Brooklyn, Cuba, Sichuan, Taiwan, so many more). She involves a good dose of history about migration too. And photos of the people who taught her their personal stir-fry habits! Both of which I love.
Classics/Canon:
Chao (1945) - How to Cook and Eat in Chinese. Detailed, collectively written/translated by a Chinese family. Considered the first commercially successful English-lang Chinese Cookbook and hugely influential on following Chinese cookbooks. This is the book that coined “stir-fry” to describe the action of flipping/stirring/moving food in an extremely hot wok!
Pei Mei’s Chinese Cookbook (1969) - my mom, who migrated from China in the 80s, considers this the “Chinese person’s Chinese cookbook.” An opinion seconded from Chinese cookbook author Olivia Wu! Bilingual, multi-volume, a comprehensive array of dishes that are common to mainland Chinese dinner tables/restaurants.
If there’s something specific you’re looking for (in terms of a particular region, style, technique, focus) let me know! I can give you more specific recommendations. Always happy to chat about Chinese food & cultural legitimation processes 😇😇😇
I read this on Maria Lugones last week and thought of your writing on travel: https://thenewinquiry.com/incomplete-visionary-nonutopian/. She's written an essay called “Playfulness, ‘World’-Traveling, and Loving Perception” that you might find interesting, it's quoted in that tni article a bit. Thank you for the canned beans intel, I really need to get that down.
For Chinese food — I did my entire thesis on Chinese cookbooks published in America post-WWII (a discursive analysis concerning cultural legitimation)!! *FINALLY* this information is useful to someone who is not me lol
Read cover-to-cover ~25 cookbooks, all the ones that achieved any sort of commercial/critical success (for the sake of justified “data”). My favorites are:
Dunlop: Every Grain of Rice - this is the book I reach for when I have a single vegetable in my fridge left and need to do something with it. She bills it as “homestyle” cooking, and although I find her accompanying narration really lays it on thick w/ the nouveau values of ‘distinguished’ food (“clean eating” “humble ingredients transformed” etc.), her knowledge and recipe curation is well done and the photos are exquisite. she does know her stuff!
Kuo - The Key to Chinese Cooking (1977) + Lo - Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking (2009) — if you’re looking for an encyclopedia of Chinese cuisine, these two are strong contenders as far as single volumes go. The writers’ voices come through in both, it’s delightful. Huge emphasis on “traditional technique” & taking the time & effort to do things as written/instructed. Enormously detailed.
Another one you might enjoy: Young - Stir-Frying To The Sky’s Edge (2011). The only book I read that centers & discusses the global Chinese diaspora. Very relevant to the essay this week, she travels all over the world to investigate how stir-fry recipes have been adapted by Cantonese immigrants to their new locales (Jamaica, Louisiana, Brooklyn, Cuba, Sichuan, Taiwan, so many more). She involves a good dose of history about migration too. And photos of the people who taught her their personal stir-fry habits! Both of which I love.
Classics/Canon:
Chao (1945) - How to Cook and Eat in Chinese. Detailed, collectively written/translated by a Chinese family. Considered the first commercially successful English-lang Chinese Cookbook and hugely influential on following Chinese cookbooks. This is the book that coined “stir-fry” to describe the action of flipping/stirring/moving food in an extremely hot wok!
Pei Mei’s Chinese Cookbook (1969) - my mom, who migrated from China in the 80s, considers this the “Chinese person’s Chinese cookbook.” An opinion seconded from Chinese cookbook author Olivia Wu! Bilingual, multi-volume, a comprehensive array of dishes that are common to mainland Chinese dinner tables/restaurants.
If there’s something specific you’re looking for (in terms of a particular region, style, technique, focus) let me know! I can give you more specific recommendations. Always happy to chat about Chinese food & cultural legitimation processes 😇😇😇
Do you know @peddlerjournal ? Last pub is all on dumplings and fantastic. Anything from Hetty is excellent.
For chinese cookery and insights follow the wonderful @celestialpeach_UK on Instagram xx
I read this on Maria Lugones last week and thought of your writing on travel: https://thenewinquiry.com/incomplete-visionary-nonutopian/. She's written an essay called “Playfulness, ‘World’-Traveling, and Loving Perception” that you might find interesting, it's quoted in that tni article a bit. Thank you for the canned beans intel, I really need to get that down.