For the trip to Mexico, I picked up Fuchsia Dunlop’s sweet-sour memoir – “Shark’s fin and Sichuan pepper” at JFK.  I have read her article(s) in some travel/food magazines before, but did not realize the full extent of her immersion in Chinese food culture.  I will post more about her book here.

When I saw this image online, I thought about her quote of Ferran Adrià (El Bulli) ‘s comment on the most important political figure in cooking – Mao Zedong:

“Everyone wants to know which country is producing the best food today. Some say Spain, others France, Italy, California. But those places are competing for the top spot because Mao destroyed the preeminence of Chinese cooking by sending China’s chef to work in the fields and factories. If he hadn’t done this, all the other countries and all the other chefs, myself included, would still be chasing the Chinese dragon.”