Customer Reviews

The Food and Cooking of China: An Exploration of Chinese Cuisine in the Provinces and Cities of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

The author, Francine Halvorsen travels to a a handful of cities (she does not venture into the countryside) and meets with mainly professional catering-type people. We do learn some interesting things about the cuisine, but if you expect a colourful portrait of how most people cook and eat in China, you won't find it here.

So what is annoying about the book? The present tense, mock diary-style, the author uses. Bad choice. Perhaps a magazine article in the present tense would be ok, but in my experience it takes a very fine writer to pull this off book-length. Now the odious: Halvorsen could have journeyed the Silk Road, instead she has followed the Sheraton Trail. It appears the author's tour was sponsored by China Airlines and the Sheraton Hotel group. That's fine if you want to go that route; maybe. But please have some subtlety about it! Pages of blatant advertorial on the splendours of airline food, and endless interviews with Sheraton managers and chefs are very damaging to Halvoren's cause.
There is a useful glossary of terms in both English and Hanyu Pinyin,though some may be of dubious accuracy. The author has done sufficient research, but is let down by the quickie feel of the actual trip and the sloppy work at the back of the book.