Revolutionary Recipes from China's Hunan Province

NPR

Published February 28, 2007 at 12:44 PM EST

Fuchsia Dunlop's <em>Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook</em> features recipes from Hunan, the home province of Mao Zedong, who led the Chinese Communist Revolution. The book's cover shows Chairman Mao's red-braised pork; the recipe is given below. — Fuchsia Dunlop's *Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook* features recipes from Hunan, the home province of Mao Zedong, who led the Chinese Communist Revolution. The book's cover shows Chairman Mao's red-braised pork; the recipe is given below.

China's Hunan Province has long been recognized for its spicy cooking, and for its revolutionaries.

In Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, chef Fuchsia Dunlop pays homage to some of the area's most well-known dishes and provides a taste of the history and culture that surround them.

The recipes are from Hunan, the home province of Mao Zedong, who led the Chinese Communist Revolution.

Dunlop is fluent in Mandarin, and was the first foreigner to study full time at the famous Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine.

She joins Melissa Block in the kitchen to prepare one of the most common Hunanese meals, said to have been a favorite of Chairman Mao: home-style bean curd, a spicy dish that creates a rich glow in the mouth.

The following recipes and commentary appear in Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop and are reprinted with permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.