Review: Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China by Jen Lin-Liu

book 1 of 3 for the Well Seasoned Reader Challenge
book 2 of 26 for the A to Z 2009 Challenge (country: China)

genre: food/travel/memoir
rating: 5/5

I've read many different memoirs about life in China during the Cultural Revolution and enjoyed all of them. This book, however, is my first foray into Chinese life in the modern day - a current and compelling look at life and, especially, eating and cooking in 21st century China.

Jen, the author, is a Chinese-American journalist and food critic by trade. For a chance to explore, not only her roots, but the esoteric underworld of the Chinese food and restaurant industry, she decides to enroll in a cooking school in Beijing. In a male-dominated classroom she learns the art of chopping and stir-frying, and with the help of a teacher outside the classroom works on making the perfect dumpling.

Cooking school is only the beginning for Jen, who then heads out into China, talking her way into various cooking internships in restaurants as varied as a tiny noodle shop in a canteen to a high end restaurant in Shanghai, she even heads to the mountains to help with the rice harvest. Her cooking experiences and the people she meets are fascinating and all the while she is teaching us Chinese history, culture and legend, usually through the personal experiences of the chefs and waitresses with whom she crosses paths. Explanations about the variations in Chinese cuisine and food preparation based on geography were particularly compelling, probably because the cuisine of the culture I've grown up in feels infantile compared to the dishes I read about.

Many other reviews of the book described is as humorous. I can't say that I found things particularly funny, sometimes more, a-hem, unappetizing to my taste - but her writing style was very pleasant and readable. I was always happy to pick the book up and despite its choppy style (many in-depth recipes are sprinkled throughout and things aren't always completely chronological) I found it a very satisfying read.