Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China

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Editorial reviews

Product Description
A bold and eye-opening new cookbook with magnificent photos and unforgettable stories.

In the West, when we think about food in China, what usually comes to mind are the signature dishes of Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai. But beyond the urbanized eastern third of China lie the high open spaces and sacred places of Tibet, the Silk Road oases of Xinjiang, the steppelands of Inner Mongolia, and the steeply terraced hills of Yunnan and Guizhou. The peoples who live in these regions are culturally distinct, with their own history and their own unique culinary traditions. In Beyond the Great Wall, the inimitable duo of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid—who first met as young travelers in Tibet—bring home the enticing flavors of this other China.

For more than twenty-five years, both separately and together, Duguid and Alford have journeyed all over the outlying regions of China, sampling local home cooking and street food, making friends and taking lustrous photographs. Beyond the Great Wall shares the experience in a rich mosaic of recipes—from Central Asian cumin-scented kebabs and flatbreads to Tibetan stews and Mongolian hot pots—photos, and stories. A must-have for every food lover, and an inspiration for cooks and armchair travelers alike.

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Customer reviews

review by: snorkelgeek date: 2008-08-20 rating:
wonderful book
People should put aside any political thoughts about this book. It is a beautiful book and travelogue by the authors who have extensively travelled in the area and write the text portions based on their own experiences. I found no strong hints of any political agenda. What I found instead was an extremely interesting commentary on the wildly varied peoples of China - from all regions lesser known - including Tibetans. The photographs are stunning, showing the beauty of these people. The recipes are simple and easily followed even for those of us who don't always have access to exotic ingredients (alternatives are given). The book makes me want to visit these areas, meet these people and eat the food. What can be bad about that?

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review by: date: 2008-08-06 rating:
The Other Chinese
A coffee table book glimpse into multi-ethnic China and its varied cuisines little known in the West. It is rich with travel monologues, wonderful photography and authentic recipes.

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review by: sir_ken_g date: 2008-07-24 rating:
The other side of the politics
I have the book it is gorgeous and recipes are very interesting - different that anything else I have in my 300+ cookbook collection

I have been having a debate with a Chinese American friend - which is relevant here:

Tibetan and other minorities are resentful of Han Chinese success. The Chinese are good business people and have been doing business all over Asia for centuries. I attribute this to cultural traits shared with other North Asians - Koreans and Japanese, and not by South Asians for the most part. As a result there has been resentment. The Filipinos did not like the Chinese because they dominated business. They also kept (or were kept) to themselves. In other areas like Indonesia and Vietnam there are many more Chinese - and that led to massacres in Indonesia and boat people - mostly ethnic Chinese - in Vietnam.

There is more:

"China consistently has pursued a policy of "taming" its far-flung western regions through economic and ethnic assimilation."
When the Communists came to power China was the "weak man of Asia" Not without reason China was paranoid about revisiting the foreign domination of the last century. When they looked around they found that most of their borders were inhabited by non-Han - and that concerned them. So they tried to assimilate them - probably in a pretty ham-handed, insensitive way. Even in the US cultural diversity is not always well respected although it has improved in our lifetimes. China has had a lot of trouble with its borders - there has been shooting with Russia, Vietnam, India.

"It may be the Tibetans' final chance to hold onto an ethnically, religiously and economically unique homeland before it is lost forever"
I do believe the Tibetan culture is unique and worth preserving - and it is not a given that it will be. That is not to say that to be a true Tibetan you cannot be educated and be financially successful. We saw a few years ago in New Mexico where Indians kept feet in both worlds at places like Acoma and Taos pueblos. American Indian culture and language in the US is in many cases gone forever and was not given any legal respect until quite recently. We heard this story again in Alaska last summer. And we see it in Oklahoma all the time which has a large Indian population - but a fragmented one because most were displaced from elsewhere. The Chinese government could use a good dose of cultural sensitivity - but I am not counting on it - the best comparison with China right now would be with the "Wild West" a hundred years ago - before environmental laws, unions, rule-of-law, an cultural tolerance.

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review by: date: 2008-07-21 rating:
Great Wall ,Great Recipes
Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China Another wonderful book from these authors. One I will turn to again and again. The instructions are clear and the results so far have been sooooo good!


review by: Wizard date: 2008-07-08 rating:
The China many of us never see...
One of the best travel-food books to hit the market so far in 2008. Inspired photography and gloriously informative text from parts of China that most of us never get to see.
Stunning!

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