National Geographic Traveller (UK) - Food
Fuchsia Dunlop
Where will you be eating this summer?
I’ve spent most of the past year travelling around China, but I’m now back. I really like the English summer — swimming outside, eating in gardens.
What are your favourite summer ingredients?
The highlight for me is summer fruit like strawberries and raspberries, peaches and apricots — and just eating them like that. And then tomatoes, to make tomato salad with basil. Chinese-wise, I really love broad beans, and they’re really quite seasonal still. I might make a Sichuanese salad with broad beans, or stir-fry them with spring onions, or there’s a lovely dish from Hangzhou, where you peel the beans and put them with a little bit of ham. That’s a real treat.
Where’s the best place to dine in the sun?
I went on a summer holiday to Barcelona a couple of years ago with my extended family, and we rented a big house there. One night, a small group of us went to a marina nearby. The restaurant — I can’t remember the name
— had been recommended by a friend who lives there. It was really local and we had the most gorgeous seafood: lobsters and prawns, clams and paella. It was heavenly. Really good ingredients, during the late evening by the sea.
What would you serve for a summer Sichuanese feast?
If it’s hot weather, you don’t want to be slaving over a hot stove or stir-frying all evening. So, I’d do more cold, prepared dishes — cold chicken dishes, smacked cucumber salad, broad bean salads. Also cold noodles are really nice in the summer — a little bit spicy and a little bit sweet. There are some delicious ice-cold snacks too. One of them is called ‘ice jelly’ in English, and it’s a transparent jelly made from the seeds of the shoo-fly plant. It’s usually served with ground sugar syrup and a few crunchy nuts or sesame seeds on top. But the more hot and humid it is, the more chillies and Sichuan pepper you have to eat. If I’m in Sichuan in hot weather, I’ll be eating hotpot, which makes you pour with sweat and delirious with heat.