The Sichuan basin and its humid kitchen

The Sichuan basin is a bowl of red and purple sandstone in south-west China, ringed by mountains and drained by the Yangtze and its tributaries, among them the Min, the Tuo and the Jialing. Its floor, around Chengdu, is the fertile plain that the Dujiangyan irrigation works, begun in the third century BC under the official Li Bing, turned into one of the most reliably productive farmlands in China. Fuchsia Dunlop, in Land of Plenty, begins her account of the province from this fact: a region enclosed, well watered and abundant, with a cooking shaped by what grows within its rim.

The basin lies under cloud for much of the year, and the damp, grey climate is the first thing Dunlop sets beside the cooking. Winters are mild and mist-laden, summers heavy and humid, and sunshine is scarce enough that the old saying has the dogs of Sichuan barking at the sun when it appears. Land of Plenty connects this climate with the tradition of hot, pungent seasoning, since the local reckoning, as she reports it, counts chilli and Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum bungeanum) as foods that suit a damp place. That is a view held within the tradition and not a claim to be tested here. The plain itself supplies the larder. Rice is the staple, with wheat and rapeseed grown in rotation, and the rapeseed gives the region its characteristic fragrant oil. Pigs are raised in quantity, and pork is the everyday meat. Vegetables are available in nearly every season: mustard greens, which are pickled and also turned into the preserved vegetable of Yibin and the zha cai of the Yangtze valley, along with broad beans, water bamboo, lotus root (Nelumbo nucifera) and a long list of leaves. The mountains to the west and north add bamboo shoots, fungi and herbs, and the rivers add carp and other freshwater fish. The seasonings are where the basin is most distinct. Chillies reached China from the Americas and, by Dunlop's account, were taken up in Sichuan in the later part of the Qing period, long after the pepper and ginger that had served before. Broad beans fermented with chilli became doubanjiang, and the best known version is made at Pixian near Chengdu, whose name is a registered Geographical Indication. Dunlop describes the long maturing in the sun that gives it depth. Alongside it stand fermented black beans, rapeseed oil, pickled chillies, Sichuan pepper from the western hills, and the garlic, ginger and spring onion that begin so many dishes. Salt is the other foundation, and the salt wells of Zigong are its centre. Brine was drawn there from deep boreholes, a technology the Sichuanese developed over many centuries, with bamboo pipes and animal power raising brine that was then boiled down in iron pans, fuelled in part by natural gas from the same ground. Salt was carried out across the mountains and rivers, and the trade made Zigong rich and gave the region a supply of salt that did not depend on the sea. Dunlop treats this as part of the explanation for the breadth of Sichuanese preserving, from pickles to cured pork to the fermented pastes. Out of these materials comes the range of flavours that Sichuanese cooks name and combine, from the numbing and hot, mala, to the fish-fragrant, the lychee, the strange flavour and the home-style. Dunlop emphasises that the cooking is not simply fiery: it depends on balance and on contrast of texture, and a large share of the repertoire is mild. The teahouses of Chengdu and the small restaurants of every town carried this cooking as a daily habit, and the basin's isolation, together with the settlement of migrants from other provinces over the centuries, made a cuisine that is regional but not narrow.

At the Sichuanese table a meal is built from contrasts: a hot, oily dish of dried chilli and Sichuan pepper is set beside a plain stir-fried leaf vegetable, a clear soup, and rice. Dunlop describes the numbing and hot sensation of mala as one the Sichuanese prize for its own sake, and the tradition counts such food as suited to the damp season. Pickles, cold dishes dressed with chilli oil and a bowl of rice carry the everyday meal, while the teahouse offers tea with snacks and conversation.