PRAISE FOR THE DEVIL’S CHOW
A Chinese Food History
REVIEWS of The Devil’s Chow
“Stephen Jack’s book is a terrific read. Mr. Jack is an Australian who has lived for 30 years in East Asia, mostly in Taiwan. In this book, he tells some of his more colorful adventures, interspersing them with a history of Chinese food from earliest times to the present. He has rambled all over China, taking local transportation and taking potluck with anyone he meets at mealtime. He recounts a heroic capacity for food and alcohol.
His observations on the present, as he has experienced it, rather steal the show, but the history is strikingly accurate—a major accomplishment in this age of tall stories about Chinese food. (The Chinese love to make up these tales, and the western world often adds more.) The history of Chinese food has plenty of color of its own, without fiction, and Mr. Jack brings it out very well.
Mr. Jack is a master of the Australian tradition of yarning: telling well-crated stories that come to a sharp point. As the Chinese say: “As for composing prose, there are three principles. Begin the work like a tiger’s head, showing its fierceness and weight indeed (ye). The middle should be like a pig’s belly, showing its richness and abundance indeed. The end should be like a scorpion’s tail, to show how the poison comes out when it stings indeed” (attributed to Wang Wentong, 13th century). The points of Mr. Jack’s stories are not so poisonous; they are excellent observations on food in general and the Chinese ways with it, especially in modern situations.
The book maintains a fine balance between tales of the open road in China and historical and agricultural data. Once I started it, I couldn’t stop except to eat and sleep until I finished it. A great way to learn about Chinese food.”
–Professor Emeritus E. N. Anderson, author of The Food of China
“Stephen Jack not only knows a hell of a lot about Chinese food; he also knows how to turn a phrase. He takes readers on a lively ‘Cook’s tour,’ far beyond Benign Chinese Foodland, the Chinatowns of his native Australia – think chop suey and chow mein – to exotic Barbarous Chinese Foodland, the villages and back alleys of China, where you’re more likely to find chicken gizzards and pickled mustard greens – the stuff real Chinese people eat. And like the best guides, he is part historian and part storyteller, with an infectious passion and enthusiasm for his subject. Don’t read this book on an empty stomach.”
–Scott D. Seligman, co-author of The Cultural Revolution Cookbook