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Five Tastes
  • Published: 3 September 2026
  • ISBN: 9780141997230
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368

Five Tastes

The Magic of Flavour in a Chinese Kitchen

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Your ultimate guide to the magic of Chinese flavour

When people in ancient China spoke of the ‘five tastes’, they were talking not only literally about the five tastes recognized in Chinese gastronomy – sour, bitter, sweet, pungent and salty – but also metaphorically about all the ingredients and flavours at a cook’s disposal. They were part of the dynamic process of the cosmos, like the five elements and the constant flux of yin and yang. A chef was a kind of magician, someone able to harness the virtues of the five tastes and combine them harmoniously in a dish.

You don’t need to be a Chinese cook to find inspiration in the Chinese arts of flavour. With a few core seasonings, flavour combinations and techniques, you can conjure up delicious dishes from whatever ingredients you have to hand, whether seasonal treats from a farmers’ market, specialist produce or basic vegetables from a supermarket. These recipes – which celebrate the Chinese philosophy that good health and pleasure are inseparable when it comes to food – will show you how to celebrate the irresistible flavours of China in your own kitchen.
  • Published: 3 September 2026
  • ISBN: 9780141997230
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368
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About the author

Fuchsia Dunlop

Fuchsia Dunlop was the first Westerner to train at the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine, and has been travelling around China and collecting recipes for more than two decades. Her previous books include the Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook (Ebury 2006), Sichuan Cookery, Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking and Land of Fish and Rice. She speaks, reads and writes Chinese, and she lives in East London.
FD

Also by Fuchsia Dunlop

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Praise for Five Tastes

Fuchsia has a rare ability to convey an encyclopaedic knowledge of Chinese cuisine in a compelling and totally delicious way

Heston Blumenthal

Every time I think I've finally started to get Chinese cuisine, Fuchsia seems to come around and point me towards a little door that opens up onto a whole new world of flavors and techniques

J. Kenji López-Alt

Fuchsia Dunlop is such a gifted writer that the reader cannot help being swept along by her masterful, yet intimate, account of a cuisine that is unmatched not only in its refinement and diversity, but also in the richness of its history of nutritional experimentation and speculation

Amitav Ghosh

Fuchsia Dunlop is one of the world's best writers on Chinese food

Ken Hom CBE

As a young Chinese food writer, Fuchsia Dunlop's books were my Harry Potter. She introduced me to the vibrant, expansive, magical world of Chinese gastronomy beyond the four walls of my Cantonese home. Next to my parents, there's no person I've learned more about the cooking of my people than Fuchsia Dunlop

Kevin Pang, author of A VERY CHINESE COOKBOOK

Fuchsia understands Chinese cuisine better than any other foreigner I know

Chen Xiaoqing, director of FLAVORFUL ORIGINS, A BITE OF CHINA, and ONCE UPON A BITE

Fuchsia Dunlop's expertise in Chinese cuisine is both remarkable and enlightening. She has devoted her life to intricately intertwining China's rich history with its culinary traditions, making significant contributions in sharing this delicious knowledge

René Redzepi, co-owner and chef of noma

One of our very finest chroniclers of food cultures, I want to read everything Fuchsia Dunlop writes

Caroline Eden, author of RED SANDS

Fuchsia Dunlop is a fascinating writer. She’s engrossed herself in Chinese culture and her writing comes from a unique standpoint – not so much a Western perspective on the East, but an Eastern one on the West. She will talk about the Western understanding of what something is, but then her description of food is very Chinese – the mouthfeel of a dish, the spices at play. It creates such a clever dynamic

Andrew Wong