At the Chinese Table: A Memoir with Recipes

In her latest cookbook, Phillips (All Under Heaven; The Dim Sum Field Guide) serves up a range of traditional and modified Taiwanese and Chinese dishes alongside vignettes from her life and culinary adventures, principally in Taiwan and the U.S. She lived in Taipei in the 1970s and ’80s, where she fell in love with her now-husband J. H. Wang and established lifelong ties to the gastronomy and people. Phillips outlines her quest, as a white American, to know the people and cultures of Taiwan and China, ingratiate herself with the family of her Taiwanese husband, and comprehend the complex dynamics of her in-laws’ history. Her descriptions of food and preparations are vibrant; recipes at the end of chapters vary in complexity and are supplemented by an extensive glossary of ingredients and techniques. The writing is geared toward a Western audience that has little exposure to the cultures of Taiwan and China; some of the descriptive language has undertones of fetishism that may not land well with readers.