WINNER OF THE 2009 JAMES BEARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL COOKBOOK AWARD

WINNER OF THE 2009 IACP BEST INTERNATIONAL COOKBOOK AWARD

A bold and eye-opening new cookbook with magnificent photos and unforgettable stories.

In the West, when we think about food in China, what usually comes to mind are the signature dishes of Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai. But beyond the urbanized eastern third of China lie the high open spaces and sacred places of Tibet, the Silk Road oases of Xinjiang, the steppelands of Inner Mongolia, and the steeply terraced hills of Yunnan and Guizhou. The peoples who live in these regions are culturally distinct, with their own history and their own unique culinary traditions. In Beyond the Great Wall, the inimitable duo of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid—who first met as young travelers in Tibet—bring home the enticing flavors of this other China.

For more than twenty-five years, both separately and together, Duguid and Alford have journeyed all over the outlying regions of China, sampling local home cooking and street food, making friends and taking lustrous photographs. Beyond the Great Wall shares the experience in a rich mosaic of recipes—from Central Asian cumin-scented kebabs and flatbreads to Tibetan stews and Mongolian hot pots—photos, and stories. A must-have for every food lover, and an inspiration for cooks and armchair travelers alike.

Jeffrey Alford is a writer, photographer, traveller and cook based primarily in northeast Thailand. He is the co-author, with Naomi Duguid, of six international cookbooks: Flatbreads and Flavors, Seductions of Rice, Hot Sour Salty Sweet, HomeBaking, Mangoes & Curry Leaves, and Beyond the Great Wall.

Both Flatbreads and Flavors and Hot Sour Salty Sweet won the James Beard Award for best Cookbook of the Year and Seductions of Rice and HomeBaking each won a Cuisine Canada Cookbook Award.

Jeffrey has contributed to Saveur, Food & Wine, Food Arts, Gourmet and many other magazines. He has appeared on the Food Network and the Martha Stewart show.

Formerly based in Toronto, ON, he now lives in Surin Province in northeast Thailand twelve miles north of the Cambodian border, with partner Somphit Janprung (better known as 'Pea').

Jeffrey Alford's profile page

Naomi Duguid is a writer, photographer, teacher, cook, and world traveler. Her most recent cookbooks, Burma and Taste of Persia, transported readers into cultures and flavors not yet celebrated in the West, and respectively won the 2013 IACP Cookbook Award for Culinary Travel and both the 2017 IACP Cookbook Award for Culinary Travel and the 2017 James Beard Award for Best Book of the Year, International. Her previous award-winning titles, coauthored with Jeffrey Alford, include Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas, their first book, which won a James Beard Award for Cookbook of the Year; Seductions of Rice; Hot Sour Salty Sweet, also a James Beard Cookbook of the Year; Mangoes & Curry Leaves; and Beyond the Great Wall.
 
Duguid’s articles and photographs have appeared regularly in Lucky Peach, Food & Wine, and other publications. She is a frequent guest speaker and presenter at food conferences. She is the host of Toronto’s Food on Film series and has a strong online presence (Twitter and Facebook). Her stock photo agency, Asia Access, is based in Toronto, where she lives when she is not on the road.

Naomi Duguid's profile page