The Hakka Cookbook

"I NEVER KNEW I was eating Hakka food (客家菜) when I was growing up," says Linda Anusasananan, a food writer and former Sunset senior editor. "I just knew it tasted really good." In the new Hakka Cookbook (University of California Press; $40), Anusasananan shares recipes from her grandmother's kitchen and beyond.

Part cookbook, part memoir, the book celebrates the little-known cuisine of the Hakka people, who, after fleeing central China in the fourth century, traveled to southern China, many eventually migrating to places around the world including Peru, Australia, and California. That nomadic lifestyle added layers of diversity to the cuisine's rich broths, salty preserved vegetables, and robust Cantonese flavors. Some think of it as peasant food, but Anusasananan calls it Chinese soul food.

If you want to learn more about this California-influenced, Hakka-style noddle buffet, adapted from her book, please read February issue of Sunset magazine. And please go to author's The Hakka Cookbook blog to learn more Chinese recipes.