Editor's note: London-based cook, food writer and consultant Fuchsia Dunlop sits down with CNN to discuss her love affair with Sichuanese cuisine. Her responses have been edited for concision and flow.

CNN: What sparked your interest in Sichuanese cuisine?

I got very interested in China through a job subediting news reports about the east Asian region, particularly China. So I started Mandarin evening classes and went on holiday to China and was fascinated.

I'd been in Sichuan in 1993 when coming back from a holiday to Tibet and had an amazing lunch with some dishes I never forgot. I had looked up a Sichuanese musician whom I'd met in my hometown of Oxford, and he and his wife took me out. It was at a very modest little restaurant, but we had a delicious meal and ended up on the riverbank drinking jasmine tea at a teahouse. At that moment, I thought, I want to come back and live here.

The next year, I applied for a British Council scholarship to study minorities, culture and history at Sichuan University. While in Sichuan, I started cooking in my spare time and investigating the food. It gradually just took over, and I realized that was the thing that I really wanted to study.

Read the full interview, "Sichuan cuisine: More than just spice," on CNN International