Sometime in the late eighteenth century, a merchant copied—or a scribe captured—the following recipe: Goose roasted in a Western oven (yanglu 洋爐 ).Insert a scallion roll into the belly of a goose and one big head [of onion?]. Using a roasting char (fork), skewer the goose and put it into the oven and roast until cooked. You can do the same with duck and chicken. It is uncertain whether the scribe knew much about the provenance of this recipe. By most accounts, he was a salt m

This week I was inspired to write about beef after watching Eric Sze’s videos on Instagram about cooking dairy cattle. As it turns out, we have been discussing food taboos in my Eating Right class, which got me thinking about whether there are any Chinese food taboos. The following is the first installment of my Substack newsletter : This post grows out of a question I can’t neatly answer: was beef taboo in China before the late nineteenth century? Step into any Chinese rest

This post comes after a sleepless night. Not from the news, or even a sick child. From a video, posted to some Facebook group, about a medieval Chinese recipe. A young woman, dressed as a Tang-dynasty beauty in a flowing gown, prepares a translucent dessert filled with cherries. She adds sugar to draw out their sweetness. Yingtao biluo A chewy cherry strudel. Was it real? Is any of it real? An image generated by Gemini based on existing descriptions, with the usual historical

This blog is adapted from my Substack newsletter, The Curious Eater. Here, I revisit questions of what it means to eat right--both in China and in Europe in the fourteenth century. If you are curious about vegetarianism in China, you might also take a look at this older post of mine, from the pandemic days. It’s the fourteenth century. A blond noblewoman wrinkles her pale brow as she sprinkles ash into her porridge. Meanwhile, half a world away, her Chinese counterpart smiles

A few weeks ago, a ghost from lockdown resurfaced as I was scrolling through Instagram. No, it wasn’t empty grocery shelves. Or the sight of people carrying away the last rolls of toilet paper, or even unhappy children logged onto school-issued iPads. Rather, it was an old story, and a persistent one at that: Churros come from China. Some well-intentioned vlogger had repeated this piece of mythology for the umpteenth time. The Portuguese in the sixteenth century had visited C

A few weeks ago, we had a crisis at home. Sofi was demanding Dino-nuggets, but we were out of ketchup. This took us by surprise. Like most households with preschoolers, we buy tons of ketchup. That day, I decided to capitalize on the crisis. What an opportunity to teach Sofi some food history! So I put the question to her, “Do you know where ketchup is from?” Sofi grinned and without missing a beat, she proclaimed, “From tomatoes!” Well, yes and no. ----- Nowadays, ketchup

A few months ago, I awoke to find it there. On my Facebook feed. “Hey Conejita! Thought of you when I saw this.” I groaned. It was the same darn story, “ The Secret History of Churros ” from 2011, but by another writer and with a slightly different name, “ How Spanish Chefs Stole Chinese Dough and Turned Churros into a Classic Dessert .” In a nutshell, the claim: Churros are from China. Or, to quote one of the earliest versions, “ The history of the churro is ancient and rev

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet -- Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Mr. Shakespeare was admittedly not thinking about food when he wrote those lines about young love. But he should have. Roses taste great in Yunnan rose pastry. Such quibbles aside, these three lines capture our shared conundrum. For the last few weeks, we have debated whether ‘mint bibimbap’ is ‘bibimbap’ and whether Chinese wheat noodles or sopa de fideos can

In 1996, I found myself eating often at vegetarian buffets in southern Taiwan. On most days, I ordered plates of braised gluten. The gluten not only looked like meat, but also mimicked the flavor and texture of the real thing. It was also surprisingly tasty. Served in thick sauce and flanked by hearty mushrooms, gluten was the meat lover’s solution to meatless living. Vegetarian pork (Beijing 2019) I frequented vegetarian restaurants, because in those days, I didn’t eat meat

The idea for this blog goes back a ways. Five summers ago, I was sitting at a table with Yang Yong, a visiting student from China. We were doing what scholars usually do: acting like gluttons for punishment. So we decided to translate a group of medical manuscripts, discovered in a tomb from ancient Northwest China (first century AD). Each day, we sat at my desk on the fifth floor of Thayer and put our endurance to the test. Character by character, we transcribed the Chinese

A picture of noodles on a plate in Canton My first encounter with food history was in the sixth grade. One evening, my father came home to tell us over dinner that he had served as a judge in a cooking case. A local group had invited him, San Francisco’s Public Defender, to adjudicate a longstanding controversy: Who invented pasta, the Chinese or Italians? At the time, I did not grasp the import of the question. I was also unfamiliar with the story of Marco Polo bringing past

The name of this blog might as well be the title of the class. If there's a time to be upfront, that would be now. The end of the term draws close, and we must square the circle. So what is the orange chicken challenge? You might be imagining two guys sitting at a table eating as much of the stuff as they can keep down in an hour. Or battling chefs, vying to make the most appetizing plate for TV. If that were the challenge, I'd flunk. I am too much of a snob to eat orange chi

About twenty years ago, I found myself eavesdropping on a conversation about imperialism. The woman sitting next to me had taken issue with airline regulations. She thought it was outrageous that English was the lingua franca of air traffic control. “American imperialism,” she scoffed. “You Americans impose your culture, your language, your junk food on the rest of the world. You conquer with McDonald’s and KFC.” At the time, I was inclined to agree about the fast food. Wha

You don’t need to see it, because you can guess the plot. Ramen Girl (2008) is a cross between Karate Kid (1984), Tampopo (1985), Lost in Translation (2003), and your standard rom com. The story goes as follows. American girl (the late Brittany Murphy ) meets boy and trails him to Japan. Boy dumps girl. Girl drowns her sorrows in a bowl of ramen. Then she finds herself. She apprentices with a tough Japanese ramen chef, discovers the beauty of traditional Japanese culture,

We continue our ruminations on the impact of Chinese migration on Asian eating. But instead of merely calling attention to this phenomenon, I would like to bring the discussion back to a larger problem that we touched upon earlier in the term. Can we talk about a cuisine having an "essence"? Are there drawbacks to thinking about cuisines as being "owned" by particular cultures? How do we demarcate the boundaries of a culture in a world where people move and recipes are shared

Over the last couple of weeks, we have tackled the role of colonialism in Asian food history. Since the sun is finally out and the weather has warmed up, it's time to change our tune and leave behind this sad history. As Linh Trinh pointed out on Thursday, it would be a mistake to chalk up everything in Asian food to European imperialism! I wholeheartedly agree! This week and next, we'll look at how human migration has done its part to make Asian food a lot yummier. This is a

Do you like halva or flaky Chinese New Year candy? Then read up on the history of this cosmopolitan treat.

Ever wonder what the rulers of China ate? Read all about the history of a sweet milk curd made with.... none other than rice beer.

Spicy, fragrant, and mint, this pastry reportedly came out of the emperor's own kitchen. Read all about it.

Nowadays, we associate Tibetans and Mongols with milk tea. But the Chinese once could not get enough of the stuff.