A European recipe in 18th century China

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 merchant, a native of Hangzhou, then a cultured and wealthy mercantile city in Qing-dynasty China. I’ve written elsewhere about this merchant—his name was Tong Yuejian, and he lived in Yangzhou, then the center of China’s lucrative salt industry.

Want to read more? Subscribe to my free Substack, the Curious Eater, and get the rest of the post (and two bonus historical recipes):