A week or so ago, I found a post about a thirteenth-century European mead recipe on the Historical Cookery site. Needless to say, it caught my attention. For some years, in fact, mead has held a special place in my heart. Like most sugar fiends, I like my drinks sickly sweet: creamy pina coladas, cloying Rieslings, and yes, pineapple cider. Which is why I am perhaps overly fond of meads. Like most of you, I had assumed that mead was a European drink. So imagine my surprise when I discovered it sitting in a Chinese almanac, first published in 1271 [ Shilin guangji 事林廣記]. Cook together 3 jin (1.9 kg) of white crystallized honey and 1 dou (6.7 L) of water; place in a bottle and let cool until warm. Add 2 liang (80 g) of finely powdered starter and 2 liang (80 g) of white leavening agent, then seal with paper. Let rest in a clean place: in Spring or Autumn, for 10 days; in Summer, 7 days; in Winter, 15 days. The bottle contents will spontaneously yield 1 sheng (670 mL, ≈2.8 cups) of superior mead. Drinking a cup or two at night aids in the pursuit of transcendence and cures many illnesses. This mead was often prepared by Imperial Attendant Huo Qingfu for his Majesty. I have drunk it two or three times; it is extremely fine. I have not tried making alcohol at home, so I can’t speak to its difficulty. Truth be told, I am rather frightened of poisoning myself—and others. Want to keep reading? Subscribe to my free Substack newsletter, the Curious Eater

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):

I was forty-seven before I realized I had never eaten a proper steak. Growing up in San Francisco, I had eaten plenty of steak—but it was always the Cantonese adaptation of this Western classic. Soft in texture and thoroughly cooked, it was a heavily modified for the Chinese palate. The catalyst for this belated realization? A weekend visit from Ryan Waddell, the fine-dining chef I was working with. A flattering picture of me Want to read more? Subscribe to my free Substack post, the Curious Eater https://substack.com/@thecuriouseater

“As a Chinese person, I have never heard of Chinese people eating a plant-based diet.” “All of the food traditions include a lot of meat and less of plants.” The comment was from an Honors student the other day. We had just discussed Colin Campbell’s famous China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-term Health, widely regarded as a “Bible” among vegans. For those of you who don’t know Campbell, he is a Cornell researcher who argued that the traditional Chinese diet was rich in plants and poor in animal fats and protein. In his view, this was the secret of Chinese health: lower cholesterol, lower rates of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease. Want to read the rest? Please subscribe to my free Substack

This year, Chinese New Year falls on a Tuesday. Monday night, if we’re being precise. Traditionally, it begins the night before. When I was growing up in San Francisco, the signs were unmistakable. My mother would stop cleaning. She’d tell us not to wash our hair. And in the refrigerator there would be a giant round disc taking up a shelf on its own. Brown. Homogeneous. Let me say this clearly: it’s nonsense that all Chinese families make dumplings for New Year. My mother was Cantonese. That meant no dumplings. If you wanted dumplings, you went out for them. Or you ordered them from the dim sum cart. Want to keep reading this post? The rest of the post is on my free Substack. Subscribe for weekly Asian food history and food tidbits!

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 restaurant today and the menu will be rich in beef. Beef and broccoli. Beef in oyster sauce, in mapo tofu, chow fun noodles, even in dumplings. My Chinese mother’s table was also full of beef. Beef for my American father. Beef for her mild version of mapo tofu. We ate so much beef growing up that I was surprised to learn, years later, that the Chinese word rou , “meat,” traditionally referred to pork, the quintessential Chinese flesh. But beef was not always a popular food in the Middle Kingdom.. It has become something of a cliché to say that cattle were beasts of burden rather than sources of meat or milk. Where available and affordable, cows allowed farmers to plow more effectively and increase yields. The state, at times, even tracked cattle sales and distributed animals to settlers opening new lands. There were solid economic reasons not to turn cattle into dinner. Want to keep reading? Subscribe to my free Substack newsletter, The Curious Eater, and find out the answer... Beef tongue and brisket, photo by author

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 liberties. Note that white sugar was not yet a common household item in the Tang dynasty. Like many people, I have bad habits. One is spending the last twenty minutes of my day scrolling social media, trying to quiet an unquiet mind. Lately that mind has been especially restless—long days as a college professor and mother, a recent burst of intellectual energy from teaching my course on the history of dietary advice. But the moment I saw that video, I had doubts. Was this wishful thinking? Or was this actually something someone once ate—in China, of all places?... To keep reading, please sign up for my free Substack newsletter, which is delivered twice a week

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 as she brings a flaky pastry to her lips, a fitting end to a decadent feast. Both women are what we today would call vegetarians. They abstain from all forms of flesh and eggs, for their salvation. But which diet would you prefer? This is a real question—one I posed to my Honors students earlier this week. It was meant as a lighthearted entry into what became an intense discussion of the medieval Christian diet. I arrived at the comparison by accident. The week before, we had covered Buddhist vegetarianism, and in a moment of inspiration—or madness—I gave my students a rough translation of twenty vegetarian recipes from The Forest of Affairs , a fourteenth-century Chinese almanac. Now we were turning to European ascetics from the same period. The contrast was immediate—and gave us much food for thought. The Chinese recipes have no meat, eggs, or seafood. But they are anything but austere. The author presents a rich vegetarian cuisine for laypeople seeking to accrue good karma by taking the killing out of their meals. There are noodles dressed with sauces of fresh cheeses, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and scallion oils. Mushrooms simmered in rice wine. (Alliums and alcohol were technically suspect, but lay practice clearly allowed more latitude than monastic codes.) Sheer dumplings brim with walnuts, persimmons, chestnuts, and more cheese, finished with sugar. Flaky pastries are enriched with melted butter. Mock meats abound: imitation eel sashimi, fake fish, even ersatz jellyfish made from konjac—“devil’s tongue”—still sold in Taiwanese convenience stores. This cuisine is rich in fats, sugars, and refined starches, designed to delight even the most unrepentant carnivore. Little here suggests renunciation. If anything, the message seems to be: we’ll work with your meat tooth. Mock meat in Beijing, Nov 2019 The medieval Christian ascetics could not be more different. In Holy Feast and Holy Fast (1987), Carolyn Bynum describes how saints—especially female mystics—made their food deliberately unpalatable. They did not merely abstain from meat and rich foods or reduce calories. They waged war on the pleasure associated with eating itself. Francis of Assisi gave up cooked food. Clare Gambacorta of Pisa mixed ash into her meals. Columba of Rieti added dirt. Others subsisted on moldy or black bread, raw herbs, or adulterated grains. Still others even added dried dung. The aim was to extinguish desire for earthly delights and to induce physical suffering, bringing them closer to Jesus. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, these strategies increasingly became associated with women. Bynum famously argues that such practices offered them a measure of control in a male-dominated world. Yet disgust and pain were not the only paths to God. The Eucharist mattered just as much. Mystics did not merely rejoice in taking communion; they described its gustatory qualities in striking detail. Angela of Foligno testified that the host expanded in her mouth and tasted unlike ordinary bread: “it had the savor of meat, but with a completely different taste… it went down with great ease and sweetness.” Others said it slipped down the throat “like fish.” Sweetness recurs, the host being compared to honey. The divine had a flavor profile. Faced with these two visions of virtuous eating, my first impulse was obvious: cultural difference. The worldly, food-loving qualities of the Chinese seemed to shine through—even in the pursuit of enlightenment and release from the profane world. No wonder Chinese cuisine is world famous. Then a student challenged me. “Are they really that different? Isn’t this all about reaching spiritual goals through diet?” He was right. At the broadest level, both traditions pursued salvation through eating right. But the longer I pondered the comparison, the more I suspected something deeper. In both cases, the path to paradise—or nirvana—was experienced through the palate. Not metaphorically. Literally. For medieval European mystics, disgust was a spiritual tool. As Bynum emphasizes, suffering from food was not a glitch in the system. It was the point. Gagging, retching, and vomiting did not signal a rejection of the physical realm; they intensified the mystic’s engagement with it. Pain destabilized the body, induced illness, and drew the eater closer to Christ, who suffered on the cross. At the same time, the Eucharist offered a counterpoint: chewing and swallowing sacred flesh as sweetness, ease, and divine nourishment. Salvation could be ingested. Licence: Public Domain Mark Credit: A Catholic communion. Wood engraving by H. Linton after E.-G. Bocourt. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection . What of Chinese Buddhist laity? The evidence differs in genre and tone, but the pursuit of enlightenment—release from rebirth, the extinguishing of delusion—likewise unfolded within a culinary imagination. Here the dairy-rich quality of the recipes from The Forest of Affairs matters. Clarified butter went into doughs, creamy teas, medicines, and congees. Some monasteries reportedly stocked ghee for visitors. This was no accident. Dairy—especially clarified butter—permeates Buddhist scripture and imagery in ways that form a sensory language of awakening. The Nirvana Sutra famously uses butter-making as a metaphor for the path: milk becomes yogurt, then butter, and finally a fragrant, refined essence. For medieval Chinese Buddhists, butter became associated not only with enlightenment but with teaching itself and the taking of vows. Monks were anointed with ghee. The Buddha nourished himself with rich milk porridge just before meditating beneath the bodhi tree. To catch a “whiff” or “taste” of ghee could signal the stirrings of awakening. Su Che, the younger brother of Su Shi, writes in a poem after a simple meal of wild greens: “In the inner “Flowery Pool” (e.g., the palate), there is naturally the taste of ghee.” Having eaten only vegetables, he experiences the “taste of ghee”—a sensory intimation of a state beyond ordinary awareness. We often describe medieval Christian asceticism as “denying the flesh” and Buddhist vegetarianism as “transcending the material.” Both formulations miss something. In both traditions, salvation was not only contemplated. It was sniffed, tasted, and swallowed. My students chose the Buddhists, incidentally. Butter over ash. Even if the latter, some claimed, might make bread taste angelic. Bibliography: Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, 1987). Chen, Yuanjing 陳元靚 (13th cent). 1330-1333. Xinbian bianzuan zenglei qunshu leiyao Shilin guangji 新編纂圖增類群書類要事林廣記 ( The Extensive forest of affairs, newly compiled and illustrated with additional book types digested ). In Yuwai Hanji zhenben wenku, zibu 域外漢籍珍本文庫. 第五輯, 子部 (A library of rare editions of Chinese materials abroad, works of philosophers). Chongqing and Beijing Xinan shifan daxue chubanshe and Renmin chubanshe. John Kieschnick, “Buddhist Vegetarianism in China” in Roel Sterckx, Of Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics, and Religion in Traditional China (New York: Palgrave MacMillian, 2005).186-212 Thanks for reading! 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Open less than six months, Lucky Lee’s has gotten off to a rough start. The decision of the owners, Lee and Arielle Haspel, to market “clean” Chinese food made headlines. The internet furor has been so intense that Yelp no longer accepts comments. In response to the uproar, the Haspels have clarified what they meant by clean: “‘Clean’ Chinese-American food will actually make [diners] feel good.” This is clean in Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOPian sense of the word: no refined sugars, processed meat, dairy, or gluten. Whole foods that not only make you alert, but also ensure that you look right: a diet that gives you an unblemished complexion and svelte figure. It may be news to the owners of Lucky Lee’s, but China already has a long tradition of clean eating. Ancient Chinese blamed grains for their wrinkles and grays. They thought that fermented mare’s milk was the key to long life. They also practiced yoga and deep breathing. Later writers build on these foundations. Like modern people, they took a dim view of wheat, treating it as poison. To purge their bodies of the toxins in their noodles, they drank cleansing juices with ginseng and China Root. The same writers also preached against poor food combinations. Cow’s milk and sashimi did not mix. Some of their proposals make sense. Chinese writers urged moderate consumption of animal protein and small servings of tofu. (Soy was also poison in medieval China). They encouraged readers to follow protocol: chew thoroughly and avoid eating before bedtime. These writers also recommended sticking to fresh meat and vegetables. Go easy on the seasoning, grease, and caffeine, and no alcohol. These things bloat you. The roots of this philosophy lay in dietary excess. While peasants struggled to get enough to eat, the Chinese elite gorged themselves on buttery pastries and red meats. This tradition peaked in the sixteenth century. As New Abalone is a staple in any fancy banquet. World silver flowed into the Chinese economy, banqueting became a life style for the rich and powerful. Feasting began promptly at noon, lasting until the early hours of the morning. Surviving menus confirm that hosts exercised little portion control. They treated their guests not only to loads of food, but also the fattiest cuts of meat and made a point of serving pricey items like bird’s nest and shark’s fin. The rounds of distilled spirits kept the party going. The constant feasting contributed to far more than bad health. It led to banquet fatigue. Rich men began craving lighter fare. Before long, experts in gastronomy joined doctors in composing treatises on healthy eating. Late in the sixteenth century, a merchant’s son discovered the pleasure of leafy vegetables. Clean eating is poised to make a comeback in China. For several decades, the Chinese elite marked the end of rationing with over-eating. The celebrations have come at a familiar cost: expanding waistlines, increasing levels of cardiovascular disease, and a diabetes epidemic. Five years ago, my friends greeted the government crackdown on banqueting with relief. I too experienced banquet exhaustion on my last trip to China. After twelve courses and a night of toasting, I ached for simple fare. The hours of vomiting also helped me find clarity. Chinese consumers are receptive to American versions of clean eating. Worried about the toxins lurking in their meals, many of them now buy organic and avoid refined starches. You can even get a juice cleanse in Beijing before heading off to yoga. It would not surprise me if a version of Lucky Lee’s popped up in a Chinese city soon. The Chinese are already used to clean eating. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

Animal rights activists could learn something from the Chinese about ethical eating. Last year, British baker Hannah Edwards found herself at the center of controversy. The small business owner, also known as the Cake Illusionist , had perfected the techniques for baking sponge cakes that resembled real animals. Some of her creations included a shar pei, a popular Chinese dog breed, life-sized Springer Spaniels, and even horses. The cakes incensed animal rights activists. According to the Daily Mail , ten thousand of them trolled Edwards, calling her a closet serial killer. Thousands of miles away in Taiwan, J.C. Co Art Kitchen sold chocolate ice cream that looked like the same shar pei. The café owners encountered none of the ire that Edwards attracted. Newspapers in Asia reported that while some people thought the ice cream “dogs” were cute, others found the dessert creepy. One person told a reporter, “It is as if a dog is lying here and I feel like cutting into him will hurt him.” Despite the mixed reviews, J.C. Co soon had trouble satisfying orders. Before long, a knock-off product, a mousse shar pei, appeared in Beijing. Sitting on all fours, the “dog” looked up with pleading eyes. The chocolate dustings mimicked the texture of fur and skin folds. Chinese netizens picked up on the resemblance. Pictures of people and real pets posing with the “shar pei” circulated on social media. A miniature mousse "dog" But dog meat is taboo in major cities in the Chinese-speaking world. Many of them regard dogs as pets, and they have never seen one on a plate. Some of them even engage in rescue operations, traveling to remote places in Western China where people still occasionally consume dog meat. A few years ago, the New York Times reported a noisy scuffle between locals and Chinese animal rights activists. Two years ago, Taiwan enacted a ban on dog meat. The milder response to the “dogs” in Asia reflects the fact that Chinese are used to imitation meats. Mock meats, in fact, have been a hallmark of Buddhist vegetarianism in China for centuries. Stanford scholar John Kieschnick thinks medieval Buddhist monks offered tasty meat substitutes to encourage lay people to adopt a vegetarian diet. Although pious Buddhists avoided animal flesh, fish, and eggs, they saw nothing wrong with eating foods that shared the texture or appearance of the real thing. The resemblance of mock meats made of konyaku and gluten can be uncanny. In the 1960s, a Japanese health enthusiast introduced faux meats to the United States. Nowadays, Americans can buy not only tofu “burgers,” but also Thanksgiving turkeys made with gluten. Westerners are now working hard to take meat substitutes to new levels of craftsmanship. Scientists are trying to grow “bloodless” meat in labs. Since no animals will be killed, you will soon be able to devour a medium-rare steak with a clear conscience. Until then, we would do well to take cues from the Chinese. Ethical eating is a fine thing -- so long as no one gets hurt. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

We all know the stereotype: Chinese food is dairy free, because Asians are, as a rule, lactose intolerant. Unlike Northern Europeans, they are born without the enzyme that breaks down complex milk sugars in adult intestines. Since I am a grown-up and Asian, this means that I will get diarrhea every time I have a glass of milk (or maybe every other time since I am only half Chinese). Q.E.D. I should play it safe and stick to soy Traditional Chinese medicine, however, begs to differ. Physicians in traditional China actually thought that milk promoted gut health . They prescribed dairy foods for a variety of stomach problems. Feeling nauseous? Drink a cup of sheep’s milk. Unable to eat? Mix equal parts raw and cooked cow’s milk, and drink twice a day on an empty stomach. Got a problem with a distended belly because of chronic constipation? Combine a little milk with a lot of mallow seeds. In the eyes of Chinese doctors, you really could not go wrong with dairy. Milk was good for just about any condition. You could drop donkey’s milk into the ears to expel bugs, or make enemas out of sheep’s milk yogurt. For a more appealing remedy, broil pears in butter and honey. It will cure the common cough and give you a sugar rush. Chinese physicians also gave their patients cow’s milk, simmered with Indian long peppers, to treat dysentery. By most accounts, the remedy worked wonders. Some patients reported being cured after only a few sips. Chinese doctors not only regarded milk as a potent drug, but they also believed it should be a constant part of the diet. They urged their patients to make a daily habit of dairy. Take the famed authority on Chinese medicine, Sun Simiao (581-682). Sun encouraged his patients to load up on cow’s milk and butter, even if they suffered from weak stomachs. Cow’s milk made you strong and energetic and your skin moist. Yogurt kept things moving through the large intestine. Ghee was a superfood that added years to your life. It’s time for us to retire the stereotype. Had milk really caused the runs, I’m sure that Chinese doctors would have noticed and steered their patients clear of dairy. Since they did the reverse and told people to consume more milk, we should take heed. After all, these doctors have treated Chinese bellies for centuries. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

You don’t need European genes to enjoy dairy. Last week, an old article from the Economist resurfaced in my news feed. “ No Use Crying Over Milk: Milk and Economic Development ” (2015) traced the roots of European prosperity since the 1800s. In a nutshell, the author proposed that dairy consumption lay behind Europe’s historic rise. Unlike the vast majority of Asians and Africans, most Europeans have a genetic mutation that allows them to digest fresh milk. Supposedly, this mutation gave Europeans an edge over the rest of the world. It enabled them to access extra calories from farm animals, paving the way for better health and global dominance. If the argument sounds far-fetched, it is. The article also cherry-picked the evidence, to put it mildly. Most Swedes and other Northern Europeans have inherited a genetic mutation that makes them lactase persistent . Throughout their adult lives, they continue to make lactase, the enzyme that breaks down the complex carbohydrates in milk. This means that they can usually drink milk without obnoxious symptoms, like flatulence or diarrhea. But Europeans are not the only people who have won the genetic “lottery.” Scientists have also identified two other genetic mutations that perform the same function as the European gene. One of these pops up in Kenya and Tanzania; the other in Sudan and the Middle East. Chinese researchers are on the lookout for a separate mutation for lactase persistence specific to Central Asia. Besides, you do not even have to be lactase persistent to drink milk. In 2009, the Journal of Molecular Evolution published a study of a population of Somalis living in Ethiopia . A team of biologists found that three quarters of their subjects were lactase deficient , as opposed to persistent. The Somalis, however, gave no signs of struggling with their milk. Seventy-one percent of them drank over two cups of the stuff each day. This was not a surprise. Somalis have traditionally been pastoralists, so dairy naturally played a significant role in their diet. But if lactase production wasn’t in play, then what gave the Somalis the ability to drink milk? The researchers suspected that the Somalis had favorable gut flora, which aided digestion. If confirmed, this implies that dietary factors are also important. Camel Milk. My Somali neighbors swear by the stuff, but you can also buy it in Beijing, at a Xinjiang speciality store. The National Institute of Health (2010) thinks people have been too hasty in swearing off milk. They worry that many people assume that they can’t drink milk because they aren’t white. They also warn that we lack reliable statistics about the prevalence of lactose intolerance (more on that next week). If you are still worried about milk, there are plenty of things you can do to ease digestion. You can take your milk in small amounts with meals. You might want to curdle your milk with rennet or vinegar to make cheese , or churn cream into butter. You can also culture your milk and make things like yogurt. After all, this is precisely what our ancestors did. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. https://thecuriouseater.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page