Slippery Noodles

China is a big country and its cookery is one of the world’s most complex and most varied. Unfortunately, an understanding of Chinese food history is still relatively hard to come by.

Hsiang Ju Lin has interrogated the written record — some of it dating back to the 5th century BC — provided her own translations and provided culinary context thereby allowing the non-Chinese reader to enter into some of the breadth and depth of literature available. In a sequence of chronological chapters she plunges into specific topics as diverse as the influence of the Silk Road, the administration of the Imperial palace, the role of tea and sugar, many of the grand banquets of which we have record, the differences witnessed in the southern provinces, vegetarianism, bean curd and soy sauce, birds’ eggs and birds’ nests, the role of salt, the impact of the Western missions, noodles, and the relationship of food and medicine.

In the more than 40 essays in the book, the reader is able to explore the richness of Chinese food writing . The translated works include Essential Skills for Common Folk by Jia Sixie (6th century), Food and Drink by Shen Zinan (7th century), Yuan Mei's The Way of Eating (18th-century), the diary of a salt merchant on the east coast and Madame Wu’s Home Cooking from the late Song dynasty.