A small strip of clay by the courtyard wall of our Hangzhou studio: after seven batches of hot compost made from saved kitchen scraps and coffee grounds, the ground, hard as rammed earth, has loosened into black soil that opens with a single spade.
Yu Jiangang and his wife Mei Yuhui made silk duvets in Zhenghebang for over a decade. An osmanthus silkworm poisoning in autumn 2024 led him to lease 14 mu of rice paddies – from seedling to Lidong harvest, four rounds of hand-weeding, a nearly 180-day life cycle complete.
The last dish in Foodthink’s New Year recipe collection: Ujimqin sheep from Dulan’s family of Harigobi herders in East Ujimqin Banner, Inner Mongolia, raised through four-season transhumance—clear-simmered with salt alone until the meat is fall-apart tender.
Foodthink and the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market present the New Year Recipe Collection. New Year Day Six: Yiyi Farm’s Red sour soup – stir-fry the aromatics, simmer into a pot of Sour soup hotpot, meats and vegetables alike.
Foodthink and the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market present their New Year Recipes from Day 2 to Day 7. The day-five radish sashimi needs only washing, no peeling, a thick cut and soy sauce — good produce, served simply, says it all.
This tofu comes from Xiucai Bean Workshop – stir-fry the yellow bean paste until fragrant, braise for three minutes, and it’s ready. This dish is one of the Spring Festival New Year’s recipes co-created by Foodthink and the Beijing Organic Farmers Market with six farmers.
Foodthink and the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market present “New Year’s Feast Recipes”, days two to seven — six farmers each cooking with their own produce. Huairou Snail Farm’s stir-fried chicken braises a free-range rooster in beer for two hours: when ingredients shine, the cooking does them justice.
Wu Longlong of Mùtóngxīn Farm marinates pork belly thoroughly with Sichuan peppercorns and five-spice powder, coats it in flour and steams forty minutes — and it’s done. A New Year dish from Foodthink and Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market’s one-dish-per-day series, second to seventh day of the New Year.
Foodthink and Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market serve six consecutive days of “New Year recipes” – Day 2 to Day 7 – six home-style dishes of meat, vegetables and soup made from farming friends’ home-grown ingredients, so every good taste on the New Year table has an honest origin.
Eight Foodthink colleagues worked a 12-hour non-stop shift at Jishi—from veg identification and stock intake to live-stream shopping to communal dish-washing after the lamb soup screening—and encountered the unseen labour and carbon behind cold-chain energy consumption and an annual lease.