Dietary health, food safety, nutrition, and food culture.
If bamboo is the spiritual totem of the Chinese people, then bamboo shoots are the very soul of Chinese food lovers. It is somewhat astonishing that, despite global bamboo forests covering a staggering 30.1 million hectares across Europe, Asia, and Africa, China accounts for a full seventy per cent…
Foodthink Says In January this year, a Beijing resident ordered fresh lilies via Hema, but mistakenly received toxic narcissus bulbs instead, leading to the hospitalisation of their 71-year-old mother and 12-year-old son after they consumed them. Addressing the mix-up, Hema explained that during the picking process, a packer had mistakenly…
I grew up as a girl who spent her childhood wandering through wet markets. In my day job, I’m an office worker tied to a cubicle, but when the Lunar New Year rolls around, I step in as the “second-in-command” at a market grocer’s stall.What sort of place is a…
Friends were divided on whether Guan Qi was an introvert or an extrovert. Several people had asked him directly, only to receive a different answer each time. After he passed away, as we gathered together, we realised this was a truth that could never be pinned down. Whenever I recall…
Foodthink Says As the Qingming Festival approaches, whether for travel or tomb-sweeping, many will head to the countryside for a few meals of “farmhouse food”. This year’s Spring Festival was no different for the author of this piece. This account of dining during a return to the village for the…
Having left the small village where every household practised fermentation for so long, and drifted too long in the uncertainties of city life, I had lost a measure of my own vitality. This is something I have only recently come to realise. For years, fermentation was nothing more than a…
Each year, 315 sees a concentrated public focus on food safety. Yet, the impact of “digital pickled mustard greens” – this form of virtual sustenance – on dietary wellbeing has yet to command adequate attention. Short videos, television dramas, variety shows, podcasts… content collectively dubbed “digital pickled mustard greens” has…
In 1972, British scientist John Yudkin published a book titled Pure, White and Deadly. The protagonist of that book was sugar—pure, white sugar. The protagonist of this short piece is sugar too, but the sweet kind. Here, ‘sugar’ refers to sugar itself, sweets, and added sugars in food. On an…
Last April, we moved our Hangzhou studio to the ground floor of an older residential compound with a certain sense of history, gaining a small courtyard in the process. A narrow band of soil runs around the yard; positioned at the front and facing south, it gets excellent sunlight. Though…
On the final day of the holidays, treat yourself to one more light and refreshing dish. The Herigeobi herders’ gently simmered free-range mutton is simple to prepare, yet anyone who has tasted mutton from their year-round migratory flocks invariably praises it and cannot put down their chopsticks. Across the grasslands…
