Family food culture, local food memories, workers’ table stories, and personal relationships with food.
Marking the International Day for Biological Diversity, Foodthink invited four guests – including writer Ban Xia and ecologist Sun Shan – for a dialogue. At Kunming’s Zhuanxin Farmers’ Market, one stall carries 106 varieties of foraged wild greens; matsutake, however, has been listed as endangered.
In Yulin, Chengdu, Xia Lili gathered two plant-shop siblings and Miss Jiang – soon her housemate – as tablemates, pooling produce from farming partners and cooking together instead of daily takeaway. She has been setting this table from the loquat courtyard in Mingyue Village all the way to Yulin’s streetside.
From Jingyang in Shaanxi to Hainan, Harbin and Beijing, four Spring Festival tables each have their own flavour. Small-town dining is quietly drifting towards big-city standards — yet the rice noodles a Shaoyang local scoops into their own basin still hit the mark better than Dianping’s high-rated chains.
This episode of Food Talk visits Pingren Farm in Changping, Beijing. Food doctoral researcher Zhou Chen, cultivation technician Zhao Fei and home cook Auntie Li discuss releasing the fixation on looks, learning more about production and engaging all five senses to come closer to truly “good food”.
Adding kelp and wood ear mushroom to dishes, swapping white-flour steamed buns for Shandong jianbing, and dipping oily dishes in vinegar water — these three moves helped a cook in his sixties shed 15 kg over two Spring Festivals, eating with the whole family exactly as always.
A friend’s winter visit with washing-up liquid and a stir-fry wok turned Villains’ Valley’s spring-water pool black as thick ink, ending two years of untroubled greywater purification. No argument conveys so vividly how modern household chemicals sever the mutual-nourishment cycle between people and the land, under one’s eyes.
From tending the fire by the stove to leaning on a cane to visit his own grave, the granddaughter threads her childhood with her farmer grandfather through four farming proverbs—until, in early spring 2022, he passed away at home.
Sanyuanli has become a coffee brand’s check-in exhibition venue. At the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, meanwhile, pesticide-free strawberries, king oyster mushrooms with their caps open, and seasonal Chinese chives stand guard over the most solid trust between daily meals and the land.
From making pre-made cat food for three cats during the pandemic to always having fifteen finished meals in the freezer, Doudou turned the batch-cooking mindset into practical methods: portioning and freezing, keeping meat and vegetables separate, and sealing at low temperature.
As the scattered village in the New Territories crumbled under demolition, Sanjiao carried a sourdough starter through pandemic streets and bread workshops, finally reaching Yinlin Ecological Farm, Conghua, where ecological smallholder flour gives bread back to the land beneath her feet and the community around her.
