No to Hype, No to Chemical Household Products | Kouzi’s Foodie Views, Part 4
Readers familiar with me may have already noticed: I don’t stir-fry.
Indeed, Villain’s Valley doesn’t even have a wok. Of course, my one-square-metre kitchen is equipped with a full set of appliances—pots, steamers, a food processor, an air fryer, and an electric griddle—but no electric wok. Furthermore, my principle for cooking is low oil, low salt, and minimal seasoning; I reject the act of stir-frying. As a foodie, I refuse to use ‘frying’ as a method of preparing food.
I feel more and more that ‘rejecting stir-frying’ suits me. These natural ingredients, with zero distance from land to table, prepared with the simplest methods, reveal the original flavour of the food; as a result, my palate and sense of texture have become increasingly keen and discerning. With a simple pot of soup, I can clearly distinguish between different materials and textures upon the first taste. I can sense the subtle differences in flavour and consistency between pumpkin and taro, as well as the interactive effects when they are paired. Even among ingredients that are similarly soft and glutinous, the hibiscus, roselle, and okra flowers each have their own unique merits… Eating this way is the absolute pinnacle of sensory enjoyment; there is no need to stir-fry.
I. A Natural Living System
Here, I trust my surroundings completely. All ingredients are absolutely safe; often, I simply pick and eat them immediately, or give them a quick rinse with water before tossing them into the pot, without a single worry about hazards or residues.
Nor do I feel guilty about polluting the environment. I have no wastewater discharge; instead, I use banana plant circles adjacent to the kitchen to collect and purify greywater, creating a purification system comprising three ponds. The water first enters the first banana circle, flows into the second once full, then into a larger half-moon pond, and finally into the vegetable garden.
Water hyacinth is planted in the first banana circle. It is said to be a highly invasive plant, but within this small circle, it is confined and has become a powerful ally in purifying sewage; the hornwort in the second banana circle does the same. The third half-moon pond, filled with water lilies, is home to red koi. My domestic water is purified layer by layer and processed entirely on-site, turning into fertiliser—ensuring that no nutrients leave my own land.
The powerful root systems of the banana plants, combined with the water hyacinth and hornwort, provide formidable purification capabilities. Not only do the fish in the lily pond thrive, but they have even swum upstream to set up camp in the second circle, living in leisurely contentment. The foodie’s palate, the surrounding land, and the creatures upon it each find their own fulfilment, and all are thriving.
However, this seemingly perfect system is fragile and prone to sudden collapse.
II. A Pitch-Black Spring Pond
There were two reasons for this. First, oil. I don’t stir-fry, so there is no oil in my pots and, consequently, no need for washing-up liquid. This leads to the second reason: phosphate-based detergents. I haven’t used shampoo, shower gel, or hand soap for over a decade, using natural soap powder or liquid soap instead of laundry detergent. Even these are rarely used, as the clothes I wear for field work are usually just dusty; a rinse with plain water in the washing machine is enough. Thus, my daily greywater is entirely phosphate-free. The environmental impact of phosphate-laden wastewater is widely documented online, so I won’t repeat it here.
The friend who stayed briefly was an eco-conscious vegetarian, yet she stir-fried. This introduced not only oil and grease but also washing-up liquid and other phosphate-based household chemicals. Consequently, the banana circles were transformed into thick, black ink…
I hesitated to include this in an article for public release. However, I found it impossible to explain the problem clearly without a concrete example. After much deliberation, I decided it was necessary to start with this incident. This is not a criticism of the friend herself, nor is it a technical discussion on the environmental impact of phosphates; rather, it is a reflection on the ‘modern way of life’ following two years of experience in Evil’s Valley.
III. The Paradox of Modern Living
But Villain’s Valley is different. Here, there is no vast, distant system that allows one to maintain the illusion of cleanliness by simply keeping the mess out of sight. Instead, these oils and chemical products turn into a thick, pitch-black pool right before my eyes. This contaminated water then poisons the soil, and the poisoned soil yields contaminated plants, which are then harvested as ingredients and stir-fried with heavy oil and sauces in the kitchen, entering another cycle of mutual harm between humanity and nature… This is not alarmism; it is an observable fact.
What I practice in Villain’s Valley is a relationship of mutual nourishment between human and nature, contained within a limited space and the scope of my own physical labour.
My efforts seem to have been successful, or at least effective. This lifestyle has attracted the kind of romanticised admiration where people love the idea of a thing but not its reality; friends come to experience it, fueled by beautiful imaginations. And then, the result is as seen above.
IV. What Kind of Life Do We Need?
I adore the “six-sided emptiness” of this place, especially the practice of leaving the lights off after nightfall, sitting in silence and enjoying a sense of oneness with the universe, accompanied only by the stars and the sound of the stream. However, since returning last year, something has felt wrong. I am here, the stars, moon, and stream are here, but there seems to be something standing between us. Something strange.
For the past two years, I have been striving to dissolve the boundary between humanity and nature. Yet, during the two months a friend stayed here, she spent her time trying to make this place feel like a “normal room”. I have already removed the bamboo fences she installed and the various synthetic fibre floor tiles she laid over the pig-manure mesh, but why does it still feel wrong? Until, finally, I discovered a fragrance diffuser tucked under the shelf of the tea table.
Around me, the wild ginger lilies, roses, and tulips are fragrant. Beneath the mesh is my herb garden, filled with mint, agastache, basil, aromatic marigolds, four fragrant-leaf trees, and two windwheel jasmines. Is that not scent enough? In a place like this, synthetic chemical fragrances are simply a source of pollution.
Many of the lifestyles modern people take for granted are toxic, harmful, and unnecessary. They not only damage the environment but actually harm the individual (as Foodthink previously mentioned in “Is Toilet Paper Really Hygienic?”). Whether it is the ever-growing cities with their increasing pollutant emissions, the villages where chemical fertilisers and pesticides leave everyone feeling precarious, or the “agritainment” farms where modern demands explode at the expense of nature—these are all harmful interactions between humans and nature, an autophagic cycle of mutual destruction between modern lifestyles and the natural environment.
Those synthetic fragrances were designed for enclosed, crowded city lives saturated with smog and exhaust fumes. The tragedy is that even when arriving in an open countryside lush with fragrant grass, people feel the need to wall themselves in first before using these scents—modern humans have simply forgotten how to coexist with nature.
V. Learning to Refuse, and Learning to Compromise
Several friends interested in agri-ecological issues have visited. They have toured many ecological farms, but few have encountered one as “visitor-unfriendly” as Villain’s Valley. This is not just because of these warnings or the sign that reads “Closed to Visitors”. After experiencing this tiny ecosystem, they remarked that I have indeed constructed a closed system between myself and the land around me.
They were right. A system where one closes the door to live under the open sky is exactly the life I want. This life is not designed for visitors, nor does it possess an openness suitable for sharing; it is a personal life, tailored specifically for me.
Villain’s Valley was not easily won, nor was the life I lead here—a way of living in harmless interaction with nature. I cannot merely be the builder; I must learn to be the protector.
Of course, in the end, as a foodie, I understand that people need stir-fried dishes; the “Maillard reaction” provides a deliciousness that truly cannot be replaced. My compromise is this: if you absolutely must have a stir-fry, you must use the wood-fired stove yourself.
I have a rocket stove equipped with cast-iron pans of various sizes, capable of high-heat stir-frying, which I have tested twice myself. Each time I light the fire, I fry a massive batch of various sauces to store in the freezer, which lasts for half a year. This can be covered in the next piece: The Sauce Master.
All illustrations in this article are by the author
Editor: Tianle