Rejecting “Hype” and Chemical Household Products | Kouzi’s Foodie Views: Part 4
Regular readers will likely have noticed by now: I don’t stir-fry.
Yes, Evildoers’ Valley doesn’t even own a wok. Admittedly, my one-square-metre kitchen is fully equipped with appliances — a saucepan, a steamer, a food processor, an air fryer, and an electric skillet — just no electric wok. Moreover, my cooking philosophy calls for low oil, low salt, and minimal seasoning. I also steer clear of ‘hype’ — as a food lover, I outright refuse to stir-fry.
I am increasingly convinced that rejecting “hype” suits me. These naturally grown ingredients, spanning zero distance from soil to table, are prepared with the utmost simplicity, revealing the food’s most fundamental flavours. As a result, my palate has grown ever more acute and discerning. From just a simple pot of soup, I can clearly distinguish distinct textures and mouthfeels with every bite. I can perceive the subtle differences in flavour and texture between pumpkin and taro, as well as the harmonious interplay when they are combined. And though hibiscus, roselle, and okra flowers all share a soft, yielding slipperiness, each brings its own distinct character to the pot… To eat in this manner is already the pinnacle of gustatory pleasure. There is no need to stir-fry.
I. A Naturally Evolving Way of Life
Here, I place complete trust in my surroundings. All ingredients are utterly safe; I’ll often pick and eat them straight from the plant, or give them a cursory rinse before tossing them into the pot. Concerns over hazards or residues simply do not cross my mind.
Nor do I carry any guilt about polluting the environment. I discharge no wastewater. Instead, I collect and purify kitchen greywater using banana circles situated right beside the kitchen—a three-pond filtration system. The water first fills the initial banana circle, then overflows into the second. Once that is full, it spills into a larger half-moon pond, and finally makes its way into the vegetable garden.
The first banana circle is planted with water hyacinth. Though notoriously an invasive species prone to choking waterways, confined to this small enclosure it becomes a highly effective filtration workhorse. The hornwort in the second circle does the same. The third pool, a half-moon pond dotted with water lilies, is home to fish—red koi, to be precise. My domestic water passes through layer upon layer of purification, is fully recycled on-site, and turns into fertiliser. I keep every drop of that nutrient-rich water on my own land.
Thanks to the robust root systems of the banana trees, along with the water hyacinth and hornwort, the filtration capacity is formidable. The fish in the lily pond not only thrive but have also followed the current upstream to set up home in the second circle, living quite comfortably. The foodie’s palate, the surrounding land, and the creatures that inhabit it all receive what they need; everything flourishes.
Yet for all its apparent perfection, this system is delicate, all too easily broken.
II. A Pool of Dark Spring Water
There were two reasons for this. First, oil. I do not stir-fry, so the water used to rinse my pans contains no grease, meaning I naturally have no need for dishwashing liquid. This leads directly to the second culprit: phosphate-based detergents. I have done without shampoo, shower gel, and hand wash for over a decade, consistently opting for natural soap powder or liquid soap instead of laundry detergent. Indeed, I rarely use even those, as clothes worn while working outdoors gather little more than soil and rinse clean in the washing machine with just plain water. Consequently, the greywater from my daily routine is entirely phosphate-free. The environmental impact of phosphate-laden domestic wastewater is well-documented online, so I shall not labour the point here.
The friend staying here is, admittedly, a vegetarian with strong environmental awareness. However, she does cook with oil, which introduced not only grease but also dishwashing soap. Coupled with other phosphate-containing household products, the basin beneath the banana tree was transformed into a pool of thick ink…
I did wrestle with whether to include this in an article intended for public consumption. Yet I simply cannot articulate the issue clearly without a concrete example. After much deliberation, I must begin with this incident. This is not directed at the friend in question, nor is it intended to debate the environmental implications of phosphate chemicals. Rather, following two years of residence at Evil Man’s Valley, I am looking back to reflect on the broader theme of “modern lifestyles”.
III. The Paradoxes of Modern Life
But at Eren Valley, things are different. There is no vast, distant system here to sweep it all out of sight and out of mind. Right under our noses, the cooking oil and chemical household products pool into a thick, jet-black sludge. The contaminated water taints the soil, the tainted soil grows polluted crops, which are then harvested as ingredients, taken to the kitchen, and stir-fried in copious oil and rich sauces, feeding into yet another cycle of mutual harm between humans and nature… This is no alarmist rhetoric; it is a plain, observable fact.
What I am practising at Eren Valley is a relationship of mutual nourishment between humans and nature, operating within a finite space and bounded by the limits of my own physical labour.
My efforts seem successful, or at least effective. This way of life has drawn the admiration of armchair romanticisers, and friends have arrived with idealised visions to experience it. And then, the result unfolded exactly as described above.
IV. The Life We Need
I have a deep affection for the open, uncluttered emptiness of this place. I particularly treasure sitting in the dark after nightfall, quietly relishing the harmony between self and surroundings, accompanied only by the sounds of the starlit river and flowing water. Yet ever since I returned last year, something has felt decidedly off. I am here, the stars, moon, and stream are here, but it feels as though an invisible veil has settled between us, leaving a strange disquiet.
For the past two years, I have been working to dissolve the boundary between humans and nature. During the two months my friend stayed here, however, she was keen on making the space feel like a ‘proper room’. I have since removed the bamboo fencing she put up and taken away the synthetic floor tiles she laid over the traditional woven mat flooring, but why does it still not feel right? It was only when I spotted an air freshener tucked on the shelf beneath the tea table that I understood.
The surroundings are already filled with the delightful scents of wild ginger flowers, roses, and tulips. Beneath the mat floor lies my herb patch, abundant with mint, purple basil, Thai basil, and pot marigolds, alongside four fragrant pistacia trees and two windmill jasmine vines. Is not nature’s fragrance sufficient? In this setting, synthetic chemical perfumes are nothing short of a pollutant.
Many of the lifestyles we modern people take for granted are toxic, harmful, and entirely unnecessary. They do not merely damage the environment; they ultimately harm us too (as previously discussed in Foodthink’s Is Toilet Paper Really Hygienic?). Whether it is cities growing larger and spewing ever more pollution, rural areas overrun by fertilisers and pesticides where everyone lives in fear, or the booming agritainment sector that places immense demands on nature while leaving lasting scars, it all amounts to a destructive interaction between humanity and the natural world—a self-consuming cycle of mutual harm between modern lifestyles and the environment.
Those synthetic fragrances were engineered for cramped, enclosed urban life, choking on smog and car exhaust. The tragedy is that even when we step into open countryside planted thick with herbs, our first instinct is still to fence ourselves off before reaching for them. It seems modern people have simply lost the ability to live in harmony with nature.
V. Learning to Say No, and Learning to Compromise
A few friends interested in food and agriculture have visited. Having toured numerous eco-farms, they noted that Evil Valley’s “visitor-unfriendly” approach is rare. It’s not just the rules or the sign that reads “Closed to Visitors.” After experiencing this small-scale ecosystem, they remarked that it truly forms a closed loop between me and the land around me.
They were right. A self-contained life, shut off from the outside world and facing only the sky, is exactly what I’ve been looking for. It isn’t designed for visitors, nor does it have the openness required for sharing. It is a personal life tailored specifically for me.
Evil Valley came to me through hard work, and so did the life I lead here—along with this harmless, symbiotic way of interacting with nature. I cannot simply be a builder; I must learn to be a guardian.
Of course, ultimately, as a foodie, I understand the human craving for stir-fried dishes. The Maillard reaction does indeed produce an irreplaceable flavour. The compromise is straightforward: if stir-frying is a must, I will fire up the wood stove myself.
I have a rocket stove equipped with cast-iron pans of various sizes, capable of high-heat wok frying. I’ve tested it out a couple of times myself. Each time I light it, I stir-fry a massive batch of assorted sauces, which I freeze in the fridge for the next six months. These ventures will be covered in the next instalment: The Sauce Maker.
All illustrations in this article are courtesy of the author.
Editor: Tianle