SC - period chinese cookbooks

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Huette von wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know of, or own any, period Chinese
> cookbooks that have been translated into English?
> 
> Huette

I think the problem is simply that while there are some period recipes
available in Chinese sources, most of them haven't been translated by
someone who is reasonably competent. I once asked my mother-in-law about
this (she is from Taishan in Kwangtung Province) and her response was to
ask something like, "What the heck would anyone want to look at a bunch
of old recipes for? Nobody eats that stuff anymore. Don't you have
anything better to do?"

I do recall at least one very old (probably pre-1601, maybe by quite a
bit) recipe described in detail in Reay Tannahill's "Food in History",
for a steamed pork dish, and one or two others in other sources that
appear to be period, but in a redacted form of questionable accuracy.

As a matter of fact, though, the current issue of Petits Propos
Culinaires (#60, I think), the British food journal published three
times a year by Prospect Books, has a translation into English of a
14th-century Chinese cookbook by an artist named Ni Tsan. It contains 52
recipes, some of which are more or less similar to modern Chinese
counterparts (wontons...noodles...that sort of thing). The first recipe
is for soy sauce, and it's kind of interesting to see it after looking
at a murri recipe.

As it happens I'll be cooking one of the dishes from that source at an
event tomorrow. I don't have a redaction per se, as I'm more or less
going to do this by eye. I'll probably post on Monday as to how it
went... 

HTH,
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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