The translation of the YSCY which follows is full and complete in all particulars. It retains the organization of the original and like it is divided into a section for prefaces and three main divisions, each comprised of one chüan of the original. Each part, including the three prefaces, is preceded by a reproduction of its full text with pages either as printed in the Szu-pu ts’ung-kan hsü-pien or Chung-kuo ku-tai pan-hua ts’ung-k’an 中國古代片反畫叢刊 versions of the 1456 edition or in the identical surviving sections of the Yüan first edition. A complete translation follows with full annotation and apparatus. Bold numbers and capital letters in brackets refer to the pages of the original text; numbers preceding recipes are recipe numbers, referred to in the introduction. Chüan 1 includes a complete table of contents for the entire text.
Every effort has been made to make the translation consistent. Wherever possible a single English term has been used throughout to translate a single Chinese term. When this has not been possible, and the deviation is significant, the fact is so indicated in the notes. In every case translations of Chinese terms appearing in the text reflect the particular usage of the YSCY. This may be at variance with usage elsewhere. This is often true for cooking terms.1
Botanical, zoological and mineral terminology has also been standardized. For Latin names we have generally followed the CYTTT, but have corrected frequently to accord with recent taxonomic revisions. Popular names, by and large, are from Hu Shiu-ying, An Enumeration of Chinese Material Medica. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1980. Hu Shiu-ying reproduces relatively well-known nineteenth century Chinese customs terminology. For popular names not in Hu we have used a variety of sources including: the largely outdated, but still useful works of B. E. Read; Pierre Pfeffer’s superb Asia: A Natural History (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1968); Algirdas Knystautas, The Natural History of the USSR (London: Century, 1987); and Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee, The Birds of China (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1984). For most Western food plants our authority has been, unless otherwise indicated, G. B. Masefield, M. Wallis, S. G. Harrison, and B. E. Nicholson. The Oxford Book of Food Plants (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969).
It should be stressed that traditional Chinese botanical, zoological and mineral terminology is less precise than Western and is rather different in intent. It relies in large part upon a classification system based (in part) on magical correspondences and in other medicinal and dietary properties of substances as seen by the Chinese (see Chapter 2), rather than upon any Linnaean or Darwinian perception of the proper place of things in a biological order, a Chinese “great chain of being.”2 Chinese folk classification of plants and animals does recognize biologically related families (e.g., kua 瓜 = cucurbits), based upon their physical similarities and past Chinese pragmatic experience. But in their fullest development, traditional Chinese classification systems can also produce groupings and terminology quite different from anything Western.
The Chinese, for example, sometimes employ a single name for unrelated species due to similar appearances and identically perceived medicinal and dietary properties, e.g., the YSCY’s ts’ao-kuo, probably covering a variety of species of large cardamom. Two substances can also have the same name when one has replaced the other as a food or medicine, even in cases where one was originally an animal product, the substitution a plant. This strange practice is understandable in part because traditional Chinese pharmacists rarely saw the substances they used in their unprocessed, natural forms, something particularly true for generally extremely rare animal products.3 Conversely, several different terms can apply to parts of one and the same plant, e.g., the different terms for the herb and root of the Chinese garlic chive in the YSCY.
All of this makes the translation of traditional Chinese biological terminology particularly difficult. For the YSCY there is the added problem that the terminology is often employed in a manner somewhat divergent from other, more standard sources. Part of the problem is that the dietary was written at a time when the codification and amalgamation of Chinese terminology had just begun, and represents its own Northern tradition. Another obstacle is that Hu Szu-hui has been creative in his usage and that in many cases the YSCY’s Chinese botanical and zoological terminology is no more than an approximation of usage in West and Central Asia. This fact is made abundantly clear by the illustrations, which often depict a plant or animal different from what one should expect from the Chinese terminology alone.
In addition to these questions of Chinese terminology and usage, there is the added difficulty of a YSCY biological environment which has been little studied and is certainly not well understood. This is true for modern East and Central Asian biology as well, with study and classification perhaps a century behind the standard set for well-settled parts of Europe and the United States. In this connection, the authors are aware of the considerable disagreements among botanists and zoologists regarding the taxonomy of some plants and animals mentioned by the YSCY, and in other sources used in this study. Where relevant we note these disagreements but make no attempt to settle them. We leave this task to specialists and in most cases simply follow our authorities.
Also fraught with problems is YSCY medical terminology. Like Chinese botanical, zoological and mineral terminology, traditional Chinese medical terminology is not readily equivalent to that used in the West. The world views of Chinese and Western medicine are, for example, utterly different, as are their respective terminological intents. Much of YSCY usage is formulated in terms of the generalized categories of Chinese folk medicine, e.g., “head pain,” “lower back pain.” It is translated in equivalent general terms, as literally as possible. In a few cases a more complex terminology expressive of the full diagnostic categories of traditional Chinese medicine is used. Frequently YSCY terminology refers to symptoms, diseases, and syndromes still recognized by traditional Chinese physicians. For many, standard English translations exist and can be found in the many Western language dictionaries of traditional Chinese medical usage.4 But in other cases YSCY formulations are unique to the text, or are of uncertain application. We know far too little about the disease environment of Hu Szu-hui’s time to allow us to give exact translations. To guard against any possible over-interpretation of the text, we have always translated as literally as possible when there is any uncertainty. This is particularly necessary in view of the added problem of exactly what Hu intended to communicate with his Chinese categories, and the strong possibility that he has used categories of Chinese medicine to translate West Asian or even Mongolian ideas.
Here the problem of inexact medical terminology impinges upon the equally great problem of inexact cultural focus. We have noted in the introductory chapters the great differences of content, for example, between a largely Chinese chüan 3 and the recipes. There are similar differences of cultural content among the three major groups of recipes themselves, and even between “erratic” blocks of seemingly Chinese materials. Some represent elite traditions, some popular, and some traditions unique and specific to Mongol China, with its many non-Chinese cultural influences. These facts necessarily make the YSCY extraordinarily complex and a culturally inconsistent work.
This has meant that the question of what culture or mix of cultures a particular part of the text represents had to be foremost in our minds as we made our translation. Little or nothing in the YSCY can be taken at face value. For example, not only do many YSCY recipes represent more or less pure Central and West Asian cooking traditions, very roughly translated into Chinese categories, but some recipes may even be translations from a Turkic language. In such cases adaptation of terminology to Chinese culinary experience may be superficial and inaccurate, and more a hindrance than a help to proper understanding. There are similar problems even with those portions of the text more or less purely Chinese.
For example, there is throughout the Chinese culture of the YSCY a great tension between elite traditions and folk belief. This finds expression in particular in the sometimes strange formulations of the YSCY avoidances. Some of the influences may not even be Chinese, especially if we assume that traditions represented are those of culturally diverse North China. Thus, even Chinese “erratic blocks” of text cannot be taken at face value.
Therefore, YSCY is by no means an easy text to translate. Parts, the recipes in particular, appear deceptively easy but can be in practice quite misleading. Language in them tends to be highly technical and is often expressed in terms unique to the Mongol era or the YSCY itself. Recipe texts are usually highly abbreviated and some are mutilated.5 In some cases, detailed comparison with similar recipes found in other texts such as the CCPYSL was necessary before any real sense could be made out of some recipe texts. In such cases missing text and explanations have been supplied in brackets. Brackets are used throughout the translation to indicate any materials added by the translators and not found in the original. As with other YSCY texts, over-translation has been carefully avoided. Recipes are translated as literally as possible.6
As an example of the type of problems encountered in translating the recipes the reader may profitably compare the following two recipes for “West of the River Lungs.” The first is from the CCPYSL (13, 19a–b). The second is taken from chüan 1 (42b) of the YSCY. Note that Hu has reversed the first two characters of the title, instead of the CCPYSL’s hsi-ho 西河, a term usually referring to the Uighurs in Yüan-era texts, he writes instead ho-hsi 河西, a term usually to be understood as “Tangut”:
“West of the River Lungs”
Connect heart, sheep lungs, one set. Clean in water. Use 4 liang 兩 of bean paste and broth. Work into meat. Use 4 liang of flour and scallion juice. Work into meat. Honey, 3 liang, half a chin 斤 of butter, pine nuts, walnuts; remove the skin and clean, pound with a 10 liang weight. Filter finely and remove dregs. Stir together and combine. Pour onto the lung. When covered completely, put into cooking pot. Cook until done. Put on the table on a Tatar plate.7 First baste and marinate lung. Put the excess broth into sesame paste. Cook until done. Make into entrees.
“Tangut Lungs”
Ingredients: Sheep’s lung (one), leeks (six chin. Take the juice), flour (two chin. Make into paste), ghee (half a chin), black pepper (two liang), juice of sprouting ginger (two ho 合).
Use salt. Flavor evenly. Submerge the lungs in water and cook. When done Baste with the juice and eat.
Leaving aside slight differences in ingredients, the two recipes are clearly recipes for more or less the same dish but the YSCY version is so abbreviated as to be largely incomprehensible.
The original recipes thus assumed a great deal about their reader. The reader must not only know how to cook, but how to cook with the specific culinary traditions of the Mongol court in mind. Since the YSCY, with all its imperfections, is itself our best source for understanding these traditions, with little documented elsewhere, we can often only guess at what has been left out. When philological means fail, where internal comparisons are impossible or unfruitful, or where no parallel Medieval or Modern traditions exist, our only alternative has been cook-testing, to see which of several possibilities yields the best results.
In conclusion, although the translation which follows is well-based, and as reliable as we have been able to make it, a great deal remains conjecture, with much further research needed. We accept this limitation of our work in view of the infancy of the field of cross-cultural food and medicine studies, and the uniqueness of our document. It is also true that (like others who go first) we will necessarily make errors in what is the first translation of its kind from a Chinese source. We thus offer our work as a challenge to those who come after. Just as we have drawn heavily upon pioneer work by Laufer, Schafer, Sabban and others, and corrected them in some cases, we invite a new generation of scholars to refine our view, to make improvements, and to go on from here.
Note on Weights and Measures. In the translation below we have made no attempt to translate Chinese weights and measures. The following equivalents must be borne in mind when interpreting the recipes: a ch’ien 錢 is today 3.12 g or .011 oz and is one-tenth of a liang 兩. Sixteen liang make a chin 斤(about 500 g). A sheng 升 is today 31.5 cu in (slightly less in the fourteenth century), and is comprised of 10 ho 合 (each 3.17 cu in). Ten sheng make a tou 斗. Units of length relevant to the translation are the ts’un 寸, which is 33.3 mm and the ch’ih 尺, ten ts’un, or about one third of a meter.
Cooking with the YSCY. The YSCY is emphatically medical. True, specific medical claims are not made for many of the recipes, but all would have been seen as warming or beneficial in some way. In this regard, it is important to recall that nutrition has always held pride of place in Chinese medical practice. Foods are the preferred therapy and no sharp distinction is made between them and medicine. Thus in the second two groups of recipes primarily gustatorial recipes are freely mixed with purely medical items. This seems an unlikely combination to the Western reader, but was perfectly straightforward to a Chinese or Mongol. Culturally-grounded readers would not see any mixing, merely a running account of things that are taken by mouth and influence health.
None the less, the reader should not lose track of the cookbook value of the work. It is certainly not just a medical formulary. The recipes include many that are highly sophisticated and give us every reason to respect both the skill and the eclecticism of the Yüan court chefs. As we have seen, they could take such an exotic matter as a Kashmiri recipe (recipe #3) and develop a form of it adapted to their own cooking rules, boiling instead of frying, or cutting the rank mutton taste with tsaokos. Kitchen testing reveals that they did a brilliant job. The dish is very Kashmiri in taste, yet more subtle. The spicing is absolutely superb.
In following the YSCY recipes the modern cook does well to observe what instructions there are. This is a typical Chinese cookbook; it specifies only what a good cook would not know. Much is left to the discretion of the chef: the spice mixes in many recipes, the amount of water for boiling, the time of cooking, etc. However, important matters are given very carefully. The modern cook is advised to follow, to the letter, directions on the ordering of events, on ingredients and specific quantities; and other culinary matters. Otherwise, use your own discretion.
Hu Szu-hui follows standard Chinese practice in giving quantities where absolutely necessary, but otherwise leaving amounts (once again) to the discretion of the cook. This makes it somewhat difficult for anyone not experienced in Asian food. We suggest that the novice cook follow these guidelines:
Look for similar recipes in Chinese and Near Eastern cookbooks. Kenneth Lo’s Chinese cookbooks have many Northern and Northwestern recipes; for Near Eastern, see especially Claudia Roden, 1970. Use the amounts indicated. Naturally, characteristically Chinese ingredients like soy sauce and fresh ginger should be used in Chinese amounts, while Near Eastern ingredients should be used in accord with the Near Eastern cookbooks. Kashmir preserves an ancient Central Asian style sometimes virtually identical with YSCY recipes, and if you can find a Kashmiri cookbook, use it as your guide on things like asafoetida and ground ginger.
The recipes work best if spiced with a fairly light hand by Asian standards. This still makes many of them, particularly the Indian and Arabic-style ones, very spicy by Euro-American standards, but they are definitely subtle, like the classic Near Eastern and North Chinese traditions they resemble, not like the spicier cuisines of southern Asia.
Cooking temperatures, unless otherwise indicated, should be moderate. Baking, for instance, should be at about 375 F. Chinese stir-frying with its fiery heat is notably absent here. Meat should be fairly evenly cooked to “medium” doneness. Boiling should be gentle. Hu preached moderation, and his recipes work best if we take him as seriously as he evidently intended.
Most of the recipes produce hearty soups or fluffy dishes in which starches absorb the broth, producing the soft texture that Mexicans call “dry soup” (sopa seca).
As is often true in the Middle East, but rarely in China, these recipes are good when lukewarm and often better after sitting a while. Some even call for a waiting period during preparation, to give time for spices to flavor the main ingredients. This process goes on after cooking finishes.
Parts of the sheep that are unavailable, or undesirable to the modern cook can be replaced, up to a point, by available cuts. Sheep tail and rump fat can be dispensed with entirely, since modern lamb is fatty. This does alter the consistency and flavor of the dishes quite appreciably, but those of us who have had the authentic Central Asian items usually prefer the taste of the unauthentic version. Sheep tail fat is pretty strong stuff. Sheep feet can be left out or replaced by calves’ feet. Wolf and bear can be replaced by lamb and pork respectively. Unavailable spices and minor ingredients will simply have to be left out, but you can always add a pinch of something as improvisation suggests. Alas, recipes involving such items as dried sheep’s thorax must remain untried, unless you know an exceptionally cooperative sheep-rancher.
In improvising, to whatever degree, be guided by Hu’s commitment to moderation, simple elegance, and delicate sophistication. Avoid strong seasonings, get the best ingredients, cook them so that their best flavor is brought out, and spice so as to highlight but not mask that flavor. Whatever may be said of Hu’s specific medical beliefs, no one could fault his overall strategy of judicious cooking (simple without being dull), gently seasoned, thoroughly done but not overcooked. It does indeed maximize health benefits as well as flavor.
Note also the following on some specific ingredients: lesser galangal, often required in these recipes, is similar to ginger in appearance but not in taste. It is usually sold in the Western world under the Indonesian names laos or lengkuas. Most oriental markets carry small bottles of powdered laos, usually the “Conimex” brand, and some have the frozen whole root. Either is acceptable. It is a southern plant and the court in Peiching may well have used the powder.
Regular cardamoms can be substituted for tsaokos, but, if this is done, the cook must use perhaps twenty or more, for the tsaokos are much larger and more strongly flavored. Try to find the tsaokos. They result in a far better product. They are found in most Asian markets under the name “large” or “black cardamoms,” if not called “tsaoko.”
Lamb: the recipes make it clear that the Mongols had small sheep. A regular leg of lamb is amply large enough, if not too large. A big one overwhelms the other ingredients in these recipes. In boiling the lamb for the many two-stage dishes, leave it underdone in the first boiling; otherwise the second final stage will cook all the flavor out of it. Those who cannot stand lamb may substitute beef or chicken in any of these dishes. Obviously, this creates a new dish, but in Persian cooking such things are often done, and elsewhere in the Near East it is not unknown. The Chinese, too, vary their recipes; and indeed several of the YSCY recipes are virtually identical except for the main meat.
With all recipes involving mashed chickpeas, extreme care must be taken to avoid burning. These recipes must be stirred constantly or cooked over very low heat.
Remember to put in such items as greens, saffron, and other delicate-flavored quick-cooking items at the very end of the cooking process. Hu carefully lists these ingredients last, when he uses them, making it obvious that this was what he intended.
Some trouble may be involved in all this, but the results are worth the effort in nearly every case. Most recipes in the YSCY are simple and excellent. They are sophisticated. Their simplicity is that of a classic cuisine, not of a naive one. Doubters need only try the recipe for lamb marinated in saffron and rosewater, or the stuffed eggplant.
1For an excellent survey of traditional Chinese cooking terminology see F. Sabban, “Le système des cuissons dans la tradition culinaire chinoise,” Annales, economies, sociétés, civilisations 2 (Mars-Avril) 1983: 341–68.
2For an introduction to the terminological problems of the YSCY see Paul D. Buell, “The Yin-shan cheng-yao, a Sino-Uighur dietary: synopsis, problems, prospects,” In Paul U. Unschuld, ed., Approaches to Traditional Chinese Medical Literature (Dordrecht, 1989), 109–127.
3The long-term tendency in Chinese medicine has been for plant materials to replace medicinals from animal and mineral sources, in part due to the rarity of some animal materials on account of the extinction or near extinction of many species in China and immediately neighboring areas, also because of the highly poisonous qualities of minerals once widely used in physiological alchemy. Regulations of the United States and other Western countries where traditional Chinese medicine is widely practiced outside China have also played a role in promoting this development as well since they prohibit trafficking in products from species facing extinction and strongly discourage, if they do not outright prohibit, use of extremely toxic substances as medicines or in foods. We are grateful to Christopher Muench (personal communication to PDB) for this information.
4For a useful listing of Western language and other reference works on traditional Chinese medicine see now Paul U. Unschuld, Introductory Readings in Classical Chinese Medicine (Dordrecht, 1988), 353–74. For convenience, we have relied on Ou Ming 歐明, et al., Chinese-English Glossary of Common Terms in Traditional Chinese Medicine (Hong Kong, 1982), for English translations of well-known symptoms, diseases and syndromes. We freely acknowledge the limitations of this approach but feel that a full study of the disease and pathological environment of the YSCY, the context of the other Chinese medicines of the era, is simply beyond the scope of this introductory study.
5This may be due in part to damaged Yüan printing blocks used for the Ming edition.
6We are extremely grateful to Paul Unschuld and Donald Harper for help in translating some of the more difficult recipes. We would also express our thanks to participants in the 1986 Munich conference on traditional Chinese medical terminology for critiquing some of our early translation efforts.
7This Tatar, or Ta-tan 大單, plate is presumably the large serving plate called tabaq (from Arabic?) in the YSCY (1, 47a).