A Soup for the Qan

[69.] Deboned Ox Hoof Morsels (Horse’s Hoof, Bear’s Paw are entirely the same)

[78.] Roast Wild Goose (Roast Cormorant and Roast Duck are the same)¹⁰⁰

[82.] Deer Milk Fat¹⁰³ *Manta (One can [also] perhaps make “Quick *Manta,” or perhaps “Thin-skin *Manta,” Both are possible.)

[89.] Pleurotus ortreatus [Mushroom] Pao-tzu (Some make them from crab spawn. This is also possible. Wisteria Pao-tzu is entirely the same.)

¹In the main text the entry on the wildcat occurs after tarbuqan and before weasel. The text also has an entry on the badger preceding the wildcat; the badger is omitted here.

²In the text the entry on the Mandarin duck occurs before the entry on the tufted duck.

³Liquorice, coriander seeds, dried ginger, and sprouting ginger are out of place here.

⁴The lo-mang was apparently a variety of mole cricket.

⁵The material below is drawn from the Huang-ti nei-ching su-wen.

⁶Ou, 1982 defines this as “dryness and uneasy feeling of the eye” (53).

⁷Wind here refers to environmental influences causing disease. It is not literally wind.

⁸This is probably a Mongolian rather than a Chinese prohibition. Although the preferred Mongolian direction is southeast, and not northwest, special consideration was shown this direction as well. See Gongor: 1970–78: II: 94–5. The Mongolian yurt (ger) also normally faced southeast and urination or defecating towards the northwest may have meant disrespect for its sacred world. Note, for example, the strong traditional prohibition against urination inside a dwelling mentioned by John of Plano Carpini. (Beazley, 1967: 48). Mongols living at the Yüan court may also have been fearful of offending the land and water spirits of Mongolia, if they urinated or defecated in the direction (from Tai-tu) of the old Mongolian homeland. On Altaic views of the spiritual potency of earth and water see Jean-Paul Roux, 1984: 132ff. Our colleague Henry Schwarz notes that this prohibition may have a practical aspect too due to the prevailing direction of the wind in Mongolia.

⁹According to the Ou, 1982 (111) a cold pain is a “painful region with cold feeling.” Here there is also a feeling of numbness.

¹⁰Reference is to birthdays dated according to the Chinese cycle of 60, combinations of the 10 celestial stems and 12 earthly branches. Each of the latter is associated with an animal, and it is the meat of these animals which must be avoided. If one is born on a chia-ch’en 甲辰, for example, one would avoid eating the meat of the dragon!

¹¹Ch’uang-kan is a skin disease with dark discoloration, perhaps a kind of acne.

¹²The “tooth disease” in question must be periodontal since salt solutions do improve the health of gums, although having no effect upon tooth decay.

¹³Technically mu 目 refers to the eyeball, yen 眼 to the eye in general, including tissues around the eye. It remains to be seen, however, whether or not Hu Szu-hui used mu and yen in these restrictive senses.

¹⁴Compare the translation of this section in Unschuld, 1986: 216–17.

¹⁵The Chinese term kan can indicate any number of different conditions of infantile malnutrition, including rickets, the apparent usage here, and parasitic infestation.

¹⁶This syndrome is apparently the same as ching-feng 驁凰, “infantile convulsions.”

¹⁷The syndrome is characterized by excessive sweating, especially after eating, chills and thirst.

¹⁸The recipes immediately following, and others occurring later, are highly acculturated variations of the Mongol cauldron-cooked mutton soup (šülen). In this case the external influence is clearly Near Eastern, more specifically Irano-Mesopotamian, where chickpeas have been employed in cooking in much the same way for a thousand years or more. See J. Najor, 1981: 156–57. Dishes of the same type are found throughout the Near East (see Roden, 1970: 253–55), and in Iberia thanks to the Moors. Its most far-flung representative surely is a stew of mutton, chickpeas, and rice, cooked down together, described by Cleofas Jaramillo, a lady of old Hispanic New Mexico, in 1942. See Cleofas M. Jaramillo, The Genuine New Mexico Tasty Recipes (Santa Fe, 1981). The mastic and cinnamon, as opposed to cassia, called for here are a thoroughly west Asian touch, as is the removal of chickpea skins prior to mashing (Heine, 1988: 69), but the tsaokos unquestionably represent adaptation of the recipe to locally available spices. In Near Eastern cooking, chickpeas are added to dishes to even out flavors, absorb them, and provide otherwise lacking consistency, as is clearly the case here. Note that the addition of a quantity of chickpeas to a dish during the last stages of cooking the dish was also typical of early Arabic cuisine as represented in the Medieval cookbooks. See Heine, 1988: 69.

¹⁹On this practice in Medieval Arabic cooking see Heine, 1988: 64.

²⁰On the use of rice in Medieval Near Eastern cooking see Heine, 1988: 39–40.

²¹This dish is a variant of the Harisa so common today in the Near East and surrounding areas where it is usually made with wheat but is otherwise identical to the present dish. According to Charles Perry (unpublished letter of 2 January, 1994, to PDB), “the traditional essence of Harisa is that after the porridge is cooked, the meat is taken out and the porridge is beaten smooth (tuhras) with a wooden bat. The meat is then used as a garnish on the smooth porridge.” This is quite similar to what is called for here although there is no reference to beating. This dish is a rather heavy, stodgy item.

Barley, Ta-mai 大麥, “large wheat/barley,” mou 牟:

Barley is uniquely tolerant of cold, heat, drought, salt, altitude, and short growing seasons and is the ideal crop for desert and mountain regions, the Himalayas and Karako-rams, for example, where it is grown at over 15,000 feet, higher than any other grain. Many varieties exist adapted to specific local conditions. Some mature in only two to three months, others require as little as four inches of rainfall. Barley produces crops in land white with salt and alkali, where few other plants will grow. It is not especially high-yielding or versatile, and is not grown where any other grain will flourish. In early modern China barley yielded a lowly 1200 kg/ha (Perkins, 1969: 287), now over 1500 (Ben. Stavis, Making Green Revolution, 1974: 67). In China barley is the major crop of interior border regions, especially Tibet and parts of Hsin-chiang. There it is usually grown in the winter, rotated with rice in southern mountains, with various summer crops in the north, and with buckwheat in the Tibet-Mongolian mountain arc and in Manchuria. At the highest altitudes and latitudes it becomes a summer crop. Himalayan cultivators specialize in six-row barleys whereas barleys elsewhere are usually two-rowed, and many of their barleys are unusual (hooded, naked, irregular…), suggesting that area which has been a center of barley diversity for millennia. The naked barley, with very reduced chaff, is convenient for threshing. It is thus preferred in many barley-staple areas of Tibet.

Barley originated in the east Mediterranean area, where it was one of the earliest domesticates. It occurs with sheep, goats, and wheat in sites ten to twelve thousand years old. Barley appeared in China about the same time as wheat, as their shared named implies. They are not distinguished in early texts.

In China Barley was normally used as flour, sometimes mixed with ground legumes. It was made into porridge, flat cakes, and, noodles. It was sometimes mixed with marrow and similar foods. The product could also be sweetened. Chinese do not brew with barley, but the Tibetans and other Central Asian peoples do. Pearl barley is common in China, known largely by an old name once used for Job’s-tears, which it has largely replaced as food, and as a medicinal. It is used in soups and for cooking with rice to “extend” supplies. In Tibet, barley that is not malted and brewed into Tibetan beer (chang) is parched and finely ground as tsamba. This is the Tibetan staple food and is usually consumed mixed with tea and cured butter in a paste. Since the tsamba is first parched (i.e., dry-roasted in the open) before grinding, it is fully cooked, and makes a nourishing instant ration. A bag of it and a pot of boiling tea make the Tibetan’s meal. It seems to have spread to the Mongols as early as the mid-thirteenth century and is now extremely popular in Mongolia as well, although then as now it is largely an imported food.

Folk medicine in modern south China holds that barley strengthens the body and helps it fight off disease. Pearl barley is thus a standard component of strengthening and tonic soups and stews. As in the YSCY, it is considered heating. Perhaps the YSCY is referring to its strength-giving properties when it calls barley the best of grains (chüan 3, 4a). The text may also be referring to the popularity of barley among the Mongolian, Turkic, and even Tibetan courtiers, whose foodways are the main focus of the YSCY. The influence is here clearly not from the Near East since, according to Charles Perry (unpublished letter of January 2, 1994, to PDB), “Barley has always been considered a plebeian grain in the Arabic and Persian world…and Medieval as well as modern cookbooks rarely bother to give any recipes involving it.”

Today, barley sprout tea is used as a diuretic.

Sources: John Lossing Buck, Land Utilization in China (Chicago, 1937); Harlan, 1975; Ho, 1975; Leonard and Martin, 1963; Perkins, 1969.

²²Tibetan Bal-po is normally Nepal, but here also neighboring Kashmir as well since this recipe is typical of the area. A close variant of this dish is still made in Kashmir. It differs primarily in using chilies, unknown in the Asia of 1330, and yogurt, rarely called for in the YSCY. Similar dishes are widespread in the Near East and northwest India. Kitchen-testing confirms the Kashmir-type flavor. This is an excellent dish.

²³This dish is a variant of recipe #1. It is delicately flavored, excellent though bland. The rape- or Chinese turnip is probably a local substitution for the regular turnip, much used in the similar dishes of the Irano-Mesopotamian area.

²⁴Fenugreek has been a common Near Eastern food since before agriculture was born, and asafoetida is a virtually certain marker of Iranian influence. Here again we are dealing with a typical Irano-Mesopotamian dish.

²⁵Another Irano-Mesopotamian item. Whole quinces can well be substituted for the quince juice. Even then, this is a rather stodgy dish. Stew of mutton and quince is common in Iran and neighboring areas. Chinese quince is a different species from the Near Eastern, but probably the recipe implies that any quince will do.

²⁶The spicing adds an Iranian touch to what is almost certainly a Mongol recipe. Note the unusual use of cow’s milk.

²⁷On this practice in the Arab World see Heine, 1988: 66.

²⁸“Pine pollen juice”, along with other pine products, was believed by the Chinese interested in sympathetic magic to promote longevity since the pine lives for centuries. Its use here, together with sprouting ginger, may be a marker of Chinese influence on this basically Irano-Mesopotamian dish. More likely, given the known Mongolian love of pine nuts, the “pine pollen” here is little more than crushed pine nuts, in which case this dish is one more example of dishes cooked with the Mongolian palate in mind.

Here we encounter for the first time a common instruction: add onions, salt, vinegar, and, sometimes, coriander leaves at the end. Ethnographic analogy from both the Near East and north China shows that this is to be done after cooking, either by the eater or the cook. Modern restaurants in northwest China have at each table a vinegar cruet and a salt shaker. Usually the vinegar is a white grain product, Chinese rice vinegar or something similar. Dark, rich, thick vinegar such as that of Shan-hsi or Che-chiang is possible, and makes an interesting substitute. Experimenters should try both with different dishes. Note that the directions do NOT specify soy sauce, pepper, or (of course) chilies, all things that one finds on the modern table along with the vinegar and salt.

²⁹The sha of the original is a term for coarse sugar. However, even the Mongols, with their great love of sugar, would find 3 sheng, 94.8 cubic inches (!) a little hard going. We have thus taken the sha here as a miswriting of sha 沙, i.e., as an abbreviation for sha-kuo 沙果 the fruits of the oleaster or Russian olive. Both Russian olive and nettles, while not used much or at all elsewhere in Asia, are known Mongolian gathered foods (see our discussion in the introduction), and their appearance in the recipe, along with such an uncommon, by Chinese standards, food as sheep thorax, strongly suggests that this is a traditional Mongolian one. It has, however, clearly been modified by court cooks, e.g., the tsaoko cardamom and chickpeas, and includes an alternative to Chinese cabbage to suit Chinese tastes. The recipe is basically a Mongol variant on the mutton-chickpea base. Eleagnus berries are small and sour, and cranberries make a good substitute. Nettle leaves are available almost anywhere in the United States and may be gathered, with care and heavy gloves. Use only the tender youngest leaves. However, spinach is a perfectly good substitute with similar flavor and nutritional value.

³⁰Samsa, from Persian sambusa, also occur in the CCPYSL, but under the latter, Persian form of their name (see 13, 17b, 14, 34a). The ginger and bean paste introduce a Chinese flavor to this dish.

³¹A Central Asian food with Near Eastern and Chinese spicing. Note that there are no actual barley or noodles, the sliced mutton and pickles providing the whitish, noodle-like appearance.

³²In spite of their Uighur name, the glutinous rice noodles are a thoroughly Chinese touch.

³³One of the more Chinese-influenced of these basically Turkic noodle foods. The mandarin peel/onion/mixed spice/soybean sauce mix is, of course, thoroughly Chinese. The dumplings are fried like modern kuo-t’ieh 鍋貼 before being added to soup. They are supposed to look like “river pigs,” i.e., fresh water porpoises, swimming in the soup.

³⁴The “white” is the white interior skin of the ch’en-p’i.

³⁵Euryale is a Chinese water lily relative whose fruit is starchy and is thus ground for flour. Euryale seeds are strictly a Chinese food, and are exceedingly important in Chinese medicine. Quite possibly they are a high quality substitute for the starch of some Mongol gathered seed. The Western cook will probably have to substitute ordinary noodles here and in similar recipes.

³⁶Recipes # 16–18 are variations on a Turkish or Irano-Mesopotamian dish with some Chinese touches; the euryale at least and probably the bean powder.

³⁷This is the same general dish as # 16–18 but with the added Chinese touch of ginger and its juice.

³⁸This is the first of many dishes in which the broth is thickened by apricot kernel paste. This is unquestionably a local adaptation of the Near Eastern habit of mixing crushed nuts, specifically almonds, into such stews. Kitchen-testing with almonds makes this clear, if one knows the Near Eastern analogs. However, Hu has been careful to scale down his amounts to a relatively low level, because the flavor of Chinese apricot kernel paste is stronger and more bitter than that of almond paste.

³⁹Part of this formula has been omitted in the text.

⁴⁰Reference is apparently to the fatty deposits often found on sheep intestines. See, however, the explanation given by Li in Hu Szu-hui, 1988: 47.

⁴¹Apricot: the apricot, a very important food tree in China, is either a Chinese native or a very ancient introduction from Central Asia. It is primarily a tree of montane west Asia, but its range may have extended as far as north China, where it was cultivated so early that transmission across Central Asia seems unlikely. The apricot is closely related to the mei 梅, differing mainly in having larger fruits, less showy flowers, and slightly different growth habits. It is currently important in Hsin-chiang, which exports dried apricots of high quality. The fruit is of minor medical import, but the seed kernels are very important in Chinese medicine, being used for cough, sore throat, etc. The kernels must first be ground and cooked or dried to get rid of the cyanide-generating glycoside compounds that makes the fresh kernels dangerously poisonous. The powder is typically mixed with hot water or hot milk and drunk. It makes an extremely soothing and refreshing drink when one has a sore, irritated or dusty throat, and the heat and volatile oils do well by the nasal passages. Children especially are often treated for sore throats with this drink. Various compound medicines also use the kernels. The oil of the kernels is sometimes expressed and variously used. The kernels are often called “almonds” or “Chinese almonds,” and the powder is “almond powder” on labels in English. The true almond is very rare in China, and is known as a kind of apricot [pa-tan-hsing 八擔杏, “badam apricot,” from badam, the Persian word for the almond], so the mistake is natural. The whole dried kernels are often sold, but the powder is commoner, at least in modern times.

⁴²Ch’ing-ts’ai, “green vegetable,” is usually bokchoy, Brassica chinensis, called paits ’ai 白米 (i.e., bokchoy) in the YSCY (3, 49a). The usage here makes that unlikely since the ch’ing-ts’ai of the recipe is a garnish used like cilantro. We suspect that the ch’ing-ts’ai of the text is identical to the Hui-hui ch’ing listed at the very end of chüan 3 (59a) and is mint.

⁴³This is the first of a number of dishes that appear to combine Near Eastern, Mongol, Turkic, and Chinese ingredients in a particularly creative and original way. These we find the most interesting and significant recipes in the YSCY. They clearly represent the apex of court cuisine. Among identifiable groups of recipes, they are the most complex and subtle.

In this one, on the usual Irano-Mesopotamian and Turkic base, we have such Chinese ingredients as Chinese yams, sprouting ginger and apricot kernel paste (for almond paste).

The custom of frying eggs into a sheet (Chinese chin tan 燼蛋) and cutting this into strips to add to soup is thoroughly Chinese. However, Irano-Mesopotamian cooking does use eggs in such dishes. Sometimes the eggs are hard-boiled and cut up for topping; sometimes they are stirred into the broth to cook there, an idea that may well come from China. Chinese chin tan are made like an omelet, but are not folded over, thus forming a thin sheet, and are allowed to cook hard, not “wet.” Vegetable oil is used, but never butter. The combination of sesame and apricot kernel/almond paste makes an exquisite taste and texture. The pickles almost certainly represent Middle Eastern influence, as elsewhere in the YSCY.

⁴⁴This cheese was probably like the baghlan of Afghanistan, a white cheddar type. It could be cut into cubes or grated and put into the soup. Chances are also good that it was a white fresh cheese like the Mexican queso bianco or queso ranchero, and then would be crumbled into the soup, towards the end, as Mexicans do.

⁴⁵A dish similar to the preceding one, essentially a variant of it.

⁴⁶This dish uses rice instead of noodles as the starch thickener, and like most dishes in this section specifies aromatic nonglutinous rice, i.e., Basmati type as opposed to the much less markedly-flavored rice of China. Near Eastern and northwest Indian cooking, in which rice was then a luxury, usually call for a rice with a good flavor. The Chinese, for whom rice is common fare, prefer it not to taste too strongly since even the best flavor becomes tiresome eventually. The odd combination of turmeric, ground ginger, and saffron makes this dish striking and memorable. We are not aware of such a combination anywhere else, though it clearly echoes spice mixes of Iran and northwest India, and probably more directly, of the Uighur cuisine. It is a variant or local representative of a class of yellow rice dishes that extends from Mesopotamia to Indonesia. Everywhere, they are colored with saffron, turmeric, or both, and are dishes of hospitality and festivity. The carrots called for here carry the color deeper, and the result is visually stunning. The ritual importance of yellow rice in Java has received a classic description in Clifford Geertz’ The Religion of Java (Glencoe, 1960). The liquid is totally absorbed by the rice. In this recipe, meatballs of two types are used. We have no recipes for them, and in kitchen-testing simply used small grilled patties of ground lamb. The original was probably fancier, but this proved excellent.

⁴⁷Mallow leaves are a diuretic, as the recipe specifies. They also are rich in vitamin A and C while being low-calorie and “cooling” and sour to the mouth, all traits that make them cooling in Chinese medicine. Here they seem an afterthought, unless the idea is to use an enormous amount of them in the recipe. The lack of specification of quantity implies that one adds as many leaves as one wills. It can be safely assumed that Hu will specify exact quantities when a dish requires it.

⁴⁸Adding long bottle gourds to soup for their cooling values is still very standard in China.

⁴⁹This is Chinese dish, Mongolized. Turtles are not in Near Eastern cooking since they are forbidden in Islam. They were not a major part of the Mongolian fauna. Turtle soup, very similar for the mutton, is still part of Chinese health cuisine.

⁵⁰This dish is still a mainstay of Hu-nan cooking, but there it is made with pork, not mutton, and somewhat different flavoring. The product is a small individual-size meatloaf filling the cup.

⁵¹Chinese flower pepper: This native spice occurs in many species. It is now called brown, flower or Szu-ch’uan pepper to distinguish it from other spices, but the YSCY uses the Chinese adjective “small” to separate it from black pepper. Zanthoxylum is not related to either black or red pepper, but is a thorny plant known botanically as “prickly ash.” Many species occur in East Asia and the southeastern United States. Many of the Asian ones are used as spices. They share a slight citrus flavor, a numbing quality, and a peppery spiciness. The part used is the small fruit. Fruits usually grow twinned on a short stalk, making them a miniature model of the male genitalia. As such, they are a standard literary trope or euphemism in old Chinese writings, from the Book of Songs onward. They are China’s principal native true spice, i.e., dry, hard, intensely aromatic plant part, as opposed to culinary herbs. Intensive use of brown pepper and herbs preadapted west China for acceptance of the chili pepper now so popular there. It is not, as sometimes alleged, due to Indian influence that Szu-ch’uan food is hot. Brown pepper is still used as a stimulant and warming drug. The various species have different properties, somewhat imperfectly distinguished.

⁵²There are major omissions in this recipe. We follow Li (Hu Szu-hui, 1988:53–4) in reconstructing it.

⁵³This complex dish of uncertain origin is another example of creativity, although the primary influences are Irano-Mesopotamian and Mongol. Oil rape can be any of several species of Brassica used for seed oil. Species occur throughout Asia. Presumably, the court of Peiching would use whatever was locally available. In kitchen testing, we left out the liver sauce and sheep tail, and used regular noodles instead of bean flour noodles. Bean flour noodles have a way of falling apart and dissolving into the soup. Possibly Hu assumed that one would use enough wheat flour to make a noodle; otherwise, these noodles must be made of pure washed starch of bean or pea, like many modern Chinese noodles, and not of the actual flour. This is an excellent, subtle, and highly nutritious recipe.

⁵⁴Chinese chives are different species from Western chives. Chinese chives have a pronounced garlic flavor and are known as “garlic chives” in the vegetable marketing trade. As the scientific name suggests, they differ from Western chives by being distinctly tuberous. The leaves are used for garnish and as a vegetable to stir-fry with other vegetables. Often they are blanched, earth is hilled around them as the they grow, and the resulting “chive yellows” are very choice. The Chinese proverb says: “The chive that sticks its head up is the one that gets cut.” This gives rise to the phrase “chive-cutting mentality” in China where the tendency to be afraid to do or say anything original or challenging is all too common. In antiquity Chinese chiu was pronounced kiôg, a word which may be compared to Mongolian gogod which is almost certainly related. Since chiu occurs in Tibetan as giu the borrowing is mostly likely from Sino-Tibetan to Mongolian, unless Mongolian, Chinese, and Tibetan have all borrowed the word from some other language partially ancestral to all.

⁵⁵Bear is a Mongol dish but is here cooked according to a straightforwardly Near Eastern recipe. The only Chinese touch is the “sauce,” probably soy sauce, traditionally added by the eater, at the last moment, as here. The use of the alternative “sheep’s liver sauce,” is, in any case, altogether different in the YSCY. We have tried this recipe with beef, which in our experience is much like bear meat. The result was excellent. Lamb or pork, also somewhat bear-like, could be used. The spices have the function of reducing the rank gaminess all too common in bear, as in sheep meat. This must have been a small bear, if the spices were to flavor two whole legs.

⁵⁶A fairly standard Chinese recipe for a Chinese fish, this is one of the few thoroughly Chinese recipes in this section. The liquor rules out a Near Eastern origin and the combination of flavorings is classic Chinese.

⁵⁷Compare similar Arabic methods for cooking fish discussed in Heine, 1988: 82ff.

⁵⁸This is just a typical lamb recipe, except for the main ingredient. One can imagine the Yüan court chefs staring in horror as some uncouth nomad qan threw down a freshly-slain wolf on their board and yelled: “Cook that!” since Islam forbids eating canines, and north Chinese had probably lost the dog-eating habit by this time. Not having a wolf, we in fact kitchen-tested this recipe with leg of lamb, and found it excellent.

⁵⁹Note that this “warm” translates a different character (nuan 暖) than the warm (wen 溫)in the next phrase. The medical difference escapes us.

⁶⁰The topping for Iranian bread (or its Chinese derivative shao-ping) is truly unique. We know of nothing like it. It is also very different from other YSCY recipes. A very Mongol flavor is implied, if it is not a straight borrowing from nomadic Turks. The “Iranian cakes” are Persian bread (nan), still a staple food in Ning-hsia and Hsin-chiang. In a Ning-hsia Hui restaurant near Los Angeles we have eaten similar stews with their incomparable nan-style bread but this particular stew is one of the YSCY’s amazing, original, and creative blendings of Mongol, Near Eastern, and Chinese elements (cf. recipes # 21–23, etc.). For the rhizomes, potatoes make a tolerable substitute. The combination of cheese, cucumber, and ginger etc., is unusual but superb, perhaps the best thing in the YSCY. Compare the following, simpler dish, but still an addition to bread, with beef substituted for mutton, from Cromwell’s England, entitled “A Turkish Dish of Meate:”

Take an interlarded piece of beef, cut it into thin slices, and put into a pot that hath a close cover, or stewing pan; then put into it a quantity of whole pepper, two or three whole onions, and let this boil very well, then take out the onions, and dish it on sippets, the thicker it is the better.

See Madge Lorwin, Dining with William Shakespeare (New York, 1976), 28–9, quoting Robert May, The Accotnplisht Cook, 1660

⁶¹The Uighur name clarifies the origin of this dish, another unique and surprising one.

⁶²Compare, however, Li in Hu Szu-hui, 1988: 59.

⁶³Recipes 35–39 are five ordinary Central Asian noodle dishes.

⁶⁴If this is not some form of Middle Eastern kaimakh, the hung-mien of the text is probably an error for hung-ch’ü 紅麴, red wine dregs, a common additive in Chinese cooking.

⁶⁵Note that in the west, in the Tacuinum Sanitatis, for example, “hanging noodles” are pasta.

⁶⁶This dish, and the next, have ingredients looking like noodles, but no actual noodles.

⁶⁷More properly this is quruq et.

⁶⁸The Tutmajh of later Middle Eastern cookbooks, this recipe is one of the earliest (pre-Ottoman) Turkic borrowings by a broader Near Eastern food culture. It is still a standard dish. See, for example, Arto der Haroutunian, Middle Eastern Cookery (London, 1982), 80; Roden, 1970: 135. Tutmajh is flavored with mint in the Near East, possibly the “fragrant herb” here (and not basil). Another word for “mint” is used below.

⁶⁹As Doerfer’s authorities (Doerfer, 1963–1975: II: 458) make clear, Tut[u]ma[ch] Ash was traditionally eaten with yogurt.

⁷⁰Recipes 41–44 are further noodle items that would not be out of place in Ning-hsia or Hsin-chiang today.

⁷¹Note the Chinese term for a small coin here in place of the usual Turkic sashuq.

⁷²Recipes 45–48 are ordinary congees, despite the exotic name of the first, and the relatively exotic ingredient of the last.

⁷³Charles Perry (unpublished letter of 2 January, 1994, to PDB) notes that this “qamh soup resembles Medieval Arab dishes like Tifshil and Tannuniyya, porridges containing meat…[except that] they are cooked in a cooling bread oven overnight, rather than directly over a fire because it takes a long time to cook whole wheat.” The recipe may thus be an adaptation of a Middle Eastern one with the Mongol taste and love of boiling in mind.

⁷⁴The name of this astonishing recipe is Tibetan since the pomegranate is seu-shin or, more properly, Bal-po’i seu-shin, “the seu Tree of Nepal,” in Tibetan. The recipe itself, as Hu indicates, came from Kashmir or Nepal via Tibet. It is another example of a recipe transmitted rather than originated by Tibet. We have tried it with pomegranate juice, the standard Near Eastern concentrate, rather than the whole fruit. It cooks down to what is, essentially, potted meat. The idea is evidently to produce a product that will store, under its oil-and-ghee preserving coating, for a long time. The fumigation of the jar presumably has a sterilizing value. Made with pomegranate juice, and far less oil and ghee, this is a rich, subtle, strongly lamb-flavored food. The Indian ascription is interesting here; asafoetida and pomegranate give a much more Iranian than Indian flavor. There is no Indian spicing here. If this is an Indian dish it represents very strong Iranian influence. This is hardly surprising since at the time northwest Indian food was still Iran-influenced. To what extent the Tibetan transmission of this dish has colored it remains to be seen.

⁷⁵Compare Lao’s translation of this passage in Lao 1969: 411.

⁷⁶This and the following are two forms of a purely Arabian recipe. Virtually identical dishes are still eaten in Saudi Arabia today. Such recipes contrast sharply with the Irano-Mesopotamian-based foods comprising most of the other Near Eastern recipes. Recipe #51 is particularly excellent.

⁷⁷We have here a clear case of the influence of Arabic humoral medicine.

⁷⁸This is a standard Chinese chicken and noodles recipe and is still commonly found in various forms.

⁷⁹Recipes #53–55 are several local Central Asian recipes.

⁸⁰This recipe is hopelessly garbled. Compare the “plate rabbit” in the CCPYSL (13, 11b).

⁸¹This recipe is a characteristic Uighur one and still popular today. Compare also the similar, but more complicated, recipe for sheep’s lung in Rinjing Dorje, Food in Tibetan Life (London, 1985), 87.

⁸²This is one of the few fried foods in the YSCY. It is also the nearest thing, indeed, the only thing even slightly similar, to the grilled and stir-fried meats now called “Mongolian barbecue” in China and in Chinese restaurants in the rest of the world. It is not much like anything currently served.

⁸³These spiced fresh lamb sausages, sliced and fried, are perhaps closest to the mkanik sausages of modern Lebanon and Syria but these have Chinese and central Asian ingredients and seem to be another creative Turko-Mongol adaptation. The title implies a “spit” but no “spit” is called for. In this case, unlike some previous recipes, the ch’ien-tzu is a transcription of Turkic qazi (Uighur qezi).

⁸⁴If there is one most distinctive recipe in the YSCY, this is it. It seems to express all that is most creative about Sino-Mongol-Turkic cuisine.

⁸⁵This is another creative recipe. Minced-fish cakes flavored with ginger, onion, mandarin peel, and pepper are quite Chinese, but the asafoetida and the rest of the recipe, including the frying, seems Irano-Mesopotamian. This and bream recipes in the medical section are like a modern recipe which involves frying a carp in vegetable oil, then stewing it with soy sauce, sugar, yellow rice “wine, “and, just before serving, diced ginger, garlic, and vinegar. See People’s Medical Publishing House, The Chinese Way to a Long and Healthy Life (New York, 1988), 295–6. This dish is said to relieve flatulence, indigestion and heart-burn, and alleviate poor health, coughing and asthma, symptoms not too far from those of the diseases treated by bream and carp soup in the medical section of the YSCY. Compare nearly identical Arab cooking methods discussed in Heine, 1988: 82–86.

⁸⁶The name of the recipe is apparently primarily due to the flower-shapes of the eggs and the flower-petal appearance assumed by other ingredients after cooking. Like several recipes involving vegetables, cut-up Chinese omelet, and thickening paste, this is a unique, distinctive, subtle, highly flavorful, and wonderfully textured dish, and one without obvious antecedents. The thickening with nut paste is Irano-Mesopotamian, but the rest of the recipe could have various origins.

⁸⁷Spinach is called p’o-leng-[ts’ai] 波藉菜 in chüan three, not ch’ih-ken-[ts’ai] as here. Perhaps Hu Szu-hui wishes to indicate here a specifically Western variety of spinach.

⁸⁸These are köfte, Near Eastern meatballs. Again, the spicing indicates an Irano-Mesopotamian relationship. Köfte of one sort or another, differing in spicing, exist throughout West and South Asia. This particular recipe produces a delicately spiced and excellent result. They can be grilled or pan-fried like hamburgers, rather than deep-fried in vegetable oil, if one prefers a lower-calorie dish. These are a straightforward kebab which would not attract special notice on a Lebanese meze tray today.

⁸⁹This dish appears to be a Mongol specialty.

⁹⁰This recipe seems generic Inner Asian, but with a Persian name added.

⁹¹This recipe is, like most of the YSCY fish dishes, essentially a Chinese contribution.

⁹²A straightforward game recipe, with a Irano-Mesopotamian refinement. Tough wild geese would need the boiling.

⁹³This dish is more Chinese than Near Eastern; Islam was prevalent enough to eliminate hogs from the roster in the latter direction. The mandarin peel, lesser galangal, honey-vinegar combination, and Szu-ch’uan pepper remove all doubt, but the honey-mustard combination provides a flavor reminiscent of modern American ham-cooking, and the boiling into stew is a Mongol touch. In short, another highly creative dish, with the characteristic smooth, rich, understated, and subtle flavor that is the hallmark of Hu’s, or Yüan court, cuisine. A lean, bony cut of pork, such as shoulder or leg, can be substituted for hog’s head. With a trimmed loin roast, the dish is one of the best in the book.

⁹⁴Another combination recipe: Chinese spices on a Central Asian dish. Perhaps the kua-chi here is another transcription of qazi, in this case, of Uighur qezi.

⁹⁵Recipes #68–75 are a group of minor local recipes.

⁹⁶This is a somewhat refined version of the dish called qarta by the Kazakhs.

⁹⁷According to Li (Hu Szu-hui, 1988:87) the reference is to the various greases, fluids, and miscellaneous substances of the horse intestines, other than the intestines themselves, and the suet.

⁹⁸Another truly unique dish, with both West and East Asian components combined into a creation that bears no close resemblance to anything today. It defies analysis and is presumably a Mongol or Turkic localism, elaborated by the court chefs.

⁹⁹Blood makes a unique binder for noodles, but blood cooking technology is well developed in China, and Central Asia has it too where Islam has not forbidden such foods.

¹⁰⁰More local game recipes. Note the similarity of the treatment of the goose in this recipe for Turkic sausage preparation methods, e.g., qazi, although here the inspiration is probably Mongolian.

¹⁰¹A perfectly straightforward pit barbecue, this recipe must go back to the oldest Siberian stratum in the cuisine. It is not significantly different from Native American pit cooking, from Cahuilla barbecue to Mayan pib; the Hawaiian luau and its many Pacific relatives are also essentially the same. There is probably an ancient relationship with the American forms, perhaps going back to the original crossing of the Bering Strait.

¹⁰²Further recipes of the typical sort, this time for stuffed dumplings.

¹⁰³This is not deer’s milk but the fatty part (“milk fat”) of a deer udder chopped up and dried as a delicacy. We are thankful to F. Sabban for pointing this out.

¹⁰⁴Stuffed vegetables are a hallmark of Turkish and neighboring cuisines. A recent issue of the Uzbek magazine Contact, 4–6 (1993), for example, includes a recipe for a pomidor-manti, or stuffed tomato (p 34). This stuffed eggplant is very similar to some modern Turkish stuffed eggplant dishes although the mandarin orange peel is a Chinese touch no doubt added by an irrepressible Yüan chef. The recipe demonstrates again the creative union of two or more cuisines that characterizes many of the best YSCY recipes. It is worth recording that, at a large potluck party involving several YSCY recipes and many modern dishes, this particular dish disappeared in record time. This dish shares with the Tutum Ash recipe its basil-garlic-cream sauce, and is distinctive and excellent.

¹⁰⁵Several further minor recipes for dumplings. “Horn” is standard modern Chinese for dumpling with pointed ends, like börek.

¹⁰⁶This recipe combines a thoroughly and unmistakably Irano-Mesopotamian base, lamb with all kinds of nuts (the “pine pollen” surely means the nuts here), with Chinese ingredients such as sprouting ginger, bean paste, Chinese yams, and Chinese omelet, and those Turko-Mongol favorites, internal organs of sheep. The result is made into dumplings steamed in individual cups or steamers, perhaps like the “Lion Heads” of modern north China. The name recalls the great ritual feasts of the Mongolian past and the shapes of the boqtaq or high head dresses of Mongolian noble women. The nuts are used in such small quantities that they do not provide any significant taste to the whole. Probably, there was one of each kind of nut per dumpling, possibly on top as an ornament. In spite of its complexity this is a very bland and rather uninteresting dish. In cooking, potatoes can be used for Chinese yams, though potatoes provide too strong and marked a taste to be fully appropriate. Use regular wonton skins instead of bean flour. It is a mystery how bean flour is prepared such that it will hold up as a skin, for steaming, for a large meatball. One possibility is that the balls were dipped in a thick bean-flour batter. It is possible that the reference is to washed bean starch made into flat sheets, like modern bean starch noodles.

¹⁰⁷This could also be the pulp of Polygonatum spp, traditionally gathered by the Mongols as a starch.

¹⁰⁸Needless to say, pastries of this sort are staples of Middle Eastern cooks even today. The use of cow’s milk in this recipe is clear indication that “little black seeds” are poppy seeds, and not black cumin. Black cumin is used on breads, not in them. These buns are indistinguishable from ordinary poppy seed buns of today.

¹⁰⁹Not to be confused with ching-ch’i 精氣, “vital air.”

¹¹⁰An informant, Chung Chih-hui, notes that Taiwan Taoists use the same method in preparing dog meat today. We are grateful to Ms. Chung for pointing this fact out to us. It may indicate some alchemical connections for this type of cooking, although purely Mongolian roots are possible as well.