………
1931
(available in paperback from Pocket Books, 1994)
PEARL S. BUCK won the Nobel Prize for Literature for her portrayal of the life of a Chinese peasant with powerful ties to the land in her classic novel, The Good Earth.
The story begins in the early part of the twentieth century in rural Anhwei province. Wang Lung, a peasant, marries a hardworking, resourceful slave, O-lan. Together they begin their life full of hope as they work the fields. They prosper from the land they purchase from the area’s most powerful family, the House of Hwang, and start a family.
A few years later, the land betrays them as a devastating drought forces the family to flee in search of food and work. Although they find food in markets to the south, they don’t have the means to buy it. Wang Lung and his family are reduced to waiting in food lines and begging. Only when Wang Lung and O-lan are swept up in a group of people pillaging a wealthy family’s home does Wang Lung steal the gold that buys them their passage back to their farm.
When Wang Lung returns to his land, he slowly rebuilds his fortune, eventually replacing the House of Hwang as the area’s wealthiest family. As he struggles to quell unrest in his own growing family—between his wife and concubine, his nephew and uncle, and his daughters-in-law—he turns to the land for reassurance, for it has sustained his family for many years. As Wang Lung is dying, his sons assure him that they will maintain the land, but their furtive glance over his head suggests otherwise.
Americans applauded The Good Earth when it was published in 1931. For many, the book marked their introduction to nonstereotypical Chinese characters and to details of daily peasant life in early-twentieth-century China.
The book’s elegant descriptions of the preparation of celebratory Chinese foods revealed to many Americans for the first time the wide array of Chinese customs. When O-lan bears a son, Wang Lung buys fifty eggs, red paper to dye them, and red sugar. Red is seen as a sign of good luck. For the Chinese New Year, O-lan kneads pork fat, rice flour, and white sugar into moon cakes, a traditional food made even today for the Mid-Autumn Festival, a Chinese holiday when families come together to view the full moon. O-lan decorates the moon cakes beautifully with haws—probably hawthorns, or thorn apples—and dried green plums.
For peasant women, the ability to prepare such foods conveyed status. O-lan’s cooking skills increase her value as a slave and a wife, and are a source of pride to Wang Lung. When she first arrives at his house, O-lan prepares a meal for seven with the pork, beef, and fish that Wang Lung has provided. Although Wang Lung verbally disparages the food, as was the custom, inside he is bursting with pride, “for with what meats she had the woman had combined sugar and vinegar and a little wine and soy sauce and she had skillfully brought forth all the force of the meat itself.” When O-lan prepares her moon cakes for the New Year, Wang Lung thinks that “there was no other woman in the village able to do what his had done, to make cakes such as only the rich ate at the feast.”
The Good Earth also reveals the diversity of foods available in the different regions of China. In rural Anhwei province, the family lives off the simple fruits of the land, eating cabbage, bean curd, garlic, rice, pork, beef, and fish. In the south, though, the abundant variety of other foods—pork balls, bamboo sprouts, chestnuts stewed with chicken and goose giblets, yellow crabs, eels, red and white radishes, lotus root, and taro—overwhelms Wang Lung, even though he can’t afford to buy any of them.
Wang Lung’s family arrives in the south close to starvation. He promises his children that they shall have “white rice every day for all of us and you shall eat and you shall eat.” His promise comes true, initially as they stand each day in food lines at public kitchens to receive their bowls of free rice, and later when they return to their own land farther north.
The south of China is legendary for rice production. We offer this recipe as a tribute to the grain that was a staple in The Good Earth. Rosemary Lowther of Cody, Wyoming, sent us this recipe for Scallion-Ginger Fried Rice from the April 1998 Gourmet magazine, which her Meeteetse Book Group enjoyed along with other Chinese dishes. “We loved the fragrance that the ginger gave the rice,” Lowther says.
Spread the rice in a shallow baking pan and separate the grains with a fork. Set aside.
In a small bowl, combine the chicken broth, soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, and pepper. Set aside.
In a large heavy skillet (a nonstick surface is preferable), heat the corn or safflower oil over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking and stir-fry scallions and ginger until fragrant, about 20 seconds. Add the bean sprouts and rice wine, and stir-fry until sprouts begin to soften, about 1 minute. Add the rice and cook, stirring frequently, until heated through, about 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the broth mixture, tossing to coat evenly. Serve immediately.
Yield: 6 servings
NOVEL THOUGHTS
According to Debra Miller, the diversity of her Got Wine Book Club of Issaquah and Redmond, Washington, consists of “several blondes, several brunettes, and several silvers!” True to their name, Got Wine members sip a glass of wine—or two—at every meeting. Dessert also graces the table each month, and sometimes the group shares a potluck meal or eats dinner out.
The Good Earth captivated the group with its portrayal of a distant place and time, where daily life differed dramatically from today’s. “We enjoyed the book for its depiction of the hard lives of the peasants in China,” says Linda Hauta, a founding member of the group. “It was interesting to see the importance of land, and how owning it proclaimed a person’s wealth and status.”
The development of the main character, Wang Lung, and his relationship to women also interested the group. “Wang Lung was so certain that land would bring him happiness. But he got off track, trying to accumulate other signs of wealth. Wang Lung’s wife sacrificed so much for him, but he became involved with other women because that was his right,” says Hauta. “We enjoyed seeing Wang Lung’s character unfold, and how he comes to figure out what’s really important. In the end he realizes how much his first wife had done for him, but by then it’s too late.”
“I’m not particularly good at cooking Chinese food,” says Barb Warden of Colorado’s Denver Read and Feed book club, about the food she prepared for her group’s Good Earth meeting, “so I served a marinated teriyaki pork tenderloin that always gets rave reviews.” She added stir-fried peppers, cabbage and water chestnuts, and mashed potatoes, “because I like mashed potatoes better than rice.” Warden topped the meal with a “dirt” dessert, made by crushing Oreo cookies over chocolate pudding and adding a gummy worm or two. “The dessert was inspired by the fact that the characters in The Good Earth were reduced to eating dirt during a famine,” says Warden. She served the “dirt” in small clay flowerpots.
cup Chinese rice wine or sake