Simple Fare of the Mountain Household

What did a Chinese poet-hermit eat 750 years ago? Now you can read it — and cook it. In the thirteenth century, the scholar Lin Hong traveled the mountains, temples and country retreats of Song dynasty China as a perpetual, grateful guest — and wrote down what his friends served him. The result is the Shanjia Qinggong 山家清供, "Simple Fare of the Mountain Household": 104 recipes and stories that are among the most charming ever written about Chinese food. Here a monk in the snowy Wuyi Mountains teaches the author to cook thin slices of rabbit in a pot of simmering water at the table — one of the earliest descriptions of hot pot. Here Su Dongpo boils a single radish into a soup so good he swears there is nothing like it "in the world of men." Here are plum-blossom dumplings stamped from dough, crab baked inside golden oranges, porridge of fallen petals, hibiscus-and-tofu soup "like rosy clouds after snow" — and a host who serves his guests a "silver-thread dish" that turns out to be a zither. This complete edition includes: The full original Chinese text of all 104 entries, with a faithful new English translation Modern Kitchen notes for every recipe — ingredients, quantities and steps, clearly marked: Cook it today, Needs a substitute, or Read, don't cook More than 60 full-color illustrations: paintings in the style of Song dynasty album leaves, and food photographs of modern interpretations Every quoted poem — Du Fu, Li Bai, Su Dongpo, Huang Tingjian, Yang Wanli and more — translated as verse An introduction to Lin Hong, the recluse ideal, Song dynasty food culture, and a table of old weights and measures Part cookbook, part travel memoir, part anthology of poetry, Simple Fare of the Mountain Household is a book to dip into with a cup of tea — and to cook from with friends. Perfect for lovers of Chinese food and culture, food historians, home cooks looking for something truly different, readers of classical Chinese poetry, and anyone who has ever wondered what dinner tasted like a thousand years ago. The Imperial Kitchen Library brings the forgotten cookbooks of imperial China to English readers, one complete text at a time.