Suiyuan Shidan

The Suiyuan Shidan (simplified Chinese: 随园食单; traditional Chinese: 隨園食單) is a work on cooking and gastronomy written by the Qing-dynasty poet and scholar Yuan Mei. It is known in English under various titles, including The Way of Eating[1] (or Way of the Eating[2]), and Recipes from the Garden of Contentment (and variations: [3] Food Lists of the Garden of Contentment,[4] Menus from the Garden of Contentment,[5] and Recipes from Sui Garden[6]). It was originally published in 1792 (the 57th year of Qianlong Emperor), and contains instructions and critiques on Chinese cuisine as well as a large number of recipes of dishes from the period. It was updated by Xia Chuanzheng in the late 19th century, and not translated into English in complete form until 2018.

Content

The work reflects Yuan's "orthodox" literati stance on Chinese cuisine, which derided the opulent displays and dishes in banquets of his time. Yuan also resented what he regarded as the corruption of Chinese food by Manchu cooks.[7] The work contains a preface, two chapters on gastronomy, and 12 chapters on recipes using various ingredients:

1. "Preface" (序)
2. "Essential Knowledge" (須知單): 20 sections
3. "Things to Avoid" (戒單): 14 sections
4. "Seafood" (海鮮單): 9 sections
5. "River Delicacies" (江鮮單): 9 sections
6. "Sacrificial Animal" [pork] (特牲單): 43 sections
7. "Various Animals"' (雜牲單): 16 sections
8. "Poultry" (羽族單): 56 sections
9. "Scaled Fish" (水族有鱗單): 17 sections
10. "Scaleless Fish" (水族無鱗單): 28 sections
11. "Various Vegetable Dishes" (雜素菜單): 47 sections
12. "Small Dishes" (小菜單): 41 sections
13. "Appetizers and Dim Sum" (點心單): 55 sections
14. "Rice and Congee" (飯粥單): 2 sections
15. "Tea and Wine" (茶酒單): 16 sections

Foods and theory

A wide variety of foods and recipes are presented in the Suiyuan Shidan that show the gustatory preferences of Yuan Mei and people during the mid-18th century. For instance, a particular recipe to imitate roe-filled mitten crabs, shows that the demand and intense fondness for crab and crab-roe in Chinese cuisine goes back several centuries,[8] and that people have also actively attempted to find a substitute for it when it is unavailable:[9]

假蟹 煮黃魚二條，取肉去骨，加生鹽蛋四個，調碎，不拌入魚肉；起油鍋炮，下雞湯滾，將鹽蛋攪勻，加香蕈、蔥、薑汁、酒，吃時酌用醋。

Imitation Crab: Boil two yellow croaker and remove their bones. Add to the fish four raw salted eggs. Break the eggs up without mixing them into the fish, and fry everything quickly with oil. To the mixture add chicken broth, let boil, and then stir in the salted egg until the mixture is even. Finish the dish with shiitake, green onions, ginger juice, and wine. Serve with liberal amounts of vinegar.

— Yuan Mei, Suiyuan Shidan (1792), "River Delicacies", 6

Annotated manuscript

More than half a century after the publication of the Suiyuan Shidan, Xia Chuanzheng (夏傳曾, 1843–1883) annotated and expanded the contents of the original work and published it as the Suiyuan Shidan Buzheng (隨園食單 補證, The Way of Eating, Extended and Rectified). The modified work contains two additional chapters:

• "Sweeteners and colourants" (糖色單)
• "Condiments" (作料單)

The original text was also thoroughly annotated with reference to Chinese historical and philosophical works, and listed therapeutic effects of the food based on traditional Chinese medicine. Correction to errors in the Suiyuan Shidan were also provided by Xia along with sometimes humorous anecdotes about the foods.[10]

Bilingual translation

A bilingual Chinese and English version was published in 2018 as Recipes from the Garden of Contentment, translated by Sean J. S. Chen. It is 428 pages in this hardback edition, with extensive annotations, illustrations, and a glossary.[11][3] In 2019, it was republished in trade-paperback form as The Way of Eating. The book was developed from the author's online translation project, Way of the Eating, developed from 2013 through 2017.[2]

References

1. Yuan (2019).
2. Yuan (2017).
3. "China, Food, Berkshire Classics > Recipes from the Garden of Contentment: Yuan Mei's Manual of Gastronomy". BerkshirePublishing.com. Great Barrington, Massachusetts: Berkshire Publishing Group. 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2020.
4. Dunlop, Fuchsia (2008), Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 9780393332889
5. Gunde, Richard (2002), Culture and Customs of China, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 9780313308765
6. Waley-Cohen, Joanna (Winter 2007), "Celebrated Cooks of China's Past", Flavor and Fortune, Greenwood Publishing Group, Institute for the Advancement of Science & Art of Chinese Cuisine, 14 (4), archived from the original on 2 April 2015
7. Lin, Hsiang-Ju; Lin, Tsuifeng (1969), Chinese Gastronomy, New York: Hastings House, pp. 44–45, 47
8. Dunlop, Fuchsia (15 December 2012). "The Chinese delicacy of hairy crabs". BBC News Magazine. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
9. Yuan, Mei (2014) [1792]. "假蟹" [River Delicacies]. 隨園食單 [Way of the Eating]. Translated by Chen, Sean Jy-Shyang. "6: Imitation Crab".CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
10. Yuan (c. 1870s).
11. Yuan, Mei (2019). The Way of Eating: Yuan Mei's Manual of Gastronomy. Translated by Chen, Sean Jy-Shyang. Great Barrington, Massachusetts: Berkshire Publishing Group. ISBN 9781614728276.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Further reading

• Liang, Yan (2015). "A Recipe Book for Culture Consumers: Yuan Mei and Suiyuan Shidan". Frontiers of History in China. 10 (4): 547–570. doi:10.3868/s020-004-015-0030-7.

External links

• Yuan, Mei (2017) [1792]. "隨園食單" [Way of the Eating]. Translated by Chen, Sean Jy-Shyang.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) English translation with original Chinese, in website form with commentaries.
• Yuan, Mei (c. 1870s) [1792]. Xia, Chuanzheng (ed.). "隨園食單 補證" [The Way of Eating, Extended and Rectified]. Archived from the original on 5 May 2005 – via Yuan Ze University and Internet Archive.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) The revised edition, in the original Chinese (no English translation).