Southern Song Poetry, AD1076-1155

After the collapse of the Tang Dynasty in 907AD, a warring period lasted in China for 50 years, concluding with the establishment of the Song Dynasty from its capital at Bianjing (modern Kaifeng). Over the next century Song China became a center of trade and prosperity, and the society flourished under a revival of Confucianism while respecting Taoist and Buddhist thought. Amidst its growth, the statesman Su Shi conducted numerous civic projects and wrote treatises and works of poetry in the southern city of Lin’an (modern Hangzhou).

In 1076 Su Shi wrote his beloved ci poem, Thinking of You at the Mid-Autumn Festival, about his brother Su Zhe, who he had not seen in years:

The poet drinks the seasonal osmanthus wine and looks to the moon, longing to fly as the hero of legend to where his brother might be, but realizes that he and his brother are simply onlookers of the same view, for the moon itself waxes and wanes like life’s ups and downs.

Over the next few years, Su Shi’s poetry attacked the rival party’s controversial policies, and soon he was accused of treason and exiled to Huangzhou, to live a quiet life of meditation at a farm he named Dong’Po. In 1082AD there, he wrote the fu poem Remembering Red Cliffs, in which he makes pilgrimages to the site of the famous 208BC battle:

The military and poetic accomplishments of earlier ages are but currents swept along in the river of life, leaving only small imprints behind, while the works of nature replenish themselves perpetually. In another visit to the site, the poet alone glimpses the hidden mystery and wisdom of ages long past, but the world and its mundane concerns take us away from ever exploring them fully.

One of Su Shi’s later students had a daughter, who lived a carefree scholarly life north of Bianjing until her marriage to the writer Zhao Mingcheng around 1101AD. These early works of Li Qingzhao dealt with the seasonal nature of flowers compared to the changing emotions of love and marriage, and also with enduring loneliness over cold nights and empty festivals while her husband served as an official in other cities for years at a time. Years later the couple were forced to flee to Nanjing, salvaging 15 carts of their collected poetry and writings, after the invading Jurchens attacked the region and took the Song capital in 1127AD. Her works then centered on the shared experience of the exiles, describing foreign flowers and seasonal shifts that were never quite right, even though the memory of their homeland had faded over time. Two years later her husband died, which deeply affected her poetry, as mourning, lonely days, crying, and depression became common themes. As the Song dynasty reformed around its new capital in Lin’an (modern Hangzhou), the poet resided there and shifted her literary theme to arguing for the government to repay the untrustworthy Jurchens for sacking Bianjing, and to preserve Song from the incompetent governance that led to the downfall of the Tang, Shang, and Xia Dynasties before it. Eventually she began to look heavenward, longing for the destiny of immortal bliss and the company of ancient sages, and depicting the quiet sunset of her life as a winding pilgrimage coming to a close, while eavesdropping on youths first experiencing the world’s delights.

Although dishes like mooncakes and Su Shi’s Dongpo Pork were probably later inventions, the true legacy of these Song Dynasty poems endured after its end a century later. Meanwhile, Hangzhou still echoes with the blending between the North & South cuisines in that era, in dishes such as fish noodle soups and osmanthus-flavored roots, local orchard apricots and plums, and the sweetened whipped powdered teas famous in that time.

SONG SAO YU GENG

A blending of Northern soups and Southern lake fish dishes, Mrs. Song’s Fish Soup became a popular dish in this time, and dried noodle shops flourished with different ways to serve noodles in soups, sauces, and stews.

• 1.5 lb chicken wings
• 1/2 lb uncut prosciutto ham chunk, trimmed of skin edge
• 1″ slice of ginger
• 1 tsp whole peppercorns
• 1 cao guo black cardamom pod
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp Shaoxing wine or huangjiu
• 1 tbsp Chinkiang black vinegar
• 1/2 tbsp White pepper
• 1 lb Lake perch fillets cut into 1″ pieces (deboned)
• 8oz can of bamboo shoots in strips
• 3-4 Shiitake mushrooms, destemmed and sliced
• 8oz dried Chinese wheat noodles (vermicelli-thickness)
• 3 scallions

Take chicken wings and ham and cover with water. Bring to boil, and lower heat, simmering with ginger, black cardamom, peppercorns, white parts of scallions, and nutmeg for 1 1/2-2 hrs. Strain soup and discard solids. Add soy sauce, wine, vinegar, and white pepper, adjusting for balance. Bring to a simmer and add fish, bamboo, and mushrooms. Cook noodles separately. When fish is cooked, add noodles and serve with some chopped scallion greens to top each bowl.

SONG STUFFED LOTUS ROOT 

A popular dish for the Mid-Autumn Festival, this plate is often served then before the meal, despite the sweetness of the osmanthus syrup.

• 2-4 tbsp Osmanthus syrup
• 1 lotus root, peeled but not into cavity
• 1/2 cup glutinous rice, soaked overnight
• 1 1/4 cups Raw sugar

Slice 1″ off end of lotus root to reveal the inner cavities. Slowly fill the cavities with rice, and seal the lid with toothpicks. Cover with water, add sugar to liquid, bring to boil and lower to simmer. Cook root until soft, about 30-35 minutes. Let cool briefly outside of water, slice and top with syrup.

SONG WHIPPED TEA

In the Song dynasty tea became more popular than wine, and tea culture developed into various methods of serving it, such as mixing rice flour and tea powder into dragon ball cakes, for a quick grinding and whipping up the tea into a froth.

• 1 tbsp Green tea matcha powder
• 1 tbsp raw sugar
• 1/2 tbsp sweet rice flour
• 1 1/4 cup boiling water steeped with 1/4 plum diced (or prunes if out of season)

Mix tea and rice flour in bowl. Add sugar. Slowly add water, and use a mechanical whisk (or a tea whisk made for this purpose) to briskly froth the mix. Pour in serving cup.

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Extras: adzuki bean, apricot, bamboo, barley, beef, bitter melon, black vinegar, blackberry, black cardamom, bok choy, calabash, cardamom, cassia, cherry, chestnut, chicken, chive, cilantro, coriander, cress, cumin, daikon radish, dandelion, deer, Durum wheat, eggplant, eggs, fennel, fennel seed, fish, flaxseed, galangal, garlic, ginger, glutinous rice, goat, goji berry, grape, ham, hazelnut, honey, jujube, kiwi, lamb, leek, lettuce, longan, loquat, lotus, lychee, matcha, melon, milk, millet, mulberry, mung bean, mushroom, mussels, mustard green, mustard seed, nectarine, nutmeg, onion, orange, oyster, peach, pear, plantain, plum, pork, rhubarb, rice, rice wine / vinegar, salt, scallions, scallops, sesame oil, sesame seed, shallots, shellfish, shiitake, sichuan pepper, soy sauce, soybean, squid, star anise, sugar, taro, tea, tofu, turmeric, veal, walnut, Water caltrop, water chestnut, wheat, wheat gluten (seitan), white pepper, wild fowl, wine, yam

Shantideva & 300 Tang Poems, AD650-800

As the Umayyad Caliphate expanded in the east and west, the various movements of Asia blended through mutual exchanges: the Nestorian Christian missionary Alopen brought the Gospel to Tang Dynasty China, and the Chinese monk Xuanzang journeyed to India to bring volumes of Buddhist texts home. Shortly after Xuanzang’s visit, The Bodhisattva Way of Life was written by Shantideva at the university of Nalanda around 700AD, presenting a manual for the path of the bodhisattva:

In this work, Shantideva speaks highly of giving of himself, that others may attain the end of their sorrows without regard to his cost; this is but the duty of the enlightened. He notes the war with passions is never truly won, but the victory of enlightenment is its sure goal. Even the idea of enlightenment can be a chariot amidst the world, and centering oneself inside this truth is the path to nirvana, dissolving all attachments and even the identity in one’s dedication to serving others.

Buddhism would soon decline in India after this period, but it began to flourish through such works as they were brought to cosmopolitan Tang China and its neighbors Goguryeo, Japan, and Tibet.

However, societal upheaval came again during the An Lushan rebellion, and in the aftermath various poets developed their literary artform to record their cultural heritage for centuries to come, later gathered in the Qing dynasty compilation, 300 Tang Poems. The most famous of these poets, Li Bai, wrote often of drinking with friends as well as out of loneliness, of the love of nature and the sorrows of war, sentiments that are eternal and those that are long gone. Li Bai’s friend Du Fu also dealt with these subjects, speaking of rebuilding and reflecting on the horrors of the past, and remembering the fallen, as great men and poor poets come and go but the beauty of nature returns and the ancestors’ song endures.

As the Tang Dynasty secured its trade routes again, new foods began to grow in popularity. Grape wines (likely similar to cabernet) were in demand, while jiaozi were often eaten along with steamed jujube date cakes at various stops along the Silk Road, as woks and chopsticks became the quintessential cookware in Chinese cuisine.

TANG PORK JIAOZI

Similar to the customs of Turks and other central Asian peoples, these dumplings which are today’s wintons and potstickers involved wrapping meats and vegetables in a thin dough before cooking turnovers that could last on the road for a half-day, and feed an army quickly.

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1/4 Tsp Sichuan pepper
• 1/2 tbsp white pepper
• 1/2 tbsp cumin
• 2 scallions, finely chopped
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tbsp Chinese black vinegar
• 1/2 tbsp Soy sauce
• 4 tbsp packed cilantro, finely chopped
• Jiaozi wrapper: 2 cup wheat flour and 1 cup hot water

Mix and knead dough well and set aside covered. Mix remaining ingredients together for filling, and roll out circles of dough and scoop small cylinders in center of dough circles. Fold over circle and pinch edges together with thumb and finger in pattern. Put in boiling water until dumplings float, about 8-10 minutes, or steam in basket 12 minutes, or panfry in 3-4 tbsp oil to crisp all sides. Remove and serve with more soy sauce and/or vinegar.

TANG ZENG GAO

A cake similar to the Greek halva, a boiled semolina pudding, this dish is often prepared today with sweet rice flour and red bean paste.

• 1 1/3 cups brown glutinous rice, soaked in water 2-3 hours, and drained and dried 10 minutes
• 35-40 dried Jujubes, halved and pitted

In sauce pot with lid, layer 10-15 halved jujubes and glutinous rice to cover, another layer of 8-10 jujubes, more rice, and the remaining jujubes (10-15) to cover. Add 1 cup water and bring to boil and lower heat to low, covering, and pouring some boiling water over the mixture every half hour or so, enough to keep the steam and avoid burning, for 6-8 hours. Cut around edge. Remove onto plate and flatten, and let cool 30-60 minutes; cut into servings and eat.

Extras: adzuki bean, apricot, bamboo, barley, beef, bitter melon, black vinegar, blackberry, bok choy, calabash, cardamom, cassia, cherry, chestnut, chicken, chive, cilantro, coriander, cress, cumin, daikon radish, dandelion, deer, Durum wheat, eggplant, eggs, fennel, fennel seed, fish, flaxseed, galangal, garlic, ginger, glutinous rice, goat, goji berry, grape, ham, hazelnut, honey, jujube, kiwi, lamb, leek, lettuce, longan, loquat, lychee, melon, milk, millet, mulberry, mung bean, mushroom, mussels, mustard green, mustard seed, nectarine, onion, orange, oyster, peach, pear, plantain, plum, pork, rhubarb, rice, rice wine / vinegar, salt, scallions, scallops, sesame oil, sesame seed, shallots, shellfish, shiitake, sichuan pepper, soy sauce, soybean, squid, star anise, sugar, taro, tea, tofu, turmeric, veal, walnut, Water caltrop, water chestnut, wheat, wheat gluten (seitan), white pepper, wild fowl, wine, yam

Lankavatara Sutra, AD350-400

In the centuries after the seminal Kashmir Buddhist Council, Mahayana Buddhism spread north via Silk Road missionaries such as Kumarajiva and Dharmaraksa, who established monasteries and translated Buddhist sutras into Chinese after the Han Dynasty. To the Chinese, this new religion had much in common with Taoism and its practices, and the religion grew during the Jin dynasty from 265-420AD and beyond, as Chinese monks meditated on the translated Indian texts of Mahayana scholars such as Nagarjuna, even as Theravada works by Buddhaghosa and Dignaga spread into regions to the south.

One such Mahayana text, the Descent into Lanka first written in Sanskrit around 350-400AD, delved into the mysteries of nirvana:

All consciousness in the spiritual realm is all that is real, while the material world is but an illusion. A bodhisattva asks the Buddha what the concept of nirvana truly means. The Buddha then describes that nirvana is not merely an annihilation, or an escape from the sorrowful existence of materiality, but a transition into something else entirely. He furthermore rejects the view offered by various philosophers, who have described what he sees as only partial states of enlightenment; this is not quite the final state of nirvana, which is better described as a state of total tranquilization, a calmness of the inner self.

This sutra later became a foundation for the movement of Chan/Zen Buddhism, and for Buddhism as a whole in China, Tibet, and Japan; meanwhile, Chinese Buddhists adopted the vegetarian diets of their mentors, eating local fruits like mandarin oranges, while avoiding onions and garlics, alcohol, meats, and eggs.  New spices and the development of tofu led to a variety of vegetarian dishes, and some monks began cultivating the medicinal herb of tea as a regular aid for their meditations.

JIN TOFU SHIITAKE RICE

As Buddhism took hold in China, the Ayurvedic dietary customs and styles interacted with local foods derived from soy products and various local vegetarian foods that might not have been frequently eaten in India.

• 1/2 cup Soy sauce
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 tsp Sichuan pepper
• Bunch of mustard greens, destemmed and roughly chopped
• 8 shiitake mushrooms, destemmed and sliced
• 10 oz firm tofu, cubed
• 4 oz sliced water chestnuts
• Cinnamon bark piece
• star anise pod
• 1″ piece of Ginger, minced
• brown rice, cooked
• Tbsp toasted Sesame seeds

Cook mushrooms, ginger, cinnamon and anise in soy sauce and water on low simmer for 10 minutes. Remove cinnamon and anise, and stir in greens for 5 minutes, and then tofu and chestnuts for 5 minutes, adding sichuan pepper and sesame seeds in during last minute. Serve over rice.

JIN GREEN TEA

Today a thriving global industry, the tea of this era was likely brewed with flat tea leaves, whole or chopped, and considered medicinal for alertness and to aid mental meditations.

• Boiled water
• Green tea leaves, refined

Steep tea in hot water 5 minutes, about 1 cup per teabag (or equivalent amount) and pour into cups.

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Extras: adzuki bean, apricot, bamboo, beef, bok choy, calabash, cassia, cherry, chestnut, chicken, chive, cress, daikon radish, dandelion, deer, Durum wheat, eggs, fish, flaxseed, garlic, ginger, glutinous rice, goat, goji berry, ham, hazelnut, honey, jujube, kiwi, leek, lettuce, longan, loquat, lychee, milk, millet, mulberry, mung bean, mushroom, mussels, mustard green, mustard seed, nectarine, onion, orange, oyster, peach, pear, plum, pork, rhubarb, rice, rice wine / vinegar, salt, scallions, scallops, sesame, shallots, shellfish, shiitake, sichuan pepper, soy sauce, soybean, star anise, taro, tea, tofu, veal, Water caltrop, water chestnut, wheat, wild fowl, yam

Lao Zi & Confucius, 600-400BC

The history of China developed from the ancient Xia Dynasty, lasting from around 2070BC to 1600BC, which gave way to the Shang Dynasty, in which oracle bone inscriptions began to record divinations by 1250BC, during the golden age of the dynasty in the city of Yin (Yinxu). The Zhou dynasty of the Huang He (Yellow) River Valley grew over the next centuries to overrun the Shang territory, and the ensuing conflict ended in the Battle of Muye with the victorious Zhou king invoking the Mandate of Heaven, and setting up a new capital at Haojing (Xi’an) before expanding into the Yangtze Valley over the next few centuries.

In the middle of the Eastern Zhou period around the 6th century BC, after the capital had moved to Luoyi (Luoyang), an important work later known as the Dao De Jing appeared, which was attributed to the authorship of Lao-Zi (the Old Master), a scholar in the royal court of Zhou:

The nature of the universe and the origin and end of all things falls into a pattern, a “Way” (Dao) for want of a better title. From viewing the larger picture of the Way, possessions, moments, order, and ideas are seen as fleeting, but there remains a center of being which is eternal. A follower of the Way is detached and humble, patient and simple, compassionate and serene, open in heart, and with clear inner vision. Cooperating with the great paradox of nature, the follower becomes free of desire, violence, or control, by acting without acting, and becoming empty so as to be filled.

After the wars of the Spring and Autumn Period, the scholar and former governor of the State of Lu, Confucius, journeyed throughout the Yellow River Valley as a travelling philosopher between 497 and 484 BC. The book of The Analects was compiled sometime after his death, around 473BC:

Confucius expresses a vision of an ideal society as ordered and just, a place of virtue and filial piety. It called for  acts of virtue to greatly exceed our earthly pursuits of wealth, power, or comfort. We can learn from everyone, and we must be generous in charity and wisdom, seeking harmony and self-examination, kindness and joy. As it is our duty to honor our ancestors’ wisdom, so we must not let pride or laxity tarnish the example we will leave behind for the future.

These works often commended plainness of food and fasting as a discipline, so that the mind may seek higher wisdom instead. Nonetheless, the Analects described a yin and yang type of palate, with sauced meat proportionate with plain coarse grain (probably millet). Confucius was also known for eating vegetable soup (probably chicken broth with vegetables) and chopped fowl, with plenty of ginger, and no limit on the consumption of huang jiu (rice wine), except that he never became intoxicated. Dessert at this time included local fruits in season, such as lychee. This meal which Confucius might have enjoyed soon became emulated by his growing disciples — tasty but not so much as to distract from one’s higher meditations.

ZHOU CALABASH CHICKEN

The domestication of chickens had occurred in eastern Asia before this time, but the usual way to prepare it was boiling in water and using the broth for a soup, with cooked grain on the side.

• 3-4 tbsp lard
• 1 whole chicken, quartered
• 1 can sliced bamboo shoots, drained and rinsed
• 1 opo squash / calabash
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1″ piece of ginger, minced
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 tsp Sichuan peppercorn (there really is no substitute, but you could use black or white pepper instead)
• 4 tbsp huang jiu / Shaoxing wine (can substitute with sherry)
• 1 tsp salt (if broth and wine are unsalted)
• 2 scallions (white and green parts), chopped

Since we are making soup below, the same chicken can be used for both; however, you could also skip the broth paragraph and use canned chicken broth and boneless thighs in its place. 

For the broth: Put chicken in water to cover, bring to boil; dump the cloudy water out and rinse, and fill again. Bring to boil again, then keep covered at a low simmer for 1 hour. Remove chicken and let cool enough to remove chicken meat from the bones and cut into large morsels, storing the meat in the fridge covered. Discard skin and put bones back into broth, simmering covered another hour. Strain broth and save for use in other recipes (like the one below), except keep 1 cup broth for the sauce for this one.

For the stir-fry (in a large pan; woks were not used for cooking until the Han dynasty): slice opo squash open and scoop out seeds, then chop into cubes, salt, and let dry 20 minutes. Heat 2 tbsp lard on medium-high and fry squash and bamboo 5-10 minutes, and remove to a plate. Add remaining lard, and cook the ginger and garlic 5 minutes, then add chicken broth, Sichuan pepper, wine, and cook down a bit. Thicken the sauce by cooking it down a bit. Stir in the chicken and calabash / bamboo and cook 2-3 minutes, stirring in the scallions before serving. Serve with plain boiled millet as a grain side.

ZHOU DAIKON NOODLE SOUP

The earliest noodles discovered were made of millet flour centuries before this time; in the Zhou dynasty it was more common to use wheat and hand pull noodle strips out of a flat dough.

• 1 leek, large chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1″ piece of ginger, sliced
• 2 chopped baby bok choy
• 8 cups chicken broth
• 2 star anise
• 1 handful of goji berries
• 1 daikon, peeled and cut in big chunks
• 1/2 tsp Sichuan peppercorn
• salt to taste
• 1 cup wheat flour for noodles
• 1 scallion (white and green part), chopped

Heat broth to boiling and lower heat, and add the veggies (except scallions and bok choy), ginger, star anise, Sichuan pepper, and goji berries. Cook on a low simmer for 1-2 hours. Meanwhile make a dough of 1 cup wheat flour and 1/4 cup warm water (plus a little more if needed to make a pliable dough), and knead 5 minutes. Roll out as thinly as possible, and cut it into long thin noodle strips. When all are ready, remove the star anise from the soup, put bok choy into the soup for 5-10 minutes, then bring it to a boil to add the noodles, stirring 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool for 15 minutes covered, then add scallions, and salt to taste, and serve.

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Extras: acorns, adzuki bean, apricot, bamboo, bok choy, calabash, cassia, cherry, chicken, cress, daikon radish, dandelion, deer, Durum wheat, eggs, fish, garlic, ginger, goat, goji berry, hazelnut, honey, jujube, kiwi, lamb, leek, lettuce, lychee, milk, millet, mulberry, mung bean, mushroom, mustard green, mustard seed, onion, peach, pear, plum, pork, rhubarb, rice wine, salt, scallions, scallops, shallots, shellfish, sichuan pepper, soybean, star anise, taro, Water caltrop, water chestnut, wild fowl