A Literary Feast: Food in Early Chinese Literature

Author(s): David R. Knechtges

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 106, No. 1, Sinological Studies
Dedicated to Edward H. Schafer (Jan. - Mar., 1986), pp. 49-63
Published by: American Oriental Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/602363 .
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A LITERARY FEAST: FOOD IN EARLY CHINESE LITERATURE

DAVID

R.

KNECHTGES

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Although this description portrays the sage as something of a combination of a Chou dynasty Escoffier
and a food critic for the New York Times, it is an
excellent illustration of the punctilious attention the
Chinese traditionally have lavished on cooking and
eating. The proper preparation of food certainly has
of the Chinese since
been a major preoccupation
remote antiquity. The early Chinese classics provide
ample testimony to the strong emphasis that the ancient
Chinese placed on food. For example, a chapter of the
Classic of Documents in its enumeration of the eight
principal concerns of government ranks food a first in
importance.2
The ritual texts in particular devote long

sections to food, its proper preparation, and serving.

One good illustration of this ancient preoccupation
with food is the Rites of Chou (Chou Ii AdJ4), an
idealized description of the Chou dynasty administrative system compiled perhaps around the third or
fourth century B.C. The first section of the book
records that the department of the royal household had
the following officers charged with various tasks
involving food and drink: 152 masters of viands (shan
fu Iln l ), who supervised the planning and preparation of meals for the king, the consorts, and the crown
prince; 70 butchers (p'ao jen IA A ); 128 court cooks
(nei'ung PAt# ); 128 outer cooks (wai'ung f -f ),
charged with preparing the sacrificial offerings and
food for the military guard and guests; 62 assistant
cooks (p'engjen ^A ), who did the actual cooking
on the stoves; 335 masters of the royal domain (tien
shih kJahj ), who provided all of the grains, vegetables,
and fruits for the royal table; 62 game hunters (shou
jen ,VRA); 342 fishermen (yi' en JA ok ); 24 turtle
catchers (pie/i jen JAk ), who provided all of the
shellfish; 28 meat-driers (hsi len l Ak ); 2 food doctors
(shi/ i R w ), who supervised the proper preparation
of food and drink; 110 regulators of the wines (chiu
cheng i iiE ), who supervised the officials who made
wines and other drinks; 340 winemakers (chiu jen
I A); 170 beverage makers (chiang jen jjTA ); 94
ice-house attendants (lingjen {IA); 31 bamboo basket attendants (pien jen %A), charged with serving
food in the food baskets; 61 meat-pickle makers (hai
jen M JS ); 62 picklers (hsi jen M A ), and 62 salt
makers (yen jen MA). Of the 4,133 officers in the
royal household, 2,263, or 55 percent, reputedly were
involved in the preparation of food and drink.

See Lun i'i, 10.8.

See Shang shu chu-shu fA)0 if, (Commentary and
Subcommentary to the Hallowed Documents), Shih-san ching
chu-shu -+ *,KieAL(Commentary and Subcommentary to
the Thirteen Classics; hereafter SSCCS), comp. Juan Yuan
fi7ci (1764-1849) (Kyoto, 1972), 12.9a. The other eight
concerns of government are goods, sacrifices, administering
vacant land (to provide residences for people), administering

the multitudes (to teach them the rites and propriety),

administering criminals, receiving guests, and handling the
army. See Bernhard Karlgren, "The Book of Documents,"
BMFEA 22 (1950), 30.
3See Chou 1i chu-shu dJr9fib. (Commentary and Subcommentary to the Rites of Chou) (SSCCS), 1.8a-13a;
Edouard Biot, tr., Le Tcheou-li ou Rites des Tcheou, 2 vols.
(1851; rpt. Taipei, 1969), I, 6-1 1; Sven Broman, "Studies on

IN THE

Lun vif

or Edited Conversations of

Confucius, there is the following passage stipulating

what purports to be Confucius' notion of proper
eating:
His rice is not excessively refined, and his sliced meat is
not cut excessively fine. Rice that has become putrid
and sour, fish that has spoiled, and meat that has gone
bad, he does not eat. Food that is discolored he does
not eat, and food with a bad odor he does not eat.
Undercooked foods he does not eat, and foods served
at improper times he does not eat. Meat that is
improperly carved, he does not eat, and if he does not
obtain the proper sauce, he will not eat. Though there
is plenty of meat, he will not allow it to overcome the
vitalizing power of the rice. Only in the case of wine
does he not set a limit. But he never drinks to the point
of becoming disorderly. Purchased wine or dried meat
from the market he does not eat. He never dispenses
with ginger when he eats. He does not eat to excess.'

49

50

Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)

Although the kitchen bureaucracy specified here probably never existed, the fact that a classical ritual
text establishes it as an ideal demonstrates the importance ancient Chinese ritualists attached to culinary
functions.
In addition to enumerating the officers of the royal
kitchen, the Chou Ii specifies various types of food and
drink, all neatly divided into categories. Thus, among
the meats there are the six beasts (liu shou /, i ),4 six
),5 and six viands (liu shan
fowl (liu ch'in t
L*<d
).6 The most important group of foods was the
five or six cereals (ku $ ).7 Accompanying the meats
and cereals were various pickles and sauces; the seven
the Chou Li," BMFEA 33 (1961), 6-9. K. C. Chang, Food in
Chinese Culture:Anthropological and Historical Perspectives
(New Haven, 1977), 11, gives an inaccurate description of the
same personnel roster.
4 According to Cheng Chung a
t (ca. 5 B.C.-A.D. 83), the
six beasts include elaphure (mi J), sika deer (lu v), bear,
river deer (chiin ' ), wild pig, and rabbit. Cheng Hsuan
At (127-200) substitutes wolf for bear. See Chou li chuMI
shu, 4.6b.
Cheng Chung says the six fowl include wild goose (yen
)fl), common quail (ch 'un f ), eastern quail (len
)
pheasant (chih *t ), dove (chiu 4), and pigeon (ko
)
Cheng Hsuan claims that ch'in is not restricted to fowl, but
includes "all birds and beasts not yet pregnant." His list
contains lamb (kao I,), suckling pig (t un i), calf (tu t&),
fawn (mi 'i), pheasant, and wild goose. See Chou li chu-shu,
4.6b.
6 One of the functions of the food doctors was to combine
the appropriate viand with the appropriate cereal. The six
combinations are (1) beef and rice, (2) mutton and glutinous
broom-corn millet (shu f), (3) pork and non-glutinous
broom-corn millet (chi f ), (4) dog and foxtail millet (lang
X ), (5) goose and mai f (barley and wheat), (6) fish and wild
rice (ku x ). See Chou li chu-shu, 5.3b.
7 The listing of the five cereals varies. In the doctors of
disease section (see Chou li chu-shu, 5.4b) Cheng Hsuan lists
them as hemp, glutinous broom-corn millet (shu) nonglutinous broom-corn millet (chi), mai, and soybean. In the
section on the director of the regions (see Chou li chu-shu,
32.12b) Cheng Hsuan substitutes rice for hemp. See also Choyun Hsii, Han Agriculture: The Formation of Ear/s Chinese
Agrarian Economy (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), ed., J. L. Dull (Seattle,
1980), 81; Te-tzu Chang, "The Origins and Early Cultures of
the Cereal Grains and Food Legumes," in The Origins of
Chinese Civilization, ed., D. N. Keightley (Berkeley, 1983),
65. The six cereals include the six grains mentioned in
n. 6 above.

meat-pickles (hai i

), the seven pickled vegetables

(tsu 1 ),9 and the five marinades (chi t

).'? There

are even systematized names for beverages: the Chou Ii

speaks of the five drinks ( vin tk )," three wines (chiu
).13
),12 and five blends (chi
Most of the ritual text passages dealing with foods
are nothing more than dry lists of names, and because
of their systematizing nature, they tell us very little
8 These included pickled meat brine (t'an
fd

), snails (lo
,&), giant mussels (p 'i A ), ant eggs (ch 'ih At ), fish, rabbit,
and wild goose. See Chou Ii chu-shu, 6.3b, Cheng Hsiian.
9 The picked vegetables included leek (chiu k), rape turnip
(ching *), watershield (mao X ), mallow (k uei a ), water
dropwort (ch'in f), arrow bamboo shoots ((h'ih
), and
bamboo shoots (sun I). See Chou li chu-shu, 6.3b, Cheng
Hsuan.
10 I have followed Biot (1, I 1) in rendering chi as marinade.
According to Cheng Hsuan (see Chou li chu-shu, 6.3b), the
chi pickle was cut much finer than the tsu, in which whole
pieces were used. The five marinades consisted of the root of
the sweet flag ((h 'angpen 3 * ), tripe slices (p 'ihsi Bi
),
giant clams (shen Z ), suckling pig shoulder (tun po
,
and cattail heart (shen p'u iK I ).
i} The six beverages include water, vinegar (chiang
)
sweet unclarified wine (Ii 41), cold drink (lang ), medicinal
wine (i f), and thin gruel (i ft). See Chou li, 5. 18a. On chiang
as vinegar see Ting Fu-pao TUfM
(1874-1952), ed.,
Shuo-wen chieh-tzu ku-uin M X R 4: 2** (Collected Glosses
to Script Explained and Graphs Explicated) (Taipei, 1959),
1IA.5079a-80b, 14B.6687a/b. According to Cheng Hsuan
(see Chou li chu-shu 5.18b) lang is a cold gruel. For more
information on li, see n. 13 below.
12The three wines are occasional wine (shih chiu s j ), a
type of must (new wine) used for seasonal sacrifices;aged wine
(hsi chiu E if ), which is fermented longer than the shih chiu;
and clear wine (ch 'ing chiu ' iff ), which is fermented from
winter until summer. See Chou li chu-shu, 5.11b and Hayashi
, "Kandaino inshoku" AftQ ) XCt ("Food
Minao
;
and Drink in the Han Dynasty"), Toh5 gakuh& 48 (1975),
72-74.
13 The five blends are the wines used in sacrifices. They
include the floating blend (fan chi d ), so named because
dregs floated in it; the sweet unclarified blend (Ii chi &t ), a
cloudy brew in which juice and dregs are mixed together; the
cloudy blend (ang chi A ), a greenish-white slightly clear
wine; the rufous blend (0i chi 9 ), a reddish-brown colored
wine; and the sunken blend (ch 'enchi At),a brew in which the
dregs sink to the bottom, leaving it clear on top. See Chou Ii
(hu-shu, 5.10a-b; Hayashi Minao, "Kandai no inshoku,"
75-79.

KNECHTGES:

51

Food in Early Chinese Literature

about the actual preparation of food. There is an

occasional passage that provides more detail. For
example, the "Inner Regulations" ("Nei tse" J RIJ )
chapter of the Record of Rites contains step by step
instructions for making what are called the Eight
Delicacies (pa chen Jk3gY). One of them, the "wrapped
bake" (p 'ao *9 ), is a highly elaborate preparation. It is
called the wrapped bake because the meat is baked in a
wrapping of reeds and clay. The passage reads:
Take a suckling pig (tun) or a young ewe (chiang It
= tsang)*), cut it open, clean it out, and fill its belly
with dates. Plait miscanthus reed (chui X ) as a
wrapping for it, seal it with clay and bake it. When the
clay is all dry, break it off. Rub it with wet hands and
remove the thin membrane (chao n ). Take rice flour,
blend it and soak it to make a thin gruel (i), which is
added to the suckling pig. Fry it in grease. The grease
must cover it completely. Into a large pot of boiling
water insert a small cauldron of the seasoned meat
strips (f'u Afl ). Make sure the boiling water does not
cover the tripod. For three days and three nights do
not stop the fire. Last, season it with vinegar (hsi) and
meat pickles (hai).'4

One of the most pervasive uses of food in ancient

Chinese literature is as metaphor in political or philosophical discourse. The Chinese alimentary metaphor
is quite similar to that of the medieval Christian writer,
who equates God with bread, truth with nourishment
and food, and Christian doctrine with a meal.' In the
Chinese classics, the proper seasoning of food is a
common analogy for good government. Thus, in one
of the spurious chapters of the Classic of Documents,
King Wu-ting A T of the Yin dynasty addresses his
minister Fu Yueh f
as follows: "May you instruct
Us in Our aims. As if making wine and must, you be
Our yeast and barm. As if making blended stew, you be
Our salt and plums."'6 The comparison of the perfectly
blended stew with the art of good government is a
commonplace both in ancient and later literature. In a
famous passage preserved in the Tso Commentary,
which may be a fourth century B.C. compilation, the
statesman Yen-tzu - # compares the harmonious
14See Li chi chu-shu j 9iliL
(Commentary and subcommentary to the Record of Rites) (SSCCS), 28.7b.
" See Ernst
Robert Curtius, European Literature and the
Latin Middle Ages, tr., Willard R. Trask (New York, 1953),
134-36.
16 See Shang-shu chu-shu,
10.7a.

relationship between
seasoned stew:

lord and vassal to a perfectly

Harmony (ho ffl ) may be compared to a stew. Water,

fire, vinegar, meat pickles, salt, and plums are used to
cook the fish filets. It is heated by means of the
firewood. The cook (tsaifu
to
) blends (ho) the
ingredients and equalizes them by taste, adding whatever is deficient and decreasing whatever is excessive.
His master then eats it and thereby composes his mind.
The relationship between lord and vassal also is like
this. Whenever there is something objectionable in
what the lord deems acceptable, the vassal presents his
objection in order that he may make it acceptable.
Whenever there is something acceptable in what the
lord deems objectionable, the vassal presents his
approval so that he may remove his objection. Thus,
when the administration is composed and inobtrusive,
there are no contentious hearts among the people."
Yen-tzu caps his speech by citing four lines from the

Classic of Songs:
There is also a blended stew;
He is cautious, he is composed.
They all arrive, wordless;
Now there is no contention. 18
Based on this Tso Commentari passage, later writers
used the expression ho keng fU g (to blend the stew)
as a figure of speech for the loyal and devoted minister,
who with untiring effort assists his ruler to bring order
to the state. For example, the T'ang poet Chang Yueh
32
(667-731) in a poem written at an imperial
banquet, humbly refers to himself as follows:
17

See Tso chuan chu-shu ;~:

R. (Commentary and Subcommentary on the Tso Commentary) (SSCCS), 49.14a/ b,
Chao 20.
18 These lines are from Mao shih 302/2, which traditionally
has been interpreted as a hymn sung in a sacrifice to a Shang
dynasty ruler (either Tang JX or T'ai-wu krt ). The subject
of the lines is difficult to determine. I have followed Cheng
Hsuan in taking the first two lines as spoken by the Shang
descendant who presents the offering, and the last two lines as
referringto the vassal lords who silently and noncontentiously
come to participate in the sacrifice. Cheng Hsuan interprets
the perfectly blended stew as an analogy for the harmonious
compliance of the vassal lords. See Mao shih chu-shu
4 ,
-; M
(Commentary and Subcommentary to the Mao
Songs) (SSCCS), 20.3.9b- I Oa.

52

Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)

Reciting the Songs, we hear of how to govern the state;
Discussing the Changes, we see the purpose of Heaven.
Though my post is undeserved, I have the heavy task
of blending the stew;
Though my favor is unearned, I am deeply drunk on
the wine.'9

The use of alimentary metaphors is not confined to

Confucian texts. One also finds cooking analogies in
Taoist writings. The first text of Taoism, the Lao-tzu,
contains the following famous line: "Governing a large
state is like cooking a small fish."20The idea of course
is that by excessive handling the fish, and by analogy
the state, will be ruined. Another Taoist text, the
Chuang-tzu, parts of which may date to the fourth
century B.C., contains an elegant passage about the
master cook Ting T , who illustrates the secret of
nurturing life by describing his skill in carving an ox.
He explains that by his "love for the Way" he has
"advanced beyond skill." Now he does not look with
his eyes, but with his spirit. By "conforming to the
natural lines, cutting along the main openings, guiding
his knife through the large apertures, and following
what is inherently so," he is able to avoid ligaments,
tendons, to say nothing of large bones. Unlike lesser
cooks, who must constantly change their knives, he has
used the same cleaver for nineteen years to carve
several thousand oxen. The secret lies in finding "the
gaps in the joints" through which he can insert the
blade of his cleaver, which in his hands "has no
thickness." "Wide and open it is, and of course there is
plenty of extra room in which to wield the cleaver.
Thus, after nineteen years the blade of the cleaver is as
though it were fresh off the grindstone." In a rhapsodic
section that follows, Ting describes how he handles
knotted sinews and bones: "Alert and cautious, I focus

'9 See "Granted Food by Gracious Edict at a Banquet Held

in the College of the Hall of Beauty and Rectitude, Composed
by Imperial Command," in Wen-yiian ying-hua 3Z;X
(Prime Blossoms from the Literary Park) ed. Li Fang At!
(925-96) et al. (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chu, 1966), 168.811.
For a similar use of the same phrase see Meng Hao-jan's
, tM
(689-740) "To Accord with Chancellor Chang's
'Facing Snow on a Spring Morning'," in Meng Hao-jan chi
i -M (SPTK), 3.16b; trans. by Paul W. Kroll, Meng
Hao-jan (Boston, 1981), 81. For Chang Yueh's dates, see Paul
W. Kroll, "On the Date of Chang Yueh's Death," Chinese
Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 2.2 (1980), 264-65.
20 See Lao-tzu Tao-te ching -t Jz#*
(Lao-tzu's Canon
of the Way and Virtue), chapter 60.

my gaze, work slowly, and move the cleaver very

slightly. Zip! The knot dissolves, like a clod of earth
falling to the ground. Holding my cleaver I stand there,
look all around me, dallying and dawdling, fully
satisfied. Then I wipe off the cleaver and put it
away."2' The point of Cook Ting's allegory is obvious.
Just as the master carver protects his knife by inserting
his blade in the slightest opening and following the
natural structure of the ox, the person who has mastered the art of nourishing life does not fight his
environment, but adapts himself to it, finding the gaps
into which he can comfortably insert himself.
The master butcher topos occurs in other early texts.
The Annals of Master Lu, a third century B.C. text,
records an abbreviated version of the Cook Ting
allegory to illustrate the efficacy of intense concentration:
Cook Ting of Sung loved to carve oxen. [At first] all
he saw was nothing but the dead ox. After three years,
he did not even see the live ox. After using his cleaver
for nineteen years, the blade was as though it had been
freshly sharpened on the grindstone. This is because he
conformed to its natural lines, and his entire con22
centration was on the ox.

One text uses the same topos to illustrate how a

military commander must take advantage of gaps in
the enemy's defenses just as the master butcher moves
his cleaver through the openings between sinews and
bone.23 In the early Han, the political philosopher and
poet, Chia I W- (ca. 200-168 B.c.), even uses the
example of the ox butcher T'an Eff to persuade the
emperor to deal harshly with the rebellious kings:
The ox butcher T'an could carve twelve oxen in one
day, yet his pointed blade never became dull: the
reason was that whereverhe thrust and hacked, skinned
and sliced, it was always along the various natural lines
and joints. But when he came to the thigh bones and
buttocks, if he didn't use a hatchet, then he used an
axe. Benevolence, charity, grace, and generosity are

21 See Kuo Ch'ing-fan

Adz
(1844-1896), ed. and
comm., Chuang-tzu chi-shih 9: %
(Collected Explanations of Chuang-tzu) (Taipei, 1967), 3.55-57. For a complete translation, see i.a., A. C. Graham, tr., Chuang Tzu: The
Inner Chapters (London, 1981), 63-64.
22 Lu-shih h lun-ch'iu 9 EdBy
(Annals of Master Lu)
(SPPY), 9.9b.
23 See Kuan-tzu e +
(BSS ed.), ts'e2, 10.23.

KNECHTGES:

Food in Early Chinese Literature

the pointed blades of a ruler of men; authority, power,

laws, and regulations are the hatchets and axes of the
ruler of men. Now the lords and kings are all thigh
bones and buttocks. If you dispense with the use of
hatchet and axe, and instead desire to apply the
pointed blade to them, I believe that if you do not
knick the blade, you will break it.14

This obviously is no longer Chuang-tzu's gentle philosophy of compliance with nature, but is the brutal force
of Realpolitik.
Although Cook Ting and Butcher T'an are purely
fictional figures, there are other famous ancient cooks
who not only were historical personages, but who
reputedly used their culinary skills to attain influential
ministerial positions. The most famous is I Yin f#}b
or the Governor of 1. Many early texts relate how he
began his career as a cook (one account has him raised
by a cook), and eventually discovered by the Shang
who appointed
dynasty founder, King T'ang i,
him his prime minister.25 Several accounts colorfully
describe I Yin arriving at T'ang's court with his cooking
tripods and meat stands (tsu ia) on his back.26In spite
of Mencius, who claimed I Yin was not a cook but a
farmer,27the prevailing image of him in early texts is
that of the Chinese gastronome par excellence. His
reputation as a connoisseur of taste is well-established
by a long passage in the Annals of Master Li, in which
he discourses at length on the "perfect flavors."28I Yin
begins his discourse by classifying animals that provide
food into three categories: denizens of the water that
smell fishy (hsing By ), predators of flesh that smell
gamy (sao Hi ), and grass-eaters that have a hircine
smell (shan j ). The task of the cook is to overcome
these offensive odors by the proper balancing of the
five flavors (salty, bitter, sour, hot, and sweet) and the
correct application of the three materials (water, wood,

24 SeeHan shu Xt
(History of the Former Han) (Peking,
1962), 48.2236.
25 For a good summary of the passages concerning I Yin, see
Bernhard Karlgren, "Legends and Cults in Ancient China,"
BMFEA 18 (1946), 328-29.
26 See Chan-kuo ts'e aOR
(Intrigues of the Warring
States), (SPPY), 21.7b. Cf. J. I. Crump, Jr., tr., Chan-Kuo
Tse (Oxford, 1970), 362, where this passage is incorrectly
translated as saying I Yin "turned his back upon the cooking
vessels to importune Tang." See also Shih (hi r,
(Records of the Historian), (Peking, 1959), 3.94.
27
See Meng-tzu jm, 5A.6.
28 See Lu-shih ch'un-ch'iu, 14.4b-7a.

53

and fire). Blending the five flavors is an extremely

delicate task, comparable to the subtle skill required of
an archer and coachman, or even the mysterious
movements of the cosmos:
The transformations in the cauldron are so utterly
marvelous and of such subtle delicacy, the mouth
cannot put them into words, and the mind cannot
comprehend them. They are like the subtlety of archery
and charioteering, the transformations of the l in and
lYang,and the cycle of the four seasons. Thus, the food
is cooked for a long time but is not ruined, well-done
but not over-done, sweet but not sugary, sour but not
bitter, salty but not briny, hot but not biting, bland but
not insipid, fat but not lardy.

The great gourmand then names the best meats, fish,

vegetables, seasonings, grains, water, and fruits. This
bill of fare includes numerous rare delicacies, the
names of which frequently appear in later literature as
allusions to this passage. 29 Among the meat and fish,
there are such delicacies as orangutan lips, the fleshy
tails of cuckoo and swallow, yak and elephant tails,
flying fish, along with more fantastic creatures such as
the six-footed vermilion turtle with pearls on its feet,
or phoenix eggs from the remote western state of Wo
E,, which are also mentioned in that great collection
of imaginary beings, the Classic of Mountains and
Seas.30 Many of the plants and trees are equally
fantastic: duckweed and blossoms of the longevity tree,
both of which grow on the high peaks of the K'un-lun
Mountains in the remote northwest; the life-prolonging
leaves of the scarlet tree and black tree of the state of
Chung-jung rp g in the southeast; the leafy vegetable
water dropwort (h 'in) from the great Yun-meng A
marsh of the south. For liquid refreshment, there is
dew from the San wei -Fa (Triperil) peaks of the
western limits, and water from the springs of the
K'un-lun. Finally, there are the hundred fruits from
trees high above the Plunging Pool of the Enduring
Mountain (Ch'ang shan X X1 ), "feasted on by multitudinous gods;" sweet cumquats from east of Winnow
Mountain, the home of the three blue birds, attendants

The long list of foods given by Tuan Ch'eng-shih

(ca. 803-863) in his Yu-Y'angMiscellani' conA &;A
tains almost all of the items mentioned in the Lu-shih
ch'un-ch'iu. See Fang Nan-sheng
, ed. Yu-Yang
tsa-tsu ffiFMtt
(Peking, 1981), 69-70.
30 See Shan-hai (hing Li Ad
(SPP Y), 4.4a and 16.3a.
29

54

Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)

to the Queen Mother of the West;3' oranges from the

banks of the Yang-tzu, and pomelos from Yun-meng.
At the end of this long enumeration of delectable
foods, we discover that I Yin's subject is not food at all,
but government. He tells T'ang that the only one
qualified to obtain these things, which would have to
come as tribute, is a Son of Heaven (meaning emperor).
However, one cannot become a Son of Heaven by
force. He must first understand the Way and perfect
his moral character. "Once the Son of Heaven is
created, the perfect flavors will all be supplied."32
This passage from the Annals of Master Lii, which is
usually treated as a handbook of political philosophy,
not a work of literature, is illustrative of the increasing
rhetorical embellishments that occur in the prose of the
fourth and third centuries B.C. The increasing use of
cataloguing, ornamental language, repetition of synonyms, and various other rhetorical devices was an
important influence on the development of theflu a
or rhapsody. One feature that almost all fu share is an
attempt to present a comprehensive definition of a
subject. In this respect, a/fu is something like a small
encyclopedia or repository of information about whatever happens to be the subject of the poem. Fu writers
wrote about almost every subject, from great capitals,
metropolises, mountains, rivers, seas, to birds, animals,
trees, flowers, even insects. Food of course did not
escape their attention, and in their usual encyclopedic
fashion, rhapsodists recorded much information about
cooking and eating.
The earliest examples of the fi are preserved in the
second great anthology of Chinese poetry, the Ch'u
tz'u, or Elegies of Ch'u. Most of the pieces in the
collection are elegaic poems in which the poet pours
out his heart in self-commiseration and tell us absolutely nothing about food. However, there are two long
poems that not only mention food, but provide important information about ancient southern Chinese
cookery. These two poems are titled "Summoning
the Soul" ("Chao hun" MA
) and the "Great
Summons" ("Ta chao" k4j ). Both pieces are literary
representations of the ancient Chinese religious rite of
calling back the soul of a deceased or sick person. I
emphasize literary representation, for I concur with
David Hawkes, who suggests that they "werewritten to
be performed as a recital or court masque for the
" See Shan-hai
ching 2.22a, 16.3b, 12.la; Michael Loewe,
Ways to Paradise: The Chinese Quest for Immortality
(London, 1979), 90, 130.
32
Lu-shih ch 'un-ch'iu, 14.7b.

delectation, flattery, and comfort of a sick or supposedly sick king."33

Both "Summons" poems follow approximately the
same structure. They open by describing the perils the
soul will encounter in each of the four directions. The
hortatory phrase kuei-lai if
(return!) is iterated
throughout to urge the soul to return to its homeland.
To convince the soul to return, the summoner enumerates an assortment of enticements, including pretty
girls, ornate palaces, music, hunting, and foods. "Summoning the Soul" has the following repast of tasty
dishes:
Rice, broom-corn millet, early wheat, late wheat,
mixed with yellow foxtail millet;
The "great bitter," salty, and sour, employed with the
hot and sweet;
Tendons of a fattened ox, well-done and fragrant;
A blended sour and bitter, offered in a Wu stew;
Boiled soft-shelled turtle, roast lamb, drunk with sugar
cane syrup;
Swan in sour sauce, ragouted duck, fried goose and
crane;
Open-air chicken, stewed loggerhead turtle, strongly
seasoned, but not to spoil the taste;
Ring sticks, honey cakes, along with sugar puffs;
Rare extracts in covered ladles fill winged goblets;
An icy drink, dregs removed-pure wine clear and
cool;
Ornate ladles set in place, along with precious extracts.34

This passage requires a commentary:

The first line lists what must be the Ch'u version of
the five grains, which included rice, two kinds of wheat
(or barley), and two kinds of millet.35
The second line enumerates the five flavors or
seasonings. Commentators variously explain the "great
bitter" (ta k'u ig
) of the second line. The earliest
Ch u tz 'Uexegete Wang I I A (ca. A.D. 89-158) says
that it refers to shih X, the salted dark beans that are
such an important ingredient in Chinese cooking even

See Ch'u Tz'u: The Songs of the South (London, 1959),

102.
34 See Hung Hsing-tsu
M
(1070-1135), ed. and
comm., Chu-tz 'upu-(hu X
(Supplementary Commentary to the Elegies of Ch'u)(Hong Kong, 1963), 9.9a- lOb.
It is possible there are only four grain names in this list.
The expression cho mai f
, which I have rendered early
wheat and late wheat, possibly means only "early wheat."

KNECHTGES:
Food in Early Chinese Literature
today.36 However, a Sung dynasty commentator points

out that shih did not appear until the Han dynasty, and
this seasoning more likely is the plant ling a , which
early lexicons identify as another name for "great
bitter."37This plant is a type of Polygonum or smartweed, which is known for its pungent taste.38 An
equally plausible explanation is that "great bitter"
simply refers to the general class of bitter seasonings.
The Wu stew (Wu keng At ) mentioned in line
four apparently was a specialty of the cooks of the
southeast, who were famous for the heavy use of
39
vinegar and strong spices.
In line five, we see the use of the turtle, which was a
favorite delicacy of the Chinese from earliest times.40
One commentator claims that a bloody turtle and
roasted lamb were combined with ox viscera to make a
stew.4' The sugar cane juice (che hang 146% ), which
David Hawkes curiously renders as "yam sauce,"42was
a common drink among southern Chinese of this
period. They probably obtained their sugar from the
area of Chiao-chih Ok, which is modern northern
Vietnam.43 One apparent function of the juice was
to offset the effects of too much wine. Thus, a Han
dynasty sacrificial song has the following line: "A
great beaker of sugar cane juice breaks a morning
hangover."44
), or perhaps
The open-air chicken (lu chi J
"dew-soaked chicken," was the name of a type of
chicken that roosted exposed to the elements. Its
distinct flavor was recognizable by connoisseurs of

36

See Ch 'u-tz 'upu-chu, 9.9b.

See Hao I-hsing teF

ff (1757-1825), ed. and comm.,
(Exegesis to the Erh-j'a) (SPPY),
Erh-Yai-shu f
Cl.35a and Shuo-wen chieh-tzu ku-/in, IB.353b.
3 Lu Wen-yu
, Shih ts'ao-mu chin-shih P
D 3g
*+
(Modern Explanations of the Plants and Trees in
the Songs) (Tientsin, 1957), pp. 24-25, #30, identifies it a
Polvgonum Revnoutria. Bernard Read, Chinese Medicinal
P/ants from the Pen Ts'ao Kang Mu A_D 1596 (1936; rpt.
Taipei, 1977), p. 183, #571, gives P. cuspidatum (Japanese
knotweed).
3 See Ch'u-tz'u pu-chu, 9.9b.
40 See Edward H. Schafer, "Eating Turtles in Ancient
China," JA OS 82 (1962), 73-74.
4 1See Ch'u-tz'u pu-chu, 9. 1Oa.
42 See Chlu Tz'u, 107.
4 See Hui-Lin Li (
), Nan-fangts'ao-muchuang:A
,
Fourth Centur' F/ora of Southeast Asia (Hong Kong, 1979),
55-57.
44 See Hanshu, 22.1063.

55

taste. For example, Fu Lang jj: M (ob. 389), prefect of

Ch'ing-chou *,4+1J(modern northern Shan-tung), was
known for his particularly refined taste. On one
occasion, he ate a chicken and commented: "This
chicken perched such that it was always half-exposed
(to the elements)."45
I have invented the word "ring stick" to translate the
Chinese word chu-nii E e (also read chii-ju). Another
, which literally means
name for it is kao huan z
"greasy ring." Originally, it must have been a product
of Ch'u. The same name (written chii-nii / chU-ju?
k ) appears on a list of foods recorded on bamboo
slips discovered in an early Han dynasty tomb from the
old Ch'u region.46According to a fifth-century description, the ring stick was made by steeping glutinous rice
flour in a honey-water mixture until it had the consistency of noodle dough. Balls of dough were then
kneaded into eight-inch lengths, which were then joined
end to end in the shape of a ring and fried in oil.47 An
old Chinese-Japanese lexicon that may date from the
early eighth century gives the name as huan ping
*,Rf# , which literally means "ring cake." It explains
that the Japanese name was makari (twist?), and that it
was shaped like wistaria and kudzu vines.48 The ring
cake also was known as han (hiu A or "cold item,"

45 See Yang Yung tj

, ed. and comm., Shih-shuo hsin-yii
(A New Account of Tales of
chiao-chien f
the World Collated and Annotated) (1969; rpt. Taipei, 1973),
C.616; Richard Mather, Shih-shuo hsin-yiu:A New Account
of Tales of the World (Minneapolis, 1976), 423; Chin shu
It a (History of the Chin) (Peking, 1974), 52.4a.
46 This tomb is Ma-wang-tui Tomb Number One, which
must have been sealed a few years after 168 B.C. See
and Chung-kuo
Hu-nan sheng po-wu-kuan
iW
q4"ty
k'o-hsueh-yuank'ao-ku yen-chiu-so 41@P * F t F tF
Ch'ang-sha Ma-wang-tui i-hao Han mu
2 vols. (Peking, 1973), II, 140.
(5th century), Shih Sheng4? See Chia Ssu-hsieh
han ;EV,
ed. and comm., Ch'i-min yao-shu chin-shih
w y;:*A
(Modern Explanations of the Essential Arts
of the Common People), 4 vols. in 1 (Peking, 1957-58), 657.
48 This is the Yoshi Kango sho
, cited in
E?Xim
Kariya Ekisai J - M w (1775-1835), ed. and comm.,
6
t
Senchui Wamroruijusho
(Tokyo, 1883),
4.45b. The national identity of the compiler of this dictionary
requires some investigation. The surname Yang is Chinese, or
possibly Korean. Otto Karow calls attention to the nonJapanese character of this name: "Die altjapanische Tradition
und die genalogishcen Quellen luften nicht das Geheimnis der
Personlichkeit des Verfassers Yo fA und seiner rassichen

56

Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)

because it was one of the cold foods eaten on Han shih

(Cold Food Day), the day before the Spring
It
Festival when cooking fires were not used.49The Sung
poet Su Shih RF
(1036-1101) describes its preparation as follows:
Delicate hands roll out several yards of jade,
Lightly doused in green oil, it comes out tender and
deep yellow.50

The word I have translated as sugar puff is Chinese

At it , which literally means "swollen
large."5 Apparently in the Ch'u area it was a solid
form of sugar syrup made into a puff.52
The winged goblet was a drinking vessel shaped like
a bird, complete with head, wings, and tail.53 Some
commentators claim that real feathers were used for
the wings.54The ladle used for pouring the extracts was
covered with a thin silk cloth.55
chang-huang

Zugehorikeit (Yo %,0; ) ist chineisischer Familienname),

zumal Yamada darauf aufmerksam macht, dass neben naturalisierten Chinesen auch japanische Staatsgehorige haufig in
der schriftlichen Wiedergabe deartige Namen verwant haben,
so z. Besp. wird auf der Grabinschrift der Mutter des Kibi no
Makibi *
der Familienname ;*t
gennant"; see
"Die Worterbucher der Heianzeit und ihre Bedeutung fur die
japanische Sprachgeschichte," 1951; Otto Karow Opera
Minora (Wiesbaden, 1978), 188-89. 1 am indebted to my
colleague, Roy Andrew Miller, for assisting me in deciphering
the entries in this lexicon.
49 See Shih Sheng-han, Ch'i-min jao-shu chin-shih 111,657.
50 See Su Tung-po chi AI ?*$
(BSSed.), tse 10, p. 74.
51 See Aoki Masaru
*1 R , "Udon no rekishi" V
(The History of udon), Aoki Masaru zenshui
IVQ)R
$ 10 vols. (Tokyo, 1969-75), IX, 462.
**IF
52 Wang I (see Ch'u-tz'u pu-chu 9. 10a) explains it as t;ang
, which is a solid form of i i (sugar syrup). See Tai Chen
# t (1723-1777), ed. and comm., Fang-j'en shu-cheng
tn iEt1
(Exegetical Evidence for the Fang-_ven)(SPPY),
13.17b- 18a.
5 See Han shu, 97B.3988. n. 9.
54 See Ch'u-tz'upu-chu, 9. 10b.
5 Wang I interprets mi fi as honey, and explains that after
the meal, they drank rare extracts that were soaked in honey.
See Ch'u-tz'u pu-chu, 9.10b. Chu Hsi *A (1 130-1200)
explains mi as mi 1, a thin cloth used as a cover for the wine
ladle. See Ch'u-tz'u chi-chu X$M
(Collected Commentary to the Elegies of Ch'u) (Hong Kong, 1972), 7.9a. Liu
Ts'ao-nan AJM
adduces overwhelming evidence in support of Chu Hsi's interpretation. See his " 'Chao-hun' 'Yaochiang mi-shao, shih yu-shang so'; tso ts'ao tung-yin, cho

The "icy drink" (tung yin j*Jk ) was brewed in the

summer. The dregs were removed from it, leaving only
the clear, pure wine (chou if ). A ewer (i E ) of the
wine was placed in a basin of ice (ping chien bat ),
cooled, and then drunk.56
It is clear from "Summoning the Soul" that the
cuisine of Ch'u was highly developed, and included a
great variety of foods. An even greater diversity of
dishes can be seen in the meal described in the "Great
Summons":
Next to the five grains, six fathoms deep, they place
wild rice;
Cauldrons of well-done stew fill one's gaze, seasoning
brings out the aroma;
Plump cranes, pigeons, and swans flavor a badger
stew:
Oh soul, return! Taste whatever you will!
Fresh loggerhead turtle, sweet chicken, blended with
Ch'u vinegar;
Suckling pig in meat sauce, bitter dog, minced Mioga
ginger;
Mugwort and wormwood in a Wu sour, not too juicy
or bland:
Oh soul, return! Choose whatever you like!
Baked crane, steamed duck, boiled quail all set forth;
Fried carp, stewed sparrows, broiled kingfisher all
presented:
Oh soul, return! Delicacies are spread before you!
Four pots of pure wine well-aged, neither harsh nor
cloying;
Clear and fragrant, icy drinks, not served to base men;
Wu must and white yeast, blended with a Ch'u clear:
Oh soul, return! Do not be frightened or alarmed!57

Commentary:
The loggerhead turtle is made into a stew that is
flavored with sugar, honey, chicken, and vinegar."
The steamed suckling pig was eaten in a meat sauce.
The dog flesh was dipped in a meat sauce made of gall;
hence, the name "bitter". Both meats were flavored
with minced ginger, here called by the rare name
chu-p'o X .9
, sI w I
ch'ing-liang so' chien-cheng pt4.
Ii
i ,i Ku-tien wen-hsueh lun-ts'ung
ge~t. 4
t ^ t t 2 a
(Chi-nan, 1980), 29-30.
56 See Wang l's commentary in Ch'u-tz'upu-chu, 9.1 la and
Liu Ts'ao-nan, 31-32.
57 See Ch 'u-tz'upu-chu, 10.3b-4b.
58 See Wang 1, Ch'u-tz'upu-chu, 10.4a.
59See
Wang 1, Ch'u-tz'u pu-chu, 10.4a. The form chii-ppo
must be an inversion of p o-(hu. For a thorough discussion

KNECHTGES:
Food in Early Chinese Literature

Wang I says the Wu sour (Wu suan by

) is a
vegetable pickle made from two types of artemisia, hao
x (A. Stelleriana, beach wormwood) and lou * (A.
vulgaris, common mugwort).60 He also notes that
someone equates it with mou-t ou
a sauce made
of elm pods.61
The Wu must (Wu 1i Ax ) is a rich wine fermented
overnight. When brewed in a yeast made of white rice
(pai nieh b
) it formed the Ch'u clear (Ch'u Ii
a).

I-ya to season and blend:

Well-done servings of bear paws,
A sauce of savory seasoning;
A roast of thin tenderloin;
Autumn-yellowed perilla;
Legumes soaked in white dew;
Thoroughwort blossom wine,
Poured to rinse the mouth;
A course of hen pheasant;
The fetus of a tamed leopard.
Eat little or drink much,
It's like boiling water poured over snow.63

62

There were many later imitations of the food catalogues in the "Summons" poems, particularly in the
subgenre of the fu known as the "Sevens" (Ch'i -t).
The form is called "Sevens" because it consists of seven
sections, most of which describe a particular sensual
pleasure, one of which is eating. The creator of this
form is the early Han poet Mei Sheng IB (ob. 140
B.C.), whose "Sevens" piece is titled "Seven Stimuli"
("Ch'i fa" -La ). The poem is a dialogue between two
fictional characters, a young prince of the state of
Ch'u, who is sick, and a guest from Wu, who has just
arrived at the prince's court to inquire about his illness.
The piece begins with a clinical description of the
prince's symptoms and their apparent cause, overindulgence. The guest tells the prince that a medical
cure is impossible, and suggests that his only hope for
recovery is to listen to what he terms"essential words
and marvelous doctrines." He then proceeds to describe
for the prince a series of seven enticements, the second
of which is the following sumptuous repast:
The fat underbelly of a young ox,
With bamboo shoots and bulrush sprouts;
A blended stew of plump dog,
Smothered in mountain rind.
Boiled rice from Miao Mountain in Ch'u,
Boiled cereal from wild riceRolled into balls they do not crumble,
But once sucked into the mouth they dissolve.
And then, have
I Yin to fry and boil,
of the word, see Wang Nien-sun i
(1744-1832),
Kuang-vtashu-cheng )*M UE (Exegetical Evidence for
the Kuang-ya) (SPPY), 1OA.54a/b.
60 See Ch'u-tz'u
pu-chu, 10.4b.
61 See Shuo-wen
chieh-tzu ku-/in 14B.6990b-91a; Ts'ui
Shih it
(ca. 103-ca. 171), Shih Sheng-han, ed. and comm.
Ssu-min yueh-ling chiao-chu 2a -Vji-+1
(Monthly
Ordinances of the Four Classes Collated and Annotated)
(Peking, 1965), 21.
62 See Wang 1, Ch'u-tz'upu-chu, 10.5a.

57

The offerings of this fictional feast include some of

the most delectable delicacies of the ancient Chinese
culinary repertoire. Bamboo shoots of course are a
common ingredient of Chinese dishes today. As early
as the Classic of Songs (see Mao shih 261/ 3), they are
mentioned in conjunction with bulrush sprouts (p'u
) which were probably eaten in pickled form.64We
have already seen dog mentioned in the "Great
Summons." The word I have translated as "mountain
rind" (shan fu Wl)I ) is the name of a lichen or
mushroom, probably similar to what is called "stone
ear" (shih erh ES
).65 Again, we have the famous
Shang dynasty minister I Yin in his traditional role as a
cook. He is accompanied by another famous culinary
expert, I-ya X 3F, who used his cooking skill to obtain
a ministerial post with Duke Huan of Ch'i. In order to
ingratiate himself with his lord, he offered the steamed
head of his own son in a dish so that Duke Huan could
enjoy the "ultimate taste."66His palate was so sensitive,
63

See Wen hsuan tg

(Selections of Refined Literature)
(Taipei: Cheng-chung shu-chii, 1971), 34.4b-5b. For translations of the entire piece, see Erwin von Zach, Die Chinesisehe
Anthologie: Ubersetzungen aus dem Wen-hsuan, 2 vols.
(Cambridge, Mass., 1958), 11, 607-17; John Scott, ed. and
trans., Love and Protest: Chinese Poems from the Sixth
Century B.C. to the Seventeenth Century A.D. (New York,
1972), 36-48; Hans H. Frankel, The Flowering Plum and the
Palace Ladyl(New Haven, 1976), 190-91; David R. Knechtges
and Jerry Swanson, "Seven Stimuli for the Prince: The
Ch'i-fa of Mei Ch'eng," Monumenta Serica 29 (1970-71),
106-16.
64
See Lu Wen-yii, pp. 45-46, -53.
65 See Chang Yun-ao
t (1747-1829), Hsian-hsueh
chiao-yen ;I
(Some Misleading Words on the Study
of the Selections) (1822; rpt. Taipei, 1966), 15.4a.
66 See Li-shih ch'un-ch iu, 16.6b; Ch'en
Ch'i-yu A
ed. and comm., Han Fei-tzu chi-shih ;*VT
(Collected Explanations to the Han Fei-tzu) (1958; rpt. Taipei,
1963), 2.112, 3.195.

58

Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)

he reputedly could taste the difference between the

waters of the Tzu ; and Sheng A rivers.67
The greatest delicacy of all was bear paws (hsiung
fan qj* ). The philosopher Mencius, who claimed a
fondness for both fish and bear paws, reportedly said
that if he had no make a choice between the two, he
would "dispense with fish and take bear paws."68The
poet Ts'ao Chih tAd (192-232) mentions roasted
bear paws in the following line from one of his bestknown poems:
We return and feast at the Tower of Peaceful Joy;
Our fine wines cost ten thousand a half gallon.
We have sliced carp and stewed baby shrimp,
Baked turtle and roasted bear paws.'9

The reference in Mei Sheng's line to well-done bear

paws perhaps has some significance, for according to a
story preserved in several sources, one unfortunate
cook of the state of Chin was executed for serving his
lord bear paws that were underdone.70
The word I have translated "savory seasoning"
(cho-Iieh al p ) is a rhyming binome (*tiok-liok in
Old Chinese). The characters used to write it are the
same as those for the word shao-pao or "peony." Thus,
one commentator claims that the peony root was the
primary ingredient in a blend of thoroughwort, cinnamon, and the five flavors, which was used to dispel
the "poisonous vapors" of animal viscera.7' However,
as several Ch'ing dynasty scholars have pointed out,
the word cho-Iieh has nothing to do with peony, and
simply means "to blend evenly"72The word implies a
perfect blending of the five flavors.
The perilla (su ) is a purple plant (the full name is
tzu sA,
Su
"purple perilla"), the leaves of which
were eaten as a vegetable. This line and the following
imply that autumn vegetables are the best. Thus, the
purple perilla has turned yellow, and the legumes are
laden with the cold dew of autumn.
The thoroughwort or Ian M is the noblest of Chinese
plants. One regrets that the English equivalents (thor67
68
69

See Lieh-tzu fl-y (Taipei, 1967), 8.93.

See Meng-tzu, 6A. 10.

See Wen hsuan, 27.23a.

See Tso chuan, Hsiian 2; Shih chi, 39.1673.
7' See Han shu, 57A.2544, n. 6, Yen Shih-ku niK t
(583-645).
72
SeeWangNien-sun, Tu-shutsa-chih MJ(*j,,,^ (Miscellaneous Reading Notes) (Taipei, 1963), 4/ 10.16b-17b; Shen
Ch'in-han jtA:
(1775-1832),
Han shu shu-cheng
(Exegetical Evidence for the Ian shu) (CheX*WOLZE
chiang kuan shu-chii, 1894), 29.17a-18a.
70

oughwort, agrimony, boneset) have such disagreeable

sounds. For this reason, many translators render Ian as
orchid. The Chinese thoroughwort has a very sweet
scent, and I assume that its purple flowers were added
to the wine to give it fragrance.
In this age of animal protection leagues, the ancient
Chinese fondness for eating the unborn leopard cub
(pao t'ai tjHA) probably is offensive to most people.
Nevertheless, judging from its frequent mention in Han
and Six Dynasties rhapsodies, leopard fetus must have
rivalled bear paws in popularity.73 One rhapsodist
refers to a cook who "dissects the tender fetus from a
pregnant leopard."74
The rhapsodies mention many other even more
fabulous foods, including the "liver of a tamed
dragon,"75 the brains of river deer (chin I ), bamboo
rat (liu *P ),76 as well as orangutan lips,77 phoenix
eggs,78and flying fish,79 which are clearly allusions to
the Annals of Master LU passage discussed above.
There is in fact a certain bookish quality to some of the
food enumerations, especially in the "Sevens."The rare
delicacies they mention certainly were seldom eaten, if
at all. In contrast to these elaborate idealized feasts are
the poems on more mundane foods such as noodles,
steamed buns, dumplings, and pancakes. Again, the
rhapsody is our main source of information on these
doughy concoctions, which the Chinese of the early
period called ping i#: 80 According to a late Han
7 For other examples, see Yang Hsiung ft
(53 B.C.-A.D.
18), "Shu tu fu" TfV
("Rhapsody on the Shu Capital"),
Ku-wen yuan t 3Tz- (Garden of Ancient Literature),
Tai-nan ko ts 'ung-shu t fi k S:W
:,
2.9b; Chang Heng
I&* (78-139), "Ch'i pien" t " ("Seven Arguments")
in Ou-yang Hsun kIaN
(557-641), ed. 1-wen lei-chii
(Compendium of Arts and Letters) (Peking,
W A
1965), 57.1026; Hsu Kan #* (170-217), "Ch'i yu -LOA
("Seven Illustrations"), in 1-wen lei-chui, 57.1029; Chang
Hsieh 3&tA (ob. 307), "Ch'i ming" -t;
("Seven Commands"), in Wen hsuian, 35.13a; Hsiao Tzu-fan X 7 1
(486-549), "Ch'i yu" -t!J ("Seven Enticements"), in 1-wen
Iei-chii, 57.1034.
74
See Lu Chi M
(261-303), "Ch'i cheng" -L: ("Seven
Proofs"), in 1-wen lei-chii, 57.1031.
75 See Lu Chi, "Ch'i cheng, "I-wen lei-chii, 57.103 1.
76 For the river deer and bamboo rat, see Yang
Hsiung,
"Shu tu fu," Ku-wen liian, 2.9b.
77 See Chang Hsieh, "Ch'i ming," Wen
hsuian,35.13a.
78 See Lu Chi, "Ch'i cheng," 1-wen lei-chu, 57.1031.
79 See Ts'ui Yin
94A (ob. A.D. 92), "Ch'i i" -tfl ("Seven
Attestations"), 1-wen lei-chu 57.1024.
80 For an excellent study of ping, see
Aoki Masaru,
"Aibin yowa-Nambokucho
izen no bin" I1

KNECHTGES:
Food in Early Chinese Literature

dynasty lexicon, ping means"to combine"(ping *),

the idea being to soak flour in water causing it "to
combine"(ho-pingA - ) or coalesce.8'Althoughping
in modernChinesegenerallyrefersto a typeof pancake,
in earlier usage, it included various dough cakes,
stuffed buns, fried breads,doughnut-styleringcakes,
noodles,dumplings,and the like. The closest Western
language equivalent is pasta."

practices of local agricultural officials.86 Both of these

poems employ a subtle humor that his contemporaries
apparently found vulgar.87
In the typical manner of the fu, the "Rhapsody on
Ping" tells us almost everything we would want to
know about ping, but were afraid to ask. Shu begins
with a prose introduction to the history of ping, which
he informs us is a recent invention:

One of the best sourceson ping is a rhapsodyby the

poet Shu Hsi I X (ca. 264-ca. 304). The piece is
appropriatelytitled "Pingfu" ##a or "Rhapsodyon
Ping."83Shu Hsi was one of the most learnedmen of
his day, and heldpositionsas GentlemenCompilerand
Erudite.84He was the principaleditor of the ancient
texts written on bamboo slips discoveredin an old
Chou dynasty tomb.85In addition to his rhapsody
on ping, he wrote a piece titled "Rhapsody on
the Encouragerof Agriculture"("Ch'iiannung fu"
), which is a clever satire of the corrupt
& a
(Further Words on My Love for Ping:
AL ia ?i1j )
Ping before the North-South Dynasties), 1947; rpt. Aoki
Masaru zenshi, IX, 452-60.
81 See Liu Hsi I, S (fl. late 2nd century A.D.), Pi Yuan
(1730-1797), ed. and comm., Shih ming shu-cheng
frx
:ti
LESE (Exegetical Evidence for Terms Explained)
(TSCC), 4.118-19.
82 The parallel between ping and pasta has been observed by
Edward Schafer, "Tang," in Food in Chinese Culture, ed.
Chang, 117;and Ch'ien Chung-shu SAd:, Kuan chuipien
(Compilation of Trivial Investigations), 4 vols.
G
(Peking, 1979), 111, 1168.
83 The full text of the piece does not survive. Long extracts
from it have been preserved in the following sources: Yu Shih(558-638), ed., Pei-t'ang shu-(h 'ao Lt*t
nan Otj
(Literary Extracts from the Northern Hall) (Taipei, 1965),
184.14b-16a; I-wen lei-chii, 72.1241; Hsu Chien Ad
(Notes for
7
(659-729) et al., comp., Ch u-hsiieh chi
Beginners) (Peking, 1965), 26.643-44; Li Fang et al., comp.,

T'ai-p'ingjii-lan ;kfTXW (ImperiallyReviewedCompendiumof the T'ai-p'ingPeriod)(Peking,1963),860.5b-6a.

All of the fragmentscan be found in Yen K'o-chun F1TUJI
(1762-1843), ed., C/hiian Chin wen

(Complete Chin

Prose), in Chi'uanshang-ku San-tai Ch'in Han San-kuo

- * A ; ,- -A (Complete Prose
Liu-ch'ao wen J- F t
ft
of Antiquity, the Three Dynasties, Ch'in, Han, the
Three States, and Six Dynasties)(1815;rpt. Peking, 1959),
87.2b-3a. There is a partial translationby ArthurWaley,
underthe title"HotCake,"in ChinesePoems(London,1946),
86.
84 For his biographysee Chinshu, 51.1427-34.
85 For a list of the texts and an account of Shu's role in
decipheringthem,see Chinshu, 51.1432-33.

59

According to the Record of Rites, during the month of

mid-spring, the Son of Heaven ate wheat.88 In the
bamboo offering baskets used in the morning sacrificial
services, wheat served as the cooked grain,9 but the
"Inner Regulations" (of the Record of Rites) does not
mention ping among the various foods.90 Although
there was the eating of wheat, there was yet no ping.
The invention of ping certainly is quite recent.

The emphasis in the introductory lines on wheat is

significant, for it shows that by Shu Hsi's time wheat
flour was considered the principal ingredient in ping.
Although some types of ping were made from the flour
of other grains, mainly millet and rice, at least by the
third century A.D., wheat and ping are virtually
synonymous.9' For example, a source of about the
same period as Shu Hsi's rhapsody mentions a banquet
given by the Wu ruler Sun Ch'uan Em (182-252) in
honor of the Shu envoy Fei Hui VM (ob. 253). In the
middle of the banquet, Fei Hui suddenly "stopped
eating his ping, requested a brush, and composed a

See 1-wen lei-cha, 65.1157: For a translation, see Liensheng Yang, "Notes on the Economic History of the Chin
Dynasty," 1945; rpt. in Studies in Chinese Institutional
Histor' (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), 146.
87 Cf. Chin shu, 51.1428: "Shu Hsi once wrote the rhapsodies
'The Encourager of Agriculture' and 'Ping'. The writing was
rather vulgar, and his contemporaries regarded them with
contempt."
88 The "Yueh ling" chapter of the Li chi mentions the eating
of wheat and mutton under the various activities for the Son
of Heaven during the "month of mid-spring" (the second
month). See Li chi (hu-shu, 15.3a.
89 The Rites of Chou (see Chou Ii (hu-shu, 5.22a) mentions
boiling wheat to make a cereal that was used in the early
morning offerings.
90 The "Inner Regulations" chapter of the Record of Rites
(chapter 12) gives a long list of foods offered in private
sacrifices and meals. Nowhere does it mention ping.
91 Note that the Shuo-wen explains ping as made from
wheat flour. See Shuo-wen chieh-tzu ku-lin, 5B.2185a/b.
86

60

Journalof the AmericanOrientalSociety106.1(1986)

rhapsody on wheat,92 presumably because the ping he

was eating was made of wheat flour.
In the opening lines of the piece proper, Shu enumerates the names of various types of ping. Included
among them is the cha-nil or ring stick that was
mentioned in "Summoning the Soul." Although some
of the names are otherwise unknown, one might
imagine that such words as pig's ear (tun erh Ha; )
and dog's tongue (kou she Ad; ) describe the shapes
of the pastries. Shu also mentions a fried bread with
the un-Chinese sounding name of pu-tCou '?A-J
(*b'du-tdu).93 It was made from leavened dough that

was first rolled into balls, soaked in water, and then

allowed to dry. The dry balls of dough were rolled out
on the hand and then deep-fried.94The ping he calls sui
(hu J
undoubtedly is another name for the sui
ping .
or marrow pancake. Marrow grease, honey,
and flour were combined to form a half-inch thick and
six- to seven-inch wide pancake that was cooked in an
oven.95 In commenting on these names, Shu observes
that some of them were local or foreign in origin:
Some of the names originate in the wards and lanes;
Some of the methods come from alien lands.

The longest portion of the rhapsody concerns the

various types of ping that are appropriate for each
season. In early spring, if one wants to eat ping, he
should eat the stuffed bun called man-t'ou iffy
The beginning of the three spring months,
At the junction of Yin and i'ang,
When cold air has been dispelled,
It is warm but not sweltering.
At this time
For feasts and banquets the man-tIou should be served.

literature. There is an interesting apocryphal story

about its reputed origin. According to a popular story,
the inventor of the man-tlou was the great military
strategist of the Three Kingdoms period, Chu-ko Liang
(181-234). During his campaign in Szechuan
and Yunnan against Meng Huo t
, a southern
Chinese who had joined the Man W or southern
barbarians in revolt against the state of Shu, he was
told that the Man people used many types of evil
magic, and thus it was necessary to pray to the gods to
obtain the assistance of a spirit army. Man custom
required that a man be killed and his head presented to
the gods as an offering before the gods would send out
their spirit army. Chu-ko Liang was unwilling to use a
human sacrifice, and instead wrapped mutton and beef
in dough shaped like a human head, which he then
offered to the spirits, who, fooled by this ruse,
immediately sent out an army to assist him in defeating
Meng Huo. Thus, dough stuffed with meat was called
man-t 'ou, meaning "the head of a Man barbarian."96
Another source suggests that man is a pun for man %,
"to deceive."97 A man-t'ou is thus a deceptive or false
head. An even more elaborate version of this story
appears in the novel San-kuo i'en-i _ EN A
98
which relates how Chu-ko Liang offers forty-nine
stuffed dough heads to propitiate the spirits of a river.
Although these explanations of the name are folk
etymologies and cannot be verified in early sources, the
Chinese tradition offers no other explanation for the
man, which written in its usual form with the food
radical on the left, does not appear as an independent
word.
In the next season, summer, Shu Hsi recommends a
thin pancake called po-chuang jeIt (the "thin and
strong"?):99
When Wu Hui governs the land,'00
And the pure y'ang spreads and diffuses,

The man-t'ou to which Shu Hsi refers is the same as

the stuffed bun now called pao-tzu

V -T . It is filled

with a sweet or salty stuffing and steamed. Shu's

rhapsody is the earliest referenceto man-t'ou in Chinese
92 See the Chu-ko Kle pieh-chuan
XRS'J#
(The
Separate Biography of Chu-ko K'o), cited in San-kuo chih
IV", (Memoirs of the Three States) (Peking, 1962),
64.1430.
93 The same word is also written JAj- and Ad . See Shih
Sheng-han, Ch'i-min 'ao-shu chin-shih, 3: 658, n. 82.9.1.
94 See Shih Sheng-han, Chi-min
'ao-shu chin-shih, 111,
657.
95 See Shih Sheng-han, Chi'-min yao-shu chin-shih, 111,
655.

96

See Kao Ch'eng Aw* (fl. end of 11th cent.), Shih-wu

(Recording the Origins of Things)
chi-Yuan Greg
(TSCC), 9.332-33.
97 See Tseng San-i
_K
(Sung), Yin hua lu E$ic
(PTung hua lu PM
Record of Common Words?), in
XJ.;
Shuo fu atlp (Shanghai, 1916), 19.16a.
98 See San-kuo i'en-i (Romance of the Three Kingdoms)
(Hong Kong, 1961), 91.7 18-19.
99 Both T'ai-p'ing Sj'i-lanand Pei-t'ang shu-ch 'a read po
(huang. The Ch 'u-hsueh (hi reads po peh Xt 4k. For reasons
of rhyme, po chuang must be the correct reading.
'?? Wu Hui %FnJ, god of fire, is the younger brother of
Chu-jung a #j , god of the south and summer. See Shan-hai

KNECHTGES:
Food in Early Chinese Literature

Dressedin ramieand drinkingice water,

Wecool ourselvesin the shade.
If in this seasonwe makeping,
Thereis nothingbetterthanthe "thinand strong."
Next is fall, when one should eat the leavened bread
called ch 'i sou CO`, or the "leavened and soaked":

61

equally thin, but somewhat smaller noodle was the

po-t'o ifft
(*b'ak-ti'ak),'06which is another name
that does not look very Chinese to me.
One presumes that the boiled noodles of Shu Hsi's
rhapsody could hve included any of these various types
of noodle. One source specifically equates tang ping
with the string noodle.'07 Another authority identifies
it with the po-tPo.'08 Other scholars interpret t'ang ping

Whenthe autumnwindblowsfierce,'0'
Thegreat FireStarmoveswest,102
Whensleekdownappearson birdsand beasts,
And barrenbranchesappearon trees,
Daintiesand delicaciesmustbe eatenwarm.
Thus,the "leavenedsoak"maybe served.
Virtually nothing is known about the ch'i sou. The
only other mention of it I can find is in a lost treatise
on sacrifices.'03
In winter, the best thing to eat is a hot, steaming
bowl of noodles (t iangping Xqft ):
In darkwinter'ssavagecold,
At earlymorninggatherings,
Snot freezesin the nose,
Frostformsaroundthe mouth.
Forfillingemptystomachsand relievingchills,
Boilednoodlesare best.
Chinese cookery is renowned for its noodles. In Shu
Hsi's period there were many different kinds of noodles.
A late Han lexicon mentions the so ping by or
string noodle, which is an exact parallel with Italian
spaghetti (the word spaghetti is the diminutive of
spago, "string").

104

Another type of noodle was called

the shui pin *qkI or "water pull". It was made by

kneading dough into foot-long strips the size of chopsticks. After soaking the dough in water, the dough
strips were kneaded into thin noodles and boiled.105An

(hing, 16.7a. I follow the T'ai-p'ingyia-lan reading here. The

Ch 'u-hsueh (hi reads: "Just as the fiery pitchpipe returns."
101 Literally "when the wind of the shang note has turned
fierce." The shang Ai note of the Chinese pentatonic scale is
correlated with autumn.
102 The great Fire Star (Ta huo
A ) is Antares. Its
westward movement indicates the beginning of autumn.
103 See Hsu Ch'ang OX (n.d.), "Chi chi"
2 ("Record of
Sacrifices"), cited in T'ai-p'ing vui-lan,860.5a.
04
See Shih ming shu-cheng, 4.62.
'05
See Shih Sheng-han, Ch'i-min Yao-shu (hin-shih, 111,
658.

in a more general sense and claim that it refers to any

doughy food cooked in water.109However, there is
abundant evidence that t'ang ping was most commonly
used in the sense of boiled noodle, at least as early as
the T'ang dynasty. For example, we know that noodles,
later known as ch 'ang-shoumien A 'It
(longevity
noodles), were called tang ping in T'ang times. The
noodle was an obvious symbol of longevity, and as is
the custom today, it was commonly eaten to celebrate
birthdays. One of the T'ang empresses reputedly ate on
her birthday what was called sheng-jih t ang ping
IE] By or birthday noodles.'10 In one of his
poems, the T'ang poet Liu Yu-hsi t'J,A
(772-842)
refers to eating t'ang ping at a banquet celebrating the
birth of a friend's son:
At your birth when they first hung out the bow,"'1
I was the most honored guest at the birthday feast.
Wielding my chopsticks I ate boiled noodles,
And composed a congratulatory poem on a heavenly
unicorn.' 12
106

See Shih Sheng-han, Ch'i-min yao-shu, 111,658, which

says that two-inch strips of dough were soaked in water and
then stretched into thin noodles.
07 See Kao Ch'eng, Shih-wu chi
jian, 9.333.
108
See Ou-yang Hsiu VA$_1F (1007-1072), Kuei-t'ien Ilu
fl Wi* (Record of Returning to the Fields), Pai-hai R i4
2.8a.
109 See the definitions of the Chuan yu tsa-Iu ffi
M$
(Miscellaneous Notes of the Weary Traveler) of Chang Shihcheng 34if iE (?-post 1073), in Wu-ch'ao hsiao-shuo takuan TL- I'ik.,
4 vols. (Taipei: Hsin-hsing shu-chii,
1960), III, 236; and the Ching-k'ang hsiang-su tsa-chi
AXafX J
-le (The Miscellaneous Notes of Records Relating to the Ching-k'ang Period) of Huang Ch'ao-ying * 4B
(early 12th century) (TSCC), 2.12.
110 See Hsin T'ang shu
* (New T'ang History)
(Peking, 1975), 76.3491.
.
This line refers to the custom of hanging a bow on the left
side of the door to signify the birth of a son.
112 See "Poem Sending Off Chuang Kuan to the Examinations," Ch'uan T'ang shih ki*n
(The Complete T'ang
Poems) (Taipei, 1974), han 6, ts'e 2, p. 10b.

Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)

62

The last type of ping that Shu Hsi mentions, and the
one that he describes in the most detail, is a meat, which probably
stuffed dumpling called lao wan 4L
Unlike the other
means "kneaded dough balls.""3
types of ping, which are reserved for particular seasons,
the lao wan is appropriate for all seasons. Shu Hsi
says:
That which
Through winter, into summer,
Can always be served all year round,
And in all four seasons freely used,
In no respect unsuitable,
Can only be the kneaded dough ball!
He then proceeds to describe the preparation
dough:

of the

And then
Twice-sieved flour,
Flying like dust, white as snow,
Sticky as glue, stringy as tendons,
Is steeped in juice, soaked in liquid.
The filling is next:
For meat
There are mutton shoulders and pork ribs,
Half fat, half skin,
Chopped fine as fly heads,
And strung like pearls, strewn like pebbles.
Ginger stalks and onion bulbs,
Into azure threads are sliced and split.
Pungent cinnamon is ground into powder;
Pepper and thoroughwort are sprinkled on.
Blending in salt, steeping black beans,
They stir and mix all into a gluey mash.

113 The exact meaning of lao is not clear. I am dubious of

Aoki Masuru's suggestion (see "Aibin yowa," 459) that lao is
the same lao as in t'ai lao ;k and shao lao JOe , which are
the names of sets of sacrificial animals. If parallels with other
ping names are significant, /ao should be a verb indicating the
method of preparing the wan. In the I ii fAy (Ceremonial
and Rites) the graph lao, pronounced lou, occurs in the sense
of "to reduce in the middle of the fist." See I li (hu-shu
1it 1
(Commentary and Subcommentary to the
Ceremonial and Rites) (SSCCS), 35.12a-b. Possibly the lao
wan, or lou wan, means "balls rolled in the hand" or "kneaded
dough balls."

The cook then prepares the dumplings:

And then
With the fire blazing the broth bubbles;
Strong fumes rise as steam.
Straightening his jacket, straightening his skirt,
The cook grasps and presses, beats and pounds.
With flour webbed to his finger tips,
His hands whirl and twirl, crossing back and forth.
Flurrying and fluttering, fast and furious,
The balls scatter like stars, pelt like hail.
There is no meat stuck to the steamer,
There is no loose flour on the dumplings.
Lovely and pleasing, mouth-watering,
The wrapping is thin but it does not break.
Rich flavors are blended within;
A plump aspect appears without.
They are as tender as spring floss,
As white as autumn silk.
Shu Hsi next describes the effect the dumplings have
on those who can only enjoy the sight and smell of
them, but cannot eat them:
Steam, swelling and surging, is wafted upward;
The aroma, flying and scattering, spreads everywhere
in the distance.
Downwind, strollers drool;
Servant boys, chewing the air, cast sidelong glances;
Vessel carriers lick their lips;
Attendants swallow dryly.

Finally, the dumplings

begin to eat:

are done, and the banqueters

And then
They dip them in black meat-sauce,
Snap them up with ivory chopsticks.
Bending their waists, they sit poised like tigers;
With tight-pressed knees, jammed and leaning upon
one another.
The plates and trays are no sooner presented than
everything is gone;
The cooks, one after another, hurry and scurry about.
Before their hands can turn out more,
Additional orders arrive.
There are other early writings on ping. A "Sevens"
composition by an early third century, writer describes
the making of the noodle called "water pull."

Food in Early Chinese Literature

KNECHTGES:
[Thedough]suddenlyswimsin waterandis pulledinto
lengths;
Theythen applythe thin breadthsof flyingplumes.
[The noodles] are as fine as the filamentsfrom Shu
cocoons;
Delicateas the threadsof Lu silk."4
According to one Chin dynasty source, the plumes
were used to brush the loose flour from the noodles."5
Another composition titled "Disquisition on Ping"
refers to ping as the foremost of foods."16 The admiration for ping was not universal, however. One writer,
disgusted with a meal of ping that did not fill him up,
wrote a "Rhapsody on the Detestable Ping.""7
I have been able to touch on only a few of the many
literary pieces dealing with food in early Chinese
literature. The subject is as inexhaustible as the vast
variety of Chinese cuisine. Just as one can always
discover a new dish he has never tasted or even heard
1"4 See Fu Hsuan f4 A (217-278), "Seven Schemes" ("Ch'i
mo" -tL3 ), Pei-tang shu-ch'ao, 145.15b.
"' See Hung Chun-chu VL,$
(Chin), "Dispatch on
Food" ("Shih hsi" -m ), Chuan Chin wen, 138.1la-llb:
"One ought to use light plumes,/And brush off the flying
(=loose) flour."
116 See Wu Chun ! i
(469-520), "Ping shuo" 0tI, I-wen
lei-chu, 72.1241.
1'7
See Yu Ch'an a (ca. 287-340), "Wu ping fu hsu"
("Preface to the Rhapsody on the Detestable
E,#qT
Ping"), Ch'u-hsueh chi, 26.644.

63

of before, there are countless poems dealing with all

manner of food and drink. In later periods of Chinese
literature,the amount of poetry devoted to gastronomic
topics is overwhelming. For example, Su Shih's writings
on food are so extensive it would require a long
monograph to discuss them."8 The Ming and Ch'ing
novels are particularly rich in culinary lore, and only
recently have a few scholars begun to study it. "9
Regrettably, most of the existing translations of
Chinese literature are inadequate when it comes to the
accurate rendering of food terms. That the noted
translator David Hawkes confuses "sugar cane juice"
with "yam sauce," or the venerable Arthur Waley
mistranslates the title of Shu Hsi's "Rhasody on Ping
as "Hot Cake," shows how imperfectly food terms have
been understood by Western Sinologists. One scholar
who always has demanded precise translations of
Chinese words is Edward Schafer. His exacting philology and careful science have established high
standards for the field. I hope this minor philological
excursion may serve as a tribute to the methods and
ideals of scholarship for which Professor Schafer has
stood.

11 For a brief discussion of Su Shih's poems on food, see

Aoki Masaru, "Sake no sakana" 1ffia)# (Wine snacks), in
Aoki Masaru zensha, IX, 109-14.
"9 See the articles by Frederick W. Mote and Jonathan
Spence in Food in Chinese Culture, ed. Chang.