Yunnan China’s Food as Medicine by Ruth Paget
The people of Yunnan China are reputed to be very healthy and long- lived writes Georgia Freedman in Cooking South of the Clouds: Recipes and Stories from China’s Yunnan Province.
This southwestern Chinese province extends from snowy, southern Tibet in the north to tropical borders in the south with Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam.
There are 24 minority groups in this province with distinct cooking styles that make use of some common ingredients including:
-mushrooms (there are 800 varieties in this region)
-Yunnan ham (this is similar to Spanish Serrano ham)
-pickled vegetables (especially pickled mustard greens, which Freedman provides a recipe for)
-spicy chili peppers -garlic
-Yak meat (beef is a substitute)
The following five dishes give a flavor for the types of recipes in Cooking South of the Clouds:
*mushrooms stir-fried with Thai chilies and garlic cloves that is seasoned with soy sauce
*fried rice with ham, potato cubes, and peas
*stir-fried beef with pickled mushroom greens and garlic chives
*fried beef with fresh lettuce (the beef here is served on a bed of lettuce leaves with chopped spring onions on top. Raw vegetables are usually found in Thai and Vietnamese cuisine not what you typically associate with Chinese food.)
*dried Mushroom Salad – dried mushrooms are rehydrated and drained and then seasoned with vinegar, light soy sauce, and chopped coriander.
The complete recipes are in Cooking South of the Clouds: Recipes and Stories from China’s Yunnan Province by Georgia Freedman.
People who like spicy foods might enjoy trying these recipes from one of China’s lesser-known provinces.
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
