Jan 11 2012
New Chinese cookbook has Cultural Revolution theme

Even if you have only a passing acquaintance with modern Chinese history you will be aware that the Cultural Revolution did not produce much cheer. Mao's second 'Great' misadventure (following the Great Leap Forward), was prolonged, and odious, adversely effecting the majority of the population including many of the top brass. One component was the Down to the Countryside Movement, where schools were closed and students were sent to the countryside for 'reeducation.' Sasha Gong was one of 17 million young city dwellers uprooted and transplanted to far flung districts, forced to eke a living alongside farming folk. Though the whole arrangement was resented nearly as much by the peasants as the students, in retrospect Gong seems agree with Disraeli who said, "There is no education like adversity."

In the newly released Cultural Revolution Cookbook, she writes, "From 1969–1971, I learned to work in the rice fields and to plant vegetables. My team was also charged with building a school and cooking for hundreds of people in a communal kitchen." In other words, a back-to-basics rural education. According to American co-author Scott D. Seligman, "… one of the things that they actually did learn from the peasants was how to make do with what there was. They learned to cook with fresh, wholesome foods that were in season, to conserve scarce fuel and to prepare remarkably tasty and healthful dishes with enough nourishment to get them through long, arduous days in the fields."

The book offers recipes aplenty including, dredged fish with ginger and scallions, shallow-fried potato threads, and spicy white radish salad, plus personal anecdotes, facts, and reproductions of socialist realist propaganda posters that – viewed from a healthy distance of geography and time – are positively charming.

The Cultural Revolution Cookbook, Simple, healthy recipes from China's countryside by Sasha Gong and Scott D. Seligman 

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