The researchers experimented on rats, noting that, "As well as sobering them up, the treated rats also exhibited fewer hangover symptoms; for example, untreated rats were more likely to cower in the dark recesses of their maze," behaviour that any human drinker would identify with.

We see this kind of possible silver bullet in development type headlines almost on a weekly basis, and in most cases that is all you ever get. Now, if the headline read, "Alcohol antidote a reality; on market tomorrow," that would really be something.

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

Dog was never a famine food consumed only by the poor, or by others in times of desperation. Dog meat was enjoyed, and considered a 'warming,' strengthening food, and according to lore, stimulates the sexual appetite. Dog meat is man food.

There is an old saying, “Yellow dog best, white dog second, followed by black dog,” though most men in Taiwan (where eating dog is now illegal) will tell you that black is best.

Myself, I have always suspected that a dog's colour is of little consequence, and that the most delicious is the neighbour's barking-non-stop-in-the-middle-of-the-night dog.

Recipe

Serves
6 as snack or as part of a meal.
Ingredients

2 cups plain (all-purpose) flour
1 cup warm water
Vegetable oil
1 cup spring onions
Salt
White pepper
Method

Sift flour into a mixing bowl. Add water gradually and mix until blended well together.
On a floured surface, knead unto a smooth, elastic dough.
Roll into a ball. Cover with a wet cloth and let sit for 30 minutes.
Separate dough into 2 pieces. Roll into balls.
On a floured surface, roll out the dough thinly 2 mm.
Daub some oil over the surface of each piece of rolled dough.
Spread spring onions evenly over the dough.
Sprinkle salt, and add a pinch of pepper.
Roll the dough tightly like a burrito.
From end to end, roll each roll into a spiral like snail shell.
Roll into a disc about 4 mm thick.
Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil to a flat-bottomed frypan, bring to a medium heat, and fry until golden brown.
Slice like a pizza and serve immediately with or without a dipping sauce, or with other Chinese dishes, in place of rice or noodles.

Peel, and grate radish finely, put aside.
Soak mushrooms until soft. Clean and trim stalks. Cut into short, thin strips.
Cut shallots into short, thin strips.
Heat some oil in a wok, add mushroom and shallots, and stir-fry at a medium heat for a few minutes until fragrant.
Add minced pork, and continue to fry until brown.
Add oyster sauce, sugar, salt, pepper and five spice powder. Fry for 2 minutes.
Add radish to wok, mix in, continue to fry at medium heat until radish threads are soft (10–15 minutes).
Add 500 ml of water, stir, bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 2 minutes.
In a large bowl, add 400 ml of water to rice flour, mix till smooth. Add to wok gradually, while continuing to stir as mixture thickens.
Lightly grease a large pan. Place mixture into a pan. Sprinkle a little water on top of mixture and smooth it down with the back of a spoon. Steam for 40 minutes.
Allow to cool before running a rounded knife around the inside edge of the pan and carefully turn the cake out onto a cutting board as you would for a sweet cake.
Cut cake into 1 cm (1/2") slices, then cut into manageable size pieces for the frypan.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a flat frypan, and fry radish cake on each side until golden brown and crisp.
Serve as is or with chilli or soy sauce.

Next radish project: The plain white version.

In China radishes and turnips are often confused, understandably enough considering that they share the same name: luobo (蔔糕). Turnips are found in Chinese cuisine far less than radishes.
*Also known as Japanese radish, Asian radish, Oriental radish.

More and more I think back to what our mothers and grandmothers told us. Not all of it was good ('finish everything on your plate,' for instance), but at least it was simple and well-meant.

The best dietary advice a Chinese grandmother would give you is, eat only until you are '7 parts full' (70 percent full).

What makes more sense than that; what could be simpler (in theory, if not practice)?

or make your own traditional Taiwanese zongzi

This is a maltose cookie (麥芽餅), a Taiwan snack that we bought from an elderly vendor stationed next to a toilet block in Daken, Taichung. It is as sweet as honey, and unless you too have a sweet tooth it is probably best eaten with a cup of coffee or a white tea. He spread maltose (like a harder version of treacle) on a traditional hard biscuit, then sprinkled chopped coriander, peanut powder, and plum powder (meizi fen) on top, before sandwiching it with another biscuit.

Surely a couple of holes in a cabbage or a lettuce leaf is the easiest way to verify that it is not saturated in chemicals?

"The vegetarian egg rolls were meaningless, the dumplings were wrapped in near-raw dough, the soup was cold, the shrimp were over-cooked, the fried rice tasted as if it were days old and warmed up." more