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A Few Cooking Recipes

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I was asked by to translate some of the food recipes in Qimin Yaoshu by some SCA colleagues, so I thought I'd share them.  I'm hoping they'll give me cooking and tasting notes, which of course I'll share here. It's worth pointing out that this book is from northern China, and probably has a fair amount of barbarian influence on the cooking, hence all the sheep (or goat, they're the same word) meat. There are quantities here that I should explain before we dive in. Weight 1 jin  = 16 liang A reasonable guess of the weight in this period and locality in modern units is that 1 jin  is 440 grams. Volume 1 dan  = 10 dou 1 dou  = 10 sheng 1 sheng = 10 ge A reasonable estimate of the volume in this period in modern units is that 1 dou  is 3 liters. 羹臛法第七十六 Chapter 76: Methods for Stew and Broth. 《食經》作芋子酸臛法：To Make Taro Seed Sour Broth From the Classic of Food: 「豬羊肉各一斤，水一斗，煮令熟。 “One jin each of pork and sheep meat, one dou of wa...
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Chinese Mead?

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Carolingia, the Boston-area SCA group is planning an event in March called the Laurels Prize Tourney , where laurels (people who are Officially Very Good At Arts and Sciences) put out challenges and people try to meet them. One of the challenges calls for well-researched mead, and I wondered if I could find any Chinese mead recipes.  I know that grain wines were far and away the dominant thing, but there's got to be something out there, right? Well, I read through 46 pages of search results  for every mention of "honey" after the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE) in the big online repository of Chinese texts  and came up with nothing.  Rats.  I did learn that they preserved plums in honey, which is kind of cool I guess. ctext.org doesn't have everything though.  And while I was taking a break around page 20, I decided to see what Google could turn up. English wikipedia mentions this paper about a 1000-2000 BCE find supporting a mixed honey, rice and ...
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Wine that tastes good!

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Having just made new yeast cakes , I put them to good use in a batch of millet wine and rice wine following the recipe I call YE1W1 and YE2W2, as they're the first and second wines (W1, W2) listed under the first exceptional yeast cakes (YE1).  They came out really good! The recipe: Millet or Rice Wine à la Yuán Púshè This volume will fit in a 1 gallon wide-mouthed fermenter, barely. Ingredients and Tools ¼ cup powdered exceptional yeast cakes, about one cake.  But do measure. 5.25 cups dry millet or 4.5 cups dry white sticky rice Water 1 gallon, wide-mouthed fermenter - cooked grain can’t go through a narrow mouth Cheesecloth Optionally, liner silk or some other filter fabric finer than your cheesecloth Mortar and pestle Directions Dry the yeast cakes completely and scrub them clean several times. Grate, and then grind the yeast cakes in a mortar.  Soak them in 1.25 cups water for three days until they start to bubble.  Add to...
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