A Soup for the Qan: Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol Era as Seen in Hu Szu-Hui's Yin-Shan Cheng-Yao (review)

Paul D. Buell and Eugene N. Anderson. A Soup for the Qan: Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol Era as Seen in Hu Szu-Hui’s Yin-Shan Cheng-Yao. London, Kegan Paul International, 2000. xiii, 715 pp., illus. $225.

Food, dietetics, and health are intimately connected, and as the authors of this book assert, can provide a useful window on the history of a period, locale, or intellectual activity such as medicine. This book includes a facsimile and translation of a dietary manual presented to the emperor of China in 1330 together with a substantial (161 pages) introduction and analysis by the translators and editors. It is the first full translation of this text into English, previously available only in Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian. The manual, Yin-shan cheng-yao or "Proper and Essential Things for the Emperor’s Food and Drink" was written by one Hu Szu-hui, an imperial dietary physician at the Mongol court in the early 1300s. It is a rich source of material on the cultural history of Medieval Eurasia. The Yuan Dynasty (traditionally 1279—1368) was led by non-Chinese Mongols from Central Asia who became increasingly sinicized, and this dietary manual is thus a synthesis of both Chinese and Central Asian traditions.

Hu’s text, which includes specific culinary recipes, focuses on the medical aspects of nutrition and the medical values of food and recipes. It reminds us of the close relationship between the kitchen and the pharmacy. There is general advice about eating and drinking, such as, "If one has eaten to satiation, one must not wash the head. [It will cause a person] to contract 'wind diseases’" (p. 264). There are also detailed instructions as to the medical utility and method of preparation of specific dishes. Russian olive soup, for example, "supplements the center, and increases ch’i. It strengthens spleen and stomach" (p. 281). The recipe ends with instructions to "evenly adjust flavors with salt" (p. 282). This text includes common as well as exotic items derived from Chinese and Central and South Asian cuisine. There are recipes relating not only to the health of the emperor, but to his family and court as well: advice on feeding infants and children, on nutrition of pregnant women and wet nurses, and on general dietary incompatibilities. This book has little gems that should be of value in a wide variety of historical investigations.

The translators and editors, Paul D. Buell and Eugene N. Anderson, are well-known sinologists who have produced a scholarly translation of this important early work in the history of Chinese medicine. They have not only translated these recipes, but they have kitchen-tested many of them during their work on Hu Szu-hui’s text. Their introduction to the translated text puts this work not only in the context of Chinese imperial history, but also in relation to the histories of material culture and everyday life of the period.

The book includes an extensive bibliography, a lengthy index, and a full facsimile reproduction of the Chinese text based on the 1456 Ming Dynasty edition, which is still extent. The only quibbles I can offer on this quite magnificent book is its hefty price, which is likely to make it a rarity on library shelves and in personal collections, and its slightly silly and obscure title, which will only serve to make it harder to find in bibliographic searches.

Reviewed by William C. Summers, M.D., Ph.D., Yale University School of Medicine,
333 Cedar Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8040.

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