Former Chinese dissident and Harvard-trained sociologist Dr. Sasha Gong will help you make the culinary best of a very bad, bad situation in her new book, co-authored with Scott D. Seligman: The Cultural Revolution Cookbook: Simple, Healthy Recipes From China’s Countryside (Earnshaw Books).
The cookbook was inspired by the recipes invented by members of the urban elite who were sent to toil in the Chinese countryside during one of the darkest periods in the history of China–and the world.
Dr. Gong writes:
The cookbook has the unlikely theme of China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), of which…I am a veteran. On the surface of it, it sounds like an absurd proposition, because food was anything but plentiful during the Cultural Revolution and some people were reduced to eating tree bark and insects to survive. Most of the 17 million young people whom Chairman Mao ordered to the countryside in 1968, like me, felt that leaving their education behind to work side by side with the peasants was a tragic waste of their productive years.
One of the things that we actually did learn from the peasants, however, was how to make do with what there was. We 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. Scott and I think the book will resonate not only with people interested in China, but also those committed to eating locally grown, preservative-free, unprocessed food. In addition to dozens of recipes, the book contains some history, a chronology of the Cultural Revolution, some personal stories and a slew of anecdotes relating to food and ingredients used during that era. It’s also profusely illustrated with socialist realist art from the period – those colorful propaganda posters showing Chinese peasants building socialism. The recipes include few prepared ingredients and pretty much everything needed is available at a well-stocked grocery store.
The cookbook officially launches in December, and is available at Amazon.com.