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Stories
Small questions open a window onto a different world.
The Donkey in the Well: Temple Illusions in Northern Wei Luoyang
At a Luoyang nunnery an entertainer skinned a donkey into a well and made dates and melons edible in a moment; the audience was spellbound — and after the wars, the record says, the show simply vanished.
Preserving Meat Without a Fridge: Rice, Wine Lees and Mud
One pig killed in the twelfth month and three ways to keep it: pork packed in cooked rice until it sours, meat buried in salted wine lees, and cuts sealed in mud on the north wall.
Slave to the Milk: Wang Su, Tea and a Northern Court's Taste
A southern defector reached Luoyang in 494 refusing mutton and milk and drinking tea by the measure. Years later he ate milk gruel at the emperor's table and called tea the slave of milk.
A Northern Wei Meal: Noodles, Roast Suckling Pig and Milk Curd
A sixth-century northern meal built without a wok: dough cut one foot or two inches at a time, a suckling pig turned over a low fire and brushed with wine, milk set with a spoon of starter and beaten into butter.
Ox Marrow, Clove and Safflower: Face Cream in Sixth-Century China
A sixth-century farming manual ends its chapter on safflower with a cosmetic workshop: marrow and clove for face cream, safflower and sour pomegranate for rouge. One ingredient, lead white, was toxic.