Nutrition structures, dietary health trends, and the relationship between bodies and food.
As Chinese New Year draws near, not only is the festive background music returning to supermarkets, but the ‘holiday weight gain’ hashtags are once again flooding social media feeds. In the past, people often assumed that gaining weight during the holidays was due to rich, festive feasts. In recent years,…
From the short crop at Hu Xuemei’s farm on Chengdu’s outskirts to radish greens at the Longquan Green Vegetable Shop, Chengdu freelancer Xia Lili’s ecological Little Dining Table and the community vegetable shop show how everyday vegetable shopping becomes a healing space for residents.
I. The Bean Soup of Ennoblement In a previous article, I mentioned wheat meal; this time, let’s talk about bean soup. These two humble staples carry a wealth of information; they require a tidy kitchen and a well-tended stove, and they demand our utmost attention. Yan Shigu of the Tang…
Foodthink Says As autumn arrives, The Little Dining Table in Yulin, Chengdu has been running for half a year. These six months of practice have fostered a growing sense of harmony between the cook, the dining companions, the farmers, and the food itself. For everyone involved, beyond the planned changes,…
Delicious chocolate chip biscuits are high-fat traps that trigger a “cycle of fear”, dragging us into one nightmare after another, saturated in dread; the “crunch” of crisps is a crisp outlet for suppressed anger, providing a hollow sense of security; sugar-free cola is a “happy liar”, like a false perfect…
On 17 July, on the eve of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, several international organisations launched an initiative called “Kick Big Soda Out of Sport”, declaring war on the world’s largest soft drink producers, including Coca-Cola. The initiative claims that “Big Soda”—represented by industry giants like Coca-Cola and Pepsi—uses…
A tanker truck carrying a mix of mineral and edible oil has suddenly put oil in the spotlight. People are wondering how to ensure the safety of their vegetable oil; but as a foodie, my question is different: do we actually need refined vegetable oil at all? I. A History…
Editor’s Note We are what we eat; eating well has never been a trivial matter. The scandal involving edible oil transported in tankers has once again sparked anxiety over food safety, highlighting the immense difficulty of tracing the origins of what we consume. Along the long chain from farm to…
Dehulling buckwheat seeds, grinding them into flour, mixing it with wheat flour to form a dough, and then cutting it into long, thin strands—this is how one of Japan’s most everyday foods is made. In Japanese, the word for ‘buckwheat’ (soba) is a homophone for ‘beside’. Thus, asking for ‘soba’…
Editor’s Note In the opening of the “One-Pot Abbess’s Little Dining Table” series, Xia Lili begins with a series of memories, explaining her “dining table” philosophy and the origins of the Little Dining Table project. In this piece, Xia Lili takes us into the vivid reality of the project. Stationed…
