Eat Bamboo Shoots Before I Grow Too Old

If bamboo is the spiritual totem of the Chinese, then bamboo shoots are the very soul of Chinese foodies. Oddly enough, the world’s bamboo forests span a total of 30.1 million hectares, stretching across Europe, Asia, Africa and other regions, yet in terms of global fresh bamboo shoot consumption, China alone accounts for a full seventy per cent. From the southeast to the southwest, cooking methods and ways of eating may vary, but people in every corner of China are devoted to the exquisite freshness of bamboo shoots. What kind of natural flavour is it, so deeply rooted in the land and the warmth of its people?

Bamboo Shoots and Meat in Jiangnan

When it comes to eating bamboo shoots, the most celebrated figure is undoubtedly Su Dongpo. Master Dongpo, who lived his whole life by the principle of “exiled wherever, eating wherever,” was a primeval ambassador for A Bite of China. The moment he arrived in Huangzhou, he composed a poem: “Round the walls the river turns—I know the fish must be fine; the good bamboo climbs the hills—the shoots’ fragrance I can smell.” I doubt many literary figures would dare admit that, seeing bamboo, what springs to mind is the shoots on their plate.

That famous line—”One may eat without meat, but one must not live without bamboo”—gains a new depth. Master Dongpo was not setting up an opposition between bamboo and meat; he was reminding us to broaden our thinking.

As a once-in-a-generation culinary genius, if Master Dongpo could restrain himself to use the gentlest of fires—the kind where “the flame does not even rise”—to slowly braise a large slab of pork fat, “Let it cook of its own accord, do not rush it; when the heat has done its full work, it will be beautiful in its own right,” achieving the pinnacle on the Chinese culinary canon—Dongpo pork—then naturally he could not have failed to see that, cooked together, the meat’s richness and the shoot’s aloof nobility could elevate one another.

And so, “One may eat without meat, but one must not live without bamboo” acquires a fresh annotation: if there happens to be no meat for this meal, stir-fried bamboo shoot slices will do just fine. Master Dongpo’s planting of bamboo beside his little pavilion was, it turns out, a stroke of genius that killed two birds with one stone. As a Sichuan man who drifted his entire life, Master Dongpo chose to spend his final years in Jiangnan—perhaps because, here, the bamboo shoots are the finest.

Anyone who has lived in Jiangnan probably finds it hard to forget the bamboo shoots there. My mother-in-law, for instance, is originally from Wuxi. Even though she moved north with her parents when she was very young, the dishes she loves most to make for everyday meals are still oil-braised bamboo shoots, Yan Du Xian (a Jiangnan simmer of salted pork and bamboo shoots) and vegetarian chicken.

When it comes to Yan Du Xian, I had a misunderstanding—a very Hunanese misreading of the Jiangnan palate.

Once, scrolling through WeChat Moments, I spotted Sister Tianle, a Shanghai woman, posting a plea: does anyone have salted pork? I immediately sent her a private message—I have a piece of cured pork at home, it’s quite salty too. She told me cured pork and salted pork are completely different things; she was making Yan Du Xian and it absolutely required salted pork. At the time I did not understand. To us Hunanese, cured pork and bamboo shoots are a natural pair!

It was not until my mother-in-law went back to Wuxi for Spring Festival one year, brought back some salted pork, and made us a pot of Yan Du Xian that I finally understood Sister Tianle’s insistence all those years ago.

Unlike cured pork, which requires at least one to two months of smoking, salted pork can be made and eaten right away: rub pork belly with Sichuan pepper salt, hang it on the windowsill to air-dry, and in about a week it is ready. Freeze it in the fridge, and when spring bamboo shoots hit the market, take it out, wash it, cut it into chunks, and simmer it with the shoots. Cured pork does not like long cooking, but salted pork only grows more fragrant the longer it simmers. My mother-in-law also adds salted duck legs and green bamboo shoots to her Yan Du Xian. Even the tofu-skin knots are tied by her own hands, using sheets of dried tofu so thin as to be like cicada wings, carried back on her back from the Wuxi market.

These supreme fresh ingredients, simmered in a clay pot for a good two to three hours, until the salted pork turns a pale pink and the shoots, drunk full of broth, reduce the meat to mere supporting players. Only be careful not to eat too hastily, or you will burn your tongue.

Dried Bamboo Shoots from Anji

My mother-in-law loves bamboo shoots but never eats too many, simply because they are rich in insoluble dietary fibre, and anyone with a delicate digestive system risks stirring up old ailments. What to do? The bamboo-shoot devotees of Jiangnan have their own solutions.

I once had a dish at Qingtao Restaurant, beside Hupao Spring in Hangzhou, said to be gentle on the stomach. It was simply called “Mao Shoot Stew.” Fresh Anji Mao shoots are simmered for five to six hours with aged salted pork and preserved mustard greens, until that thick layer of fat has melted entirely into the broth and every single fibre of the shoot is gently moistened through. You would be forgiven for finding it has a tender, pillowy texture like lean meat. I thought to myself: “These shoots must have been hit with a soul-stealing spell—already a shoot’s body with a piece of meat’s soul.”

Anji County sits in northern Zhejiang, where bamboo shoots are as much a local signature as Zhuji’s torreya or Lin’an’s hickory nuts—a landmark food of the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region.

Fresh bamboo shoots do not keep well; even in the fridge they continue to grow and the texture toughens. Drying them into dried shoots is, in a sense, a necessity. Most dried shoots inevitably lose some flavour in the process, but the taste of Anji dried shoots is one of the rare cases where the dried form actually surpasses the fresh.

The dried bamboo shoots were sent to me by Xiao Yezi, who once worked at the Organic Farmers’ Market in Beijing. She is a Rocker—by day, helping fellow farmers set up their stalls at the market, and by night, darting between underground rock venues. Her writing, like her life, is full of raw tension.

Seven years ago, after she left Beijing and returned to her hometown of Anji in Zhejiang, bamboo shoots never left the table around the turn from spring to summer. All sorts of wild little shoots burst forth from the hills: small water shoots with a faint green sheen to their shells, the most delicate of all; small stone shoots with black-flecked casings, tender yet resilient; and red bamboo shoots with purplish-red outer skins, firm and built to withstand long cooking.

In May 2019, she sent me a packet of wild brush-handle dried shoots. It was the first time I had ever tasted dried shoots like these.

They are made from a whole, intact small shoot: peeled, boiled, then kneaded with salt and rubbed until the moisture comes out—much the way tea leaves are rolled and heat-fixed. Dried, then rolled again, then dried again, until a thin crust of salt crystallises on the surface and they curl up into tiny coils. Soak in cold water for two hours, then mince or tear into strips—stir-fry or stew, whatever you prefer. But in my heart, the best pairing is still with red-braised pork.

Pork belly, seven parts fat to three parts lean, is cut into chunks and stir-fried with slices of ginger until just a hint of golden-brown. Lift the pieces out, leaving the residual oil in the wok, then add garlic, shallots or scallion whites, and once the aroma peaks, remove them with tongs.

The next step is the one that determines the colour of the red-braised pork—stir-frying the dark caramel, what people in the north call stir-frying the caramel colour. Heat the oil over a low flame, add rock sugar, crush it, let it melt into a syrup, and keep stirring without stopping. The moment the syrup turns amber, pour in the meat and coat every piece in a golden sheen.

The dried shoots go in at this point too. Pour rice wine and soy sauce along the rim of the wok to release a sharp, intense aroma, add water and bring to a rolling boil, skim off the foam, then transfer everything to a clay pot to braise. Heed Master Dongpo’s counsel: if you have not cooked for a good three or four hours, absolutely do not lift the lid. This kind of dried-shoot red-braised pork—the belly falls apart, tender and ungreasy; the dried shoots drink up every last trace of the meat’s fragrance from the broth, glossy and springy with every bite.

Digging Bamboo Shoots in the Hometown Grove

As a return gift, I sent Xiao Yezi a batch of dried peach blossom shoots my dad had made. I say it without fear of being laughed at, but for a long time I believed only Hunan had bamboo shoots.

My hometown sits right in the middle of a sea of bamboo. Every year around Spring Festival, the children follow the adults up into the hills with hoes over their shoulders to dig for winter bamboo shoots. These shoots hide underground; without experience, they are hard to find, and coming home empty-handed is all too common.

My third uncle by marriage could tell, from the colour of the bamboo leaves and the girth of the canes, which grove was likely to yield the most shoots. Then he would study the bulge in the soil to gauge the direction of the bamboo rhizome and dig along it—always to a harvest.

Winter bamboo shoots are small, their flesh incredibly tender—a true rarity that is an enormous waste in the hands of someone who cannot cook them. Fortunately, my uncle not only digs shoots well but also has a superb hand at preparing them: a pot of five-spice skin-on lamb. Peel the winter shoots, keeping the tender shoot membrane, and slice them. Render lard in the wok, add green garlic leaves and chopped chilies, and stir-fry together until the fragrance rises. Then add the sliced lamb and simmer. The shoot slices are sweet and clean, the lamb fragrant and tender. It is the most sought-after dish at the table, and the shoots always disappear before the meat.

Spring bamboo shoots that emerge around Awakening of Insects (solar term), just as the peach blossoms first open, are also called “peach blossom shoots” and are well suited to making into dried shoots.

At this stage, although the shoots have broken through the surface, most of their body is still buried underground. A sharp-eyed person brings down a single stroke of the hoe and levers up a big, plump shoot. They are carried down the hill basket by basket. The aunts and aunties deftly peel the shells, cut the shoots in half, bring a big pot of water to the boil, and tumble them all in with a clatter, cooking up a thick layer of white foam. Then they lift out the half-softened shoot flesh, lay it in bamboo trays to air-dry in the shade, or hang it over the stove fire to smoke.

If the dried shoots take on moisture and soften, they are prone to mould and must be steamed and sun-dried again, repeated several times, until they have shrunk to a seventh or even a tenth of their original volume, hard as ancient fossils in a deep brown—only then is the work complete.

The air in the south is humid, and dried shoots easily reabsorb moisture and develop mould. Once fully dried through, they weigh little on the scale and will not command a good price. Dried shoots from the market are bound to have something fishy about them—smoked ones are less likely to spoil. So the dried shoots our family eats are always made by my dad himself.

In 2016, while I was curating products for Wuyong Zhenwei, I wanted the team to try the dried shoots from home. I casually mentioned it to my dad, and he ended up making ten or so jin of dried peach blossom shoots and sending them to me. Fortunately, dried shoots keep well, but we still went through them bit by bit over several years, and even when we moved house we had to take them along.

This kind of dried shoot needs thorough rehydration. Following the method my dad taught me, I soak them in rice-washing water for one to two days, changing the water daily. Then I pour the shoots and water together into a pot and boil for fifteen minutes. Once the dried shoots have become soft and springy, I lift them out—slice them for stir-frying or use them in a soup, both work well.

Eat Bamboo Shoots Before I Grow Too Old

I also ate a kind of fire-roasted bamboo-shoot cake from home: the shoots were boiled, minced, then mixed with chillies and salt, pressed into flat cakes, and baked dry over the stove. You steamed them through before eating. They looked ugly, but they went brilliantly with rice. An elderly great-aunt or great-uncle used to make them. I only ever had them once or twice, and I have never seen them in any local market. I fear they are already lost to history.

The disappearance of traditional flavours always brings a sigh to those who miss the old days, and yet it seems inevitable, as a certain food documentary once put it: Inheritance is luck; disappearance is fate.

Anji bamboo-shoot and peanut snacks are the same. The first time I had the batch Xiao Yezi sent me, I was struck by a flavour that is almost impossible to put into words. The shoots had become entirely a different food.

Tender shoots are boiled in salt water until soft, cut into sections, then cooked with peanuts, dried tangerine peel, spices, rock sugar, and salt until the liquid reduces and the flavours soak in. Dried in a well-ventilated spot, the shoots and peanuts grow more fragrant the longer you chew. The dried tangerine peel brightens the appetite; the flavour is sweet with a hint of salt—a small snack that children will grab handful after handful into their pockets.

Easy to describe, fiddly to make. Xiao Yezi says only one old lady in the village can make them properly. There used to be two flavours, but since the old lady is nearly eighty now and her sense of the right taste has grown uncertain, she makes only the sweet version.

Most people have long since lost interest in rural snacks, I suspect. But for some, the stubborn pursuit of home flavours endures—Xiao Yezi, for instance, and my dad.

After receiving the dried shoots my dad had made, Xiao Yezi posted this on her WeChat Moments:

“The younger generation must never look down on rural specialties, as if everything air-dried or cured in the countryside is a no-name, no-standard product unworthy of a proper table. It is precisely these home-grown foods that have let our customs and traditions pass from one generation to the next, and that have presented the flavours of the villages and fields to our tables in the most fitting way.”

“As we chase international food culture and various nutrition theories, we might also turn our gaze back to how these traditional foods are made in China—those flavours of natural foods hidden among the mountains, plains, market streets, and villages, passed down through the people for a hundred years.”

Since last October, Dad has been in Beijing for medical treatment. Almost every day he talks about going home, saying the food here isn’t good. In February this year, my cousin from home sent a box of cured meats and winter bamboo shoots.

When my dad saw the shoots, it was like seeing an old friend. Beaming, he stuffed them into a bag one by one, weighing each handful as he went. One day I noticed a row of brown things lined up on the radiator in my room. I looked closer and, to my surprise, they were dried shoots!

I was still staring when my dad came over, pinched one, judged it fully dried, and packed it away in a bag. From that whole big bag of winter bamboo shoots, he had managed only this tiny bag of dried shoots. He weighed it in his hand and said, “Just a bit over two liang—made from two jin of shoots. Enough for two meals.”

I knew Dad was missing home again. What he missed wasn’t the apartments in the county town, but that old wooden house surrounded by bamboo groves, where Grandpa, Grandma, and the child he once was had all lived.

From a shoot on the ground to a twenty-metre bamboo takes only sixty days. From a single cane to a whole mountainside of green takes just six years. My dad, now sixty-four, says the happiest time of his life was being nine, herding cattle. He would walk up to the high ground and look out over the distant bamboo groves: “So open. The wind comes, the bamboo sways, and the shape of the hill keeps changing.”

Every year brings fresh bamboo shoots. In this world there are those who want only the one crisp, fresh bite—everything must give immediate pleasure—and there are those who turn fresh shoots into dried shoots, keeping them for slow savouring later. But whichever kind of person you are: if you don’t eat bamboo shoots soon, you’ll be old.

– This is Foodthink’s 811th original –

Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are by the author.

Editor: Yuyang

Layout: Xiaoshu

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