Author: Dr. Lu Li Clark

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Food History Historic Recipes

How to Make Pemmican – A Native American Survival Food

graphic showing a bison head, sliced bison meat, powdered dried meat and pemmican bars

Have you had bison meat before? I recently tried it for the first time when I learned how to make bison pemmican.

What Is Pemmican?

Pemmican is a Native American survival food that is high-energy, high-calorie, but low-volume. Native Americans used a variety of meat to make pemmican including bison, deer, moose, elk, and salmon. For the Plains Indians who lived on the vast grasslands between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains in today’s United States and Canada, bison was a primary source of meat.

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Food History Historic Recipes

How to Cook a Whole Chicken in Clay and a Brief History of Pao(炮)

Páo (炮) in Chinese means to wrap the meat in plant leaves (like lotus leaves, banana leaves, and reed) then paste clay all around it and bake it over a fire. When it is done, remove the clay crust and cut up the meat before serve. 炮 is an interesting character. The left part indicates fire. And the right part means bag, also means to cover or enclose something in material. Together they vividly depict the essence of the cooking technique.

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Festivals & Holidays Food History

1792 Mooncake Recipe with Nut Filling

The Mid-autumn festival (Zhongqiu Jie in Chinese) is a traditional celebration that focuses on the full moon and family reunion. It is on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which falls on October 1 in 2020. It is a day when the family gets together to have a feast, light lanterns and admire what’s believed to be the fullest moon of the year.

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Festivals & Holidays Food History

What is the Duanwu Festival? (Part 2 of 2)

The Duanwu festival is known as the Dragon Boat festival named after the popular activity of dragon-shape rowboat racing during the festival. 

Annual dragon boat races held in Naha City, Okinawa.

Did the Duanwu Festival Really Originate From the Death of Qu Yuan(屈原)?

Today it is widely believed that the dragon boat race and the customs of eating zongzi originated from the death of Qu Yuan. Qu Yuan, who supposedly lived from 338 to 278 B.C.E., served as a minister in the southern kingdom of Ch’u, which shared the continent with other two powerful states: the northeastern state of Qi, and the aggressive state of Qin to the northwest.

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Festivals & Holidays Food History

What is the Duanwu Festival? (Part 1 of 2) 

The Fifth day of the Fifth month on the Chinese lunar calendar marks the celebration of the Duanwu festival (端午). “Duan Wu”(端午) in Chinese means the beginning of the fifth month. Originating from China, the festival is widely celebrated in East and Southeast Asia with dragon boat racing, eating zongzi rice dumplings, and commemorating China’s earliest known poet, Qu Yuan(c. 340–278 B.C.E). Today most Chinese believe that the festival is to remember the virtues of the patriotic poet who served as a loyal minister of King Huai who reigned from 328 to 296 B.C.E. over the state of Chu. However, the origins of the Duanwu festival have nothing to do with Qu Yuan. Folklorists, historians, and anthropologists have proposed multiple explanations for the origin of the Duanwu festival. 

The Duanwu festival as we now know has its roots in plague-prevention rites in the summer solstice and fertility rites to ensure good harvests dating back at least two thousand years in southern China. In this article, we explore the reasons why the Chinese consider the Fifth month of the Lunar Calendar inauspicious and evil as well as the rituals employed to ward off evils.

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Festivals & Holidays Food History Historic Recipes

Zongzi with Sweet Red Bean Filling (红豆沙粽子) Recipe

Fresh zongzi with sweet red bean filling

Duanwu Festival (端午节) is just around the corner. It is a traditional festival in China, also called the Dragon Boat Festival or the Zongzi Festival. It falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month on the Chinese calendar. This year, it is on June 26th.

Making and eating Zongzi is one of the traditions my family observes for the Duanwu Festival. What are Zongzi? Zongzi are glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves. They are cooked by boiling or steaming and served either hot or cold. Zongzi were initially used to worship ancestors and gods and later became a festival food. Depending on regions, Zongzi can be sweet or savory, steamed or boiled, in a pyramid or a cone shape. Each family has its recipes passed down verbally or in writing.

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Food History Historic Recipes

200-Year-Old Parmesan Cheese Ice Cream Recipe

I stumbled upon this fantastic Parmesan Cheese Ice Cream recipe, while I was researching the history of ice cream. This recipe comes from the The Complete Confectioner cookbook written by Frederick Nutt. It was first published in 1789. Nutt was a professional confectioner in London. He was an apprentice to a well-known Italian confectioner Domenico Negri, owner of “Pot& Pineapple” at London’s Berkley-Square, one of the first shops to popularize ice cream in England. 

An illustrated advertisement for D. Negri's confectionery shop at the Pineapple in Berkeley Square of London.
An illustrated advertisement for D. Negri’s confectionery shop at the Pineapple in Berkeley Square of London.
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Food History Medicine

Spanish Flu and Black Death – Historic Folk Remedies for Pandemics

spanish flu and Black Death pandemic remedies with plague doctor mask and ads

The 1918 influenza was the most severe pandemic in recent history. Caused by H1N1 influenza virus, it swept across the world starting in the Spring of 1918 and persisting until early 1920. Although it is known as the “Spanish Flu,” it did not originate in Spain. It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus and at least 50 million people died. 

Unlike the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19) that has been much deadlier for the elderly, the 1918 flu affected the 20-40 age group more than any other section of the population. As attempts to make effective vaccines to protect against the 1918 flu infection failed, many Americans who subscribed to the basic beliefs in a scientific approach to health and disease turned to home and folk remedies.

Here are some of the intriguing remedies people used during the 1918 flu pandemic. 

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Food History Videos

The History of Ice Cream – Episode 1 | Video

Watch our first episode and let us know what you found interesting about the origins of ice cream in the comments below. Thank you!