Happy, healthy and herbal

The Chinese have been using herbs in cuisine for as long as they can remember. Food as medicine or medicine in food is nothing new to a civilization that started cooking more than 5,000 years ago. Lin Jing looks at how the tradition is kept alive to this day.

Freezing weather blows in together with the New Year, and it is at this time that Huang Mingjin is busiest in the kitchen preparing Chinese herbal cuisine for her family.

"Chinese herbal cuisine is good for your health, especially in the cold winter," says Huang, 53. "After a whole year of hard work and heat in the spring and summer, people are tired. Winter is the best season to boost nutrition, and prepare for the coming spring."

Chinese herbal cuisine has been a tradition in her family for more than 20 years. At first, she had learned the recipe from local doctors. Later, she consulted other professionals about the effects of some of the herbs.

During the season, Huang will spend hours every fortnight stewing mutton and carrot soup, into which she adds wolfberry and Chinese angelica root or danggui (radix angelica sinensis). She says these traditional herbs will warm up the body and help give energy to resist the cold in winter.

Huang is typical of the average Chinese who believes herbal cuisine can build up strength and ward off diseases. She comes from a very long line of believers.

The word yaoshan (herbal cuisine) first appeared in ancient books in the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), but the actual use of herbs in cookery can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty (21st-16th century BC), when people first discovered that certain wild plants could be used as medicine or as food, or both.

As the Chinese enjoy better standards of life, they are paying closer attention to healthcare and herbal cuisine is enjoying resurgence for both its efficiency as medicine and its palate-pleasing properties.

Compared to conventional medical treatment, herbal cuisine is certainly milder and easier to stomach.

Long Yongquan, the executive Chinese chef with Traders Hotel in Beijing, says herbs used in soup are different from herbs used for medicinal brews.

"Medicines given by doctor are for curing diseases, while herbs we put in the soup are supplements," says Long. 

"Strictly speaking, we choose herbs that can be used both as Chinese traditional medicine and food for herbal cuisine, such as Chinese yam and longan," he says.

Long has been a Chinese chef for more than 20 years and he specializes in Chinese herbal cuisine. He says that for the weak and old, food therapy provides a good choice to speed up recovery or recuperation.

The types of herbal cuisines vary in different seasons as well. In the cooler seasons of autumn and winter, people may need warmth inside to help resist the cold. But in summer, people like to drink herbal tea made of chrysanthemum and licorice to eliminate the heat inside, or treat sore throats.