Yecai bolu

The Yecai bolu ( Chinese野菜 博 录; comprehensive report on wild edible plants and plant parts ) by Bao Shan (鲍 山) from the end of the Ming dynasty provides important information about cooking ingredients and food, especially during times of famine in natural disasters and crop failures , which the author knew from personal experience.

Its foreword is dated to the year 1622. The author comes from the northeast of Jiangxi Province . He lived in Bailongtan (白 龙潭) in the Huang Shan Mountains for seven years .

content

The illustrated work comprises four chapters (juan), two of which are devoted to grasses and herbs (cao) and two to trees and bushes (mu). It is also divided into the categories of leaves (ye), flowers (hua), bark (pi), and fruits (shi). The foreword mentions over 400 different species (the number 435 is used in specialist literature), but the book only contains the following 262:

• Leaves of Plants and Herbs 142
• Leaves and branches of trees and shrubs 59
• Flowers 5
• Fruits 25
• Flowers and fruits 3
• Leaves and fruits 19
• Flowers and leaves 5
• Leaves and bark 4

In Siku Quanshu and in modern book series Sibu congkan (sanbian) it is relatively easy to access.

literature

• Zhongguo pengren cidian , p. 663
• Zhongguo pengren wenxian tiyao , p. 86

See also

List of sources on the history of Chinese food and drink culture