Author Description

Recipes from the Garden of Contentment: Yuan Mei’s Manual of Gastronomy is the first English edition of the Suiyuan Shidan, one of the world’s most famous books about food. It is both a culinary treatise and a cookbook, written in the late eighteenth century by the poet Yuan Mei. This translation by Sean J. S. Chen conveys the charm, humor, and erudition of one of China’s greatest writers. The book includes recipes for well-known yet exotic dishes such as bird’s nest and shark’s fin, and offers modern readers a unique perspective on Chinese history and culinary culture.