Supplemented Materia Medica
Page 10

Rapeseed

Rapeseed original: 芸薹菜, Yuntaicai was first officially recorded in the Materia Medica of the Tang Dynasty Compiled in 659 AD, this is considered the world's first state-sponsored pharmacopoeia.. It is simply the Oilseed Rape original: 油菜, Youcai; likely Brassica napus or Brassica rapa. Planted in autumn for a winter harvest, its leaves and stalks are used as a cooked vegetable, while its seeds are pressed for oil. The remaining stalks are used to fertilize the fields, making it a plant of great necessity for farmers and gardeners.

As a vegetable, it is classified as one of the Five Pungent Vegetables (五葷) A group of strong-smelling plants—typically including garlic, leeks, and onions—forbidden in certain Buddhist and Taoist diets because they were thought to excite the senses.. It is not only avoided by Taoist practitioners, but even the scholar-official class tends to look down upon it as a "lowly" food.

However, there are two distinct varieties: Oil Dry Vegetable and Oil Green Vegetable. The "Dry" variety has a heavy, muddy flavor and a fatty texture; its stalks have a purple skin, are quite mucilaginous, and taste slightly bitter. People in the Wuchang region are especially fond of planting it, though one easily tires of eating it.

The Oil Green Vegetable is planted in winter alongside Chinese Cabbage (菘菜). It produces flowering stalks original: 薹, tai with a flavor that is both clean and rich, even surpassing that of Asparagus Lettuce (萵笋). When served alongside mushrooms or used to thicken a soup, its smooth beauty is beyond comparison. To group it with common onions or leeks is to treat it with unfair disdain.

Li Shizhen The renowned Ming Dynasty physician and author of the Compendium of Materia Medica. believed that because the Qiang and Long people Ethnic groups from the cold northwestern frontier of ancient China. lived in bitter cold regions and planted this in the winter months, it should be called the "Cold Vegetable."

Today, in the northern regions where gardens are frozen as dark as lacquer, having this simple vegetarian dish means the "old rustics" no longer have to rely solely on their fermented milk and cheeses. Recently, during times of drought or flood disasters along the Huai River, the people have taken to using seed drills (耬) to plant this in the fields during winter. Although the people may have "vegetable-colored" faces An idiom referring to the pale, yellowish-green complexion of the famished, they are at least spared from death by starvation. Good harvests do occasionally occur. When the accumulated snow first begins to melt and...