Bamboo and Food

Bamboo adds luster to Chinese food. The delicious and crispy bamboo shoot has won the people's favor since ancient times. In his beautiful prose Bamboo Shoot, Liang Shiqiu, a famous modern Chinese writer, vividly described the famous Beijing cuisines of "stewed shrimps and winter bamboo shoots" and "ham with stewed winter bamboo shoots”. People also use bamboo to make wine, which tastes mellow and savory.

Bamboo can also be used as medicine. In his masterpiece Compendium of Materia Medica, the famous Ming-dynasty pharmacologist Li Shizhen recorded the great medical value of bamboo.

Bamboo and Scholars and Artists

The tall, straight and beautiful bamboo has been a favorite for Chinese scholars and artists since ancient times, who have sang high praises of its character. Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, compared bamboo to a "virtuous man" in his article. Zheng Banqiao, a celebrated Qing-dynasty painter and calligrapher, devoted his whole life to painting bamboo.

Many ancient scholars chose to live in seclusion in deep mountains surrounded by bamboo forests, where they drank wine, wrote poems or painted pictures while enjoying the beauty of nature. By leading such a simple life, they wanted to stay away from worldly affairs. Su Dongpo, a famous writer of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), wrote in his poem, "I would rather eat no meat than live without bamboo."