Question about cooking ingredients

[Sammy Boy]

Hi everyone, my mum has a list of cooking ingredients on a piece of paper stuck to her fridge.

The ingredients are set in table format, so that when "illegal combinations" (for lack of a better term) occur, there is an explanation in the corresponding table cell which describes the result of the combination.

For example, using lychee and crab together supposedly gives you an upset stomach.

The thing is, this list that my mum has is printed in Chinese. And my Chinese reading ability is not good enough to read everything. Since my mum's English is not good enough to translate this list, I was wondering if any of you know whether there is an English version of this list (I searched via Google but didn't seem to find anything)?

Or if you have such a list yourself, would you mind scanning it for me?

Since I have now moved out and am learning to cook, I thought it'd be a good idea to have such a list close by, so I don't accidentally poison myself.

Cheers.

[Maledicte]

That's weird, I found tons of lychee-and-crab recipes from a quick Google search.

I can't seem to find any table like you're describing, though. Just lists of acidic and non-acidic foods in general.

[EricTheFred]

I think you probably want to find out first where this knowledge comes from. More than likely, this is a question of Chinese medicine rather than cuisine. You may want to search herbalism sites.

Culinarily, there are a few bad combinations out there, but they involve negative effects the ingredients have on each other. For example, fresh pineapple cannot be used in Jello, because enzymes in the pineapple will stop the jello from setting. Or, fresh papaya must not be used in anything that is going to sit awhile, because papaya has an enzyme with digestive properties (which is why people with digestion problems will eat the stuff to help their stomach.) A lot of things will screw up milk, making it curdle (lemon juice, for example.)

[Sammy Boy]

I think you probably want to find out first where this knowledge comes from. More than likely, this is a question of Chinese medicine rather than cuisine. You may want to search herbalism sites.

Culinarily, there are a few bad combinations out there, but they involve negative effects the ingredients have on each other. For example, fresh pineapple cannot be used in Jello, because enzymes in the pineapple will stop the jello from setting. Or, fresh papaya must not be used in anything that is going to sit awhile, because papaya has an enzyme with digestive properties (which is why people with digestion problems will eat the stuff to help their stomach.) A lot of things will screw up milk, making it curdle (lemon juice, for example.)

Thanks for those extra bits of knowledge, I will note them down, but don't think I will be eating papaya anytime soon so I should be safe, LOL.

I don't think that chart my mum has is really related to Chinese medicine/herbalism all that much, because the ones my mum told me about from the chart are all common sense ones to do with food poisoning, indigestion, etc. and does not necessarily require the Chinese yin / yang view of the universe, and the "heaty" and "cool" aspects of ingredients (if this part is not making sense feel free to ignore it).

But you are right in that often it's hard to separate the Chinese understanding of food ingredients completely from that view.

[EricTheFred]

Thanks for those extra bits of knowledge, I will note them down, but don't think I will be eating papaya anytime soon so I should be safe, LOL.

I don't think that chart my mum has is really related to Chinese medicine/herbalism all that much, because the ones my mum told me about from the chart are all common sense ones to do with food poisoning, indigestion, etc. and does not necessarily require the Chinese yin / yang view of the universe, and the "heaty" and "cool" aspects of ingredients (if this part is not making sense feel free to ignore it).

But you are right in that often it's hard to separate the Chinese understanding of food ingredients completely from that view.

As I understand it (and admittedly, a Norwegian-American is unlikely to understand it all that terribly well) the Chinese understanding of 'Medicine' and 'Healthy Nutrition' are fairly strongly intertwined. Somwhere in the late Nineteenth century we lost that sort of thinking in the West, tossing it all out the window as 'old wive's tales', and we are still trying to recover a lot of lost wisdom.

I would suggest you just sit down with Mom and go through the list, getting western alphabet spellings of the words (plus the original characters) whenever you two can't work out what they are in English. Then, you can go elsewhere to try to work out the translations. It would be a shame not to hold onto every bit of knowledge you can get from her.

(It's almost painful to think of all the old-world recipes that passed away with my grandmother!)

I feel your pain, being unable to communicate ingredients. A common conversation in my kitchen goes like this:

My lovely bride of twenty years, born in the Philippines: "Honey-ko, taste this. What's it missing?"

Me: "Mmm. Maybe you could add some thyme. That would be good in this."

Wife: "...."

Me: "What?"

Wife: "What's that in Tagalog?"

Of course, since I don't speak more than a few words of Tagalog (aka Filipino) all I can do is go digging for the thyme myself.

[Mithrandir]

How you can tell you hang out with the kids at church too much: For some reason, you feel "What's that in Tagalog?" would be a good name for a children's song.

[Sammy Boy]

As I understand it (and admittedly, a Norwegian-American is unlikely to understand it all that terribly well) the Chinese understanding of 'Medicine' and 'Healthy Nutrition' are fairly strongly intertwined. Somwhere in the late Nineteenth century we lost that sort of thinking in the West, tossing it all out the window as 'old wive's tales', and we are still trying to recover a lot of lost wisdom.

I understand what you mean, and yeah it is a shame because I used to get sick a lot as a kid and some of the Chinese herbal medicine really helped. However, I don't think I will be missing cicada shells' broth anytime soon.

I would suggest you just sit down with Mom and go through the list, getting western alphabet spellings of the words (plus the original characters) whenever you two can't work out what they are in English. Then, you can go elsewhere to try to work out the translations. It would be a shame not to hold onto every bit of knowledge you can get from her.

We actually have a Chinese-to-English dictionary, but I should probably buy a modern version, as that one we have seems to be responsible for a lot of unintentional "Engrish". LOL

Which reminds me, the China National Space Administration website does not use the term "astronaut" but "space people". Yeah.

(It's almost painful to think of all the old-world recipes that passed away with my grandmother!)

I feel your pain, being unable to communicate ingredients. A common conversation in my kitchen goes like this:

My lovely bride of twenty years, born in the Philippines: "Honey-ko, taste this. What's it missing?"

Me: "Mmm. Maybe you could add some thyme. That would be good in this."

Wife: "...."

Me: "What?"

Wife: "What's that in Tagalog?"

Of course, since I don't speak more than a few words of Tagalog (aka Filipino) all I can do is go digging for the thyme myself.

LOL, have you ever had a conversation whether either you or your wife asked how much of a certain ingredient to add, and the other just says "Just enough." ? My mum does that all the time. She learnt to cook by trial and error (probably like many people), so she can't give me even approximate measurements.