The Mao-Plan Diet

Filed Under Dining with Destiny, Features

He loved oily food and, after a noisome snack, would rinse his mouth with green tea … who? Chairman Mao of course! An odd mix between brittle revolutionary zeal and boy-scoutish excess, Mao thought that remaining ever true to the greasy spicy Hunan food of his youth was common sense. Plus, oil was glamorous, a sign of wealth in hungry 1950s China. When he wasn’t worrying about being poisoned or supping ginseng root boiled in water for his impotence, Mao enjoyed nothing better than pork with fatty bits. Probably he would tuck into this before a night of dancing with young nurses.

Nurses aside, Mao liked to nod off on a wooden bed (anyone remember Saddam Hussein’s cot?), before hopping off for a quick float down the Yong River: Mao liked to dive into choppy, rough or freezing waters - what the hell if there were sharks! Brisk has it. Yet, his needs were assiduously attended to: his food flown in daily from the Great Mountain Farm in Beijing; his room was cooled by tubs of ice; and his temperature raised by the country girls who could visit him there…

Mao liked to eat just two meals a day - lunch at about 4 p.m. and a meatless ‘dinner’ of red peppers and porridge or vegetables at around 3 a.m. Like Stalin, Mao was a dictator who would invite nervous underlings to share his supper. He liked to spook you over the mains. Mao’s erstwhile doctor, Zhisui Li, recalled one such occasion. Dictator and doctor sat down to a meal of lamb with leeks, some fish, and pork mixed with hot peppers (another top dish of Mao’s). Li’s heart sank at the amount of oil pooled about every mouthful and secretly bemoaned the lack of soy sauce in the menu.

But Li had little time to concentrate on his sauces. The clock was ticking for Dr Li - he was to suffer internal exile and be sent on one of Mao’s re-education programmes. (When Mao heard of minor potentates tucking in while the poor starved, they were sent on ‘diplomatic missions’ to the countryside for a taste of poverty). Our cunning dictator hinted just such a fate lay in wait for Dr Li when he offered him bitter melon cooked with hot peppers. Li had never tried it before and Mao roared with laughter as Li choked down the bitter, hot melon. “Everyone should taste some bitterness in his life,” Mao chortled, “especially a person like you. You studied medicine and became a doctor. You have probably never eaten bitterness.” Oh-oh.

When Mao toured the backwaters of China in 1958, preparing his observations as fuel for the Great Leap Forward of the following year, he insisted on staying in local, run-down guest-houses, sticking to the roughly-ground corn steamed buns that typified the peasant diet. Food and fidelity to the revolution seem inextricably associated in Mao’s world. Loyal Communist workers were rewarded with chew-on-that treats - during the Cultural Revolution, with all the largesse of a Big Brother, Mao presented mangoes to the workers. A strange fate befell these prized, dictator-blest fruit; water in which they had been boiled was drunk as an enchanted elixir - mangoes even had altars consecrated to them!

True to form, Mao himself gave up meat during the famine that followed - the terrible harvest of 1959 - opting instead for bean curd. Eventually, even vegetables were in short supply. Tens of millions were to die of starvation in China. When tiger and deer meat were sent to Mao, he refused to try it - just as he refused to go to the lavish banquet held for his 66th birthday. However, his retinue sneaked in, drawn into betraying Mao at the prospect of bird’s nest soup with baby doves. When times were good, though, Mao supplemented his fatty pork dishes with the likes of his adored Wuchang silver carp. Symbolically, the carp meant good fortune (bad luck for the carp).

Understandably, perhaps, Mao’s young wife, Jiang Qing, ate with him only once a week (and they had to use her chef, not his). She preferred to breakfast alone, picking at almond yoghurt (on toast!) and considered herself far more sophisticated in culinary terms - after all, Jiang Qing had dined on the glories of those ‘western’ foods, pot roast and caviar, in the Soviet Union. Mao, in contrast, evoked the royal ‘we’ to get out of eating Russian nosh: “It is not to our liking,” he’d grumble. Brilliantly, he also (deliberately?) failed to understand Russian ballet - “Why do they dance on their toes, it looks very uncomfortable?” he queried. Mind you, when Mao’s retinue would go into the forests of Beidaihe after fresh rain to gather bagfuls of blooming, autumn brown mushrooms, Jiang Qing had the sense to enjoy the delicious, rich soup these made. Mao would never touch it.

Things can’t have been easy for Mao, though. Again like Saddam, he had to have food flown in, forensically analysed and tested. There were the usual nervous food tasters hovering about and, at times, Mao’s security staff would disguise themselves as food vendors. Like any Caesar, Mao kept an eye on his mushrooms, and who could blame him? For instance, there was the Bamboo Shoot Episode in Guangzdong. Seven banquet tables had been set out in honour of Mao, but he wasn’t particularly happy as his hosts hoped he would eat Cantonese food, of which he was highly suspicious. But then, the alarm was raised. The kitchens were sealed off: traces of cyanide had been found in the food! Hong Kong was in dangerously close proximity. Distrust and political intrigue smouldered. It was only after days of waiting that the laboratory announced cyanide had been found in the bamboo shoots - ho ho! It turned out that cyanide appears naturally (and in safe amounts) in bamboo shoots.

So, no fancy Cantonese mumbo-jumbo for Mao. He’d stick to what he knew. Who could doubt the health benefits of pork belly? Only Dr Li, and he was long gone, leaving Mao to devise his own healthy eating programme. Mao claimed that pork braised in brown sauce made his brain work better and would eat it twice monthly. Mao took a roguish delight in gulping down shocking dainties that others found crazy to say the least - such as ‘Dragon Battling Tiger’ (snake with wildcat). If this left him with a little touch of gas or a wince of heartburn, a sip of turtle soup would restore his appetite. Were he still around, I’m sure Dr Li would attest to Mao’s sense of humour about food - but it’s always at the guest’s expense.

Pork with Hot Peppers

Bunches of fresh, sweet basil are available from any Chinese supermarket and are an absolute must for this recipe. But if you get totally stuck, replace with fresh tarragon leaves.

Ingredients

¾ lb pork (slightly fatty), sliced
½ tablespoon peanut oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 red pepper, sliced
2 tablespoons chilli jam
1 tablespoon fish sauce
¼ tsp caster sugar
2 long red chillis, seeded and shredded lengthways
1 fl oz chicken stock
30 -25 leaves of Thai sweet basil (to taste)

Method

Warm the peanut oil in a pan and stir-fry the crushed garlic. Slice the slightly fatty pork into thin shreds. Add the pork to the hot oil and garlic and stir-fry for 2 minutes or until it becomes crispy. Next, add the sliced red pepper and stir-fry until it is slightly cooked (about 1 ½ minutes). Add chilli jam, fish sauce, and chilli and stir-fry till done. Sugar with approx. ¼ teaspoon. Drizzle on some chicken stock and stir. Remove from the heat. At the last moment stir in the basil leaves - they should only wilt slightly and add a wonderful liquorice/basil aroma and fragrance to the dish.

Now serve with rice.

Pork in Brown Sauce

Ingredients

2 lean pork steaks
½ cup vegetable oil
6 fresh, crisp spring onions
3 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp cornflour, mixed with 3 tbsp water
5 tbsp sugar (it’s the way Mao liked it!)

Method.

Shred the spring onions and place half in the base of the dish in which you intend to serve the pork. Reserve the other half as you will use this to garnish the cooked pork. In a smaller bowl, combine the cornflour, the water, the soy sauce and the sugar. Place to one side. Next, shred the raw pork quite finely. Heat the oil in a wok and, when it is almost smoking, add the shredded pork. Stir-fry until it crisps up (about 2 minutes). Then add the cornflour, water, soy sauce and sugar mixture. Stir-fry until fragrant and the colour deepens slightly (about 2 minutes). Place this on top of the shredded spring onions and garnish with the remaining shredded spring onion.

Serve with plenty of rice. Follow with a cup of green tea! Or mock-turtle soup …

- Fiona Ross