Yangxiaolu 養小錄

Yangxiaolu 養小錄 "Small book on diet" is a cookbook written during the early Qing period 清 (1644-1911) by Gu Zhong 顧仲 (fl. 1818?), courtesy name Xianshan 閑山, style Songhe 松壑 or Zhongcun 中村, from Jiaxing 嘉興, Zhejiang. The book of 3 juan length was finished in 1698 or somewhat later. It seems that the original name was Shixian 食憲 "Rules of eating".

The author directly links the way of eating with character and life, and therefore stresses the importance of paying attention to pure (jie 潔) and suitable (yi 宜) food and diet. Food and beverages should be pure and well done, well-harmonized (tiaohe 調和), simple and not extravagant in order to regulate physical well-being (yi he yu shen 以和於身).

The main part of the book is arranged according to types of food, namely beverages and soups (yin 飲), condiments (jiang 醬), dumplings (er 餌), vetegables (shu 蔬), fruits (guo 果), mixed dishes (jiayao 嘉肴), fishes (yu 魚), poultry (qin 禽), eggs (luan 卵, and meat (rou 肉). The books explains preparations methods and flavourings of nearly 200 various dishes, mainly from the region of Zhejiang. Among the most famous Zhejiang dishes are bamboo shoots with shells (daike sun 帶殼筍), smoked bamboo shoots (xunsun 熏筍), razor clam (shengxian 蟶鮮), minced meat with Venus clams (saozi geli 臊子蛤蜊), skin soup (pigeng 皮羹) or splashy yellow bird (bo huangque 潑黃雀). Typical northern recipes are steamed bear's paw (zheng xiongzhang 蒸熊掌) or gopher with pomace (zao huangshu 糟黃鼠).

The dishes are simple, concise and easy to learn. The book also contains some dishes made with flowers, such as braised peonies in gravy 肉汁燴牡丹花and deep-fried magnolias in noodle soup (miantuo youzha yulan hua 麵拖油炸玉蘭花). It also presents some extravagant soups and pastries, such as cypress leaf soup (baiye tang 柏葉湯), osmanthus soup (guihua tang 桂花湯), top-crispy cakes (dingsu bing 頂酥餅), thin crispy cakes (baocui bing 薄脆餅), laminar oil-lathed cakes from the Prefecture of Jin (Jinfu qianceng youxuan luo bing 晉府千層油鏇烙餅) or walnut cakes (hetao bing 核桃餅).

The book is included in the series Xuehai leibian 學海類編 and Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編.