Yinshi xuzhi 飲食須知

Yinshi xuzhi 飲食須知 is a cookbook written during the early Ming period 明 (1368-1644) by Jia Ming 賈銘 (c. 1269-1374), courtesy name Wending 文鼎, style Huashan Laoren 華山老人, from Haining 海寧, Zhejiang. Under the Yuan dynasty 元 (1279-1368), he served as a brigade commander (wanhu 萬戶), and had reached the age of more than a hundred years when the Ming dynasty was founded. Emperor Taizu 明太祖 (r. 1368-1398) desired to learn more about longevity, whereupon Jia presented to the throne this book on diet.

The book has a special focus on dietary contraindications (xiang fan xiang ke 相反相克) and has thus also a medicinal aspect. Jia explains that drinking and food obeyed certain rhythms (yin shi you jie 飲食有節) and should not be consumed arbitrarily. Instead, the medicinal effects of food and drink should be taken into account when organising meals and banquets. For this purpose, Jia took into consideration the instructions of books on materia medica (bencao 本草).

The whole text has a length of 8 juan and is divided into the categories "water" (Shui lei 水類), "fire" (Huo lei 火類), grains (Gu lei 穀類), vegetables (Cai lei 菜類), fruits (Guo lei 果類), "tastes" (Wei lei 味類), fish (Yu lei 魚類), poultry (Qin lei 禽類), and red meat (Shou lei 獸類), with a total number of 403 recipes. Some appended chapters include information on toxic objects, methods to counter poison, and some recommendations for preservation and storage.