liuzhou

Yes. I was just about to say the same. 99% of my meals are cooked in one pot - a wok - apart from the rice which is done in the rice cooker. Even when the meal is composed of several dishes.Many of my friends and neighbours only have a wok and a rice cooker. Standard Chinese cooking method, but adaptable to other cuisines. ETA. Some meals can be prepared entirely in the rice cooker.

Multiple typos now corrected. Technical difficulties.

When it comes to preparing for the winter, the Yao kitchen gets extended outside. An extended family raises a pig (or two) over the year and then slaughters it in order to prepare it for preserving by various means to see them through the winter. There is no grocery store in the village. People eat what they grow or raise. The pig is slaughtered and butchered in the street outside the house before being air dried, salt cured, pickled, or smoked then hung up inside the kitchen. It is bled first and the blood preserved and all the offal is carefully collected. The carcass is then singed in a straw fire to get rid of as much hair as possible. Any left will be shaved off. They also have fish and frogs from the rice paddies and raise duck and chickens. They grow corn (alas) and various greens. Their diet is heavily vegetable based.

Bizarre. They say they're Cantonese (Luosifen sure isn't Cantonese) then the only non-English language on the website is Japanese! They seem more interested in Instagram than their food. I can't even open the menu (which they don't even hold on their own website)! Doesn't quite inspire confidence!

I get mine done by a man on a bicycle. He comes by every couple of months banging an old wok lid with a stick to attract customers,then sits in the communal area with his various stones, sharpening the neighborhood. Can take him two days to get through everyone. But he does a great job.

It's all the one big room. Normal. I don't need to remember. I have one. It's a rice mill, used to grind grains down to a powder for various dishes. Mine is a toy one sold as a souvenir, but works on small quantities. When I dig it out of whatever box it's hiding in I'll demonstrate. No. What you are seeing as a handle is a flue pipe behind the stove.The wok is the two looped handled type. It is set into a recess in the brick stove. No. They are mainly subsistence farmers and live in the higher elevations with little infrastructure. They wouldn't refuse modernity. They just can't afford it. They are master rice terrace builders though. Image: westchinago.com

Is that shrimp in the picture? Unheard of! The overall colour seems a bit strange, too. It's usually less brown and more red from chillies. That could be bad printing, suppose.

I'd guess water. The houses tend not to have indoor plumbing so get their water from a communal stand pipe in the centre of the village. I took these pictures about 18 months ago, so can't remember.

It's served cold. Epicurious has a recipe very similar to how I've cooked and eaten it in restaurants here. I've also bought it in markets Pre-prepared similarly. https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/hand-shredded-chicken

手撕鸡 🐔 (shǒu sī jī) - hand torn chicken.

Getting away from my kitchen and city apartment kitchens I general, here is a typical countryside kitchen. This one is in a Yao ethnic minority village in the north of Liuzhou Prefecture. This is in preparation for the Chinese New Year / Spring Festival, on Feb 10th this year. Year of the Dragon 龙年.

I'm glad to hear the rice was unsalted, not that I'm ever likely to buy it. In much of Asia, certainly in China, rice is served unsalted. It is intended to be a neutral background to the flavours of the accompanying dishes. Same in S.E. Asia. The first time someone saw me salting rice I was preparing for dinner, they thought I had gone mad. I've never done so since. Possibly a good test for the 'authenticity' of your local Bamboo Garden!

These arrived at my door about half an hour ago. A pair of organic Syrah wines from Australia made by French Vignerons for the Chinese market. An unexpected gift from a friend in the wine publication and events business, for me to try. I don't know anything about them other than that. We shall see.

I don't know if this will help anyone but... Asian markets may be sources of 豆腐布 (dòu fu bù) which means tofu cloth and is really cheesecloth. Took me years to find that out. Standard practice round these parts.

炒鸡肝 （独蒜、辣椒、绍兴酒）， 小意大利面，秋葵。 Chicken liver stir fried with garlic, chilli and Shaoxing wine. Orzo and okra.

Hunan fried chilli beef, Hunan pork, Hunan steamed fish and greenery with my beautiful, Hunanese, Tujia ethnic minority friend. Here in a Hunan restaurant in Guangxi.

Many years ago, I flew Bangkok, Thailand to London and back again on the Bangladeshi national airline with a stopover in Dhaka each way. Dhaka has probably the worst airport in existence. It was the only flight I could get at short notice. Long story. On the flights, I was served lentil curry and rice for breakfast, lentil curry and rice for lunch and lentil curry and rice for dinner. In both directions. That was in their attempt at 'first class'. I don't even want to think about what they served in 'cattle class'.

Well, yes I'm aware that the terminology varies from place to place which is precisely why I was looking for an unambiguous expression. My friend has run with the 'spicy hot' suggestion.

@Norm Matthews said I imagine it would be really difficult to recreate a 1300 old recipe from a photograph. There were lots of things to wonder about in his reconstruction but something you said added a concern. You said savory wheaten foods outnumber sweet wheat foods by a lot. If the original report mentioned the morsels found in the tomb were described as biscuits, ( presumed to be savory in the USA) but it is quite possible that someone from the United Kingdom read biscuits as meaning cookies, (sweet) When English and Australians refer to biscuits it means cookies to lots or people everywhere elsewhere. Technically, neither American biscuits or British biscuits are etymologically 'biscuits'. Bis cuit (modern French) means twice cooked, which, so far as I can make out, neither are. The term entered British English (BrE) from Old French bescoit in the early 12th century at the latest and originally referred to double cooked hard ship's biscuits. The American usage is 19th century, in language terms relatively recent. Cookie is probably from the Dutch koekje, early 18th century referring to a baker's soft bun, both sweet or savory. It entered American usage in the late 19th century, referring to a hard, brittle sweet cake. Scotland and northern England retain the original meaning of cookies as soft buns while all of Britain uses biscuit for the hard items. American English (AmE) does the opposite.

I don't often follow the book, but regularly do "inspired by" dishes, especially duck and/or chicken hearts. In fact, they're on the menu for later today. You just reminded me to take them out of the freezer. Fortunately, I live in a very N-to-T culture, so can get most things easily.

Wow! That's the second person mentioned on eG today that I have actually met. I knew Nicholas quite well back in London must be 50 years ago. He was influential in many ways, not just on food. Unfortunately, I can't open the Gruaniad at the moment. (The other was Tao Huabi, the Laoganma lady, whom I've met a couple of times.)

Interesting. I knew her company do different versions in different territories but hadn't come across that one. Further research suggests the peanut version is also available in Singapore. I also searched in Chinese but drew a blank in China (but did get Singapore again). I have seen mention of Laoganma peanuts in Chilli kill but I'm thinking that's something different again. At least the Chinese suggests so. I'll ask Ms Tao next time I see her!

More Brokeback cooking. Keeping it simple. Pan fried pork tenderloin. I was happy with the sear from my Japanese cast iron pan. Simple boiled potatoes and okra.

Do you mean the sauce comes with peanuts already in the jar, or you added them yourself? I've never seen laoganma with peanuts nor is that listed on the American website. By the way, laoganma means 'old godmother', not 'old mother'. The gan means 'dry' so, literally 'old dry mother', dry indicating non-lactating.

Jiangxi fried mixed noodles.