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  • Why: Dictator's vision Where: China

    Clay cookie

    “The worst thing we ate were cakes made from ‘immortal earth’. It was a kind of white clay. It had a pure white color and people used it to make porcelain. They called it ‘immortal earth’. It had a sandy texture. In those times, we were so hungry that people would mix the white clay with water to make cookie. We filled our stomachs with it. One elderly lady had serious constipation after eating it. She had to use her fingers to scoop out the hardened stool.*1

    INGREDIENTS

    White clay (used in porcelain production)
    Water

    PREPARATION

    Mixing the ingredients: In a large bowl, combine the white clay with water, gradually adding water until the mixture reaches a thick, dense consistency. The clay should be well incorporated, forming a uniform, sandy-textured mass.

    Shaping the cakes: Shape the prepared mixture into small cakes, aiming for flat shapes to facilitate drying.

    Note: This “dish” was created during times of extreme famine, when a lack of food forced people to consume inedible materials. Eating white clay can cause serious health issues and should not be used as a method to cope with hunger.

     

    During Mao Zedong’s policies in implementing the 5-year economic plan known as the Great Leap Forward (1958 – 1962), slogans such as ‘more, better, faster, cheaper’ were upheld. Mao wanted to make China a leading industrial power at any cost. Implementing the Great Leap Forward led to unprecedented devastation in every sector of the economy, especially impacting rural areas in the most drastic ways. Villages were forcibly collectivized, confiscating property from peasants and concentrating them into massive communal farms, where food was distributed in communal dining halls based on merit. Various types of ‘substitute foods’ like paper mâché were introduced. Soon, a famine of unprecedented scale swept across China, unlike anything the world had seen before.

    *1 Chef Yan’s memories-  a cook in a small street restaurant on the outskirts of the provincial capital Chengdu in Sichuan, comes from Ziyang County in central Sichuan. In his village, a huge number of people died of starvation during the famine. Despite his family’s culinary resourcefulness, Yan lost his father, and his mother suffered severe edema due to hunger. He and his sisters tried to survive on their own. Even to this day, he vividly remembers the array of things he and his fellow villagers ate to stave off hunger and survive.”

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