Chlorella cooked with rice
INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup chlorella (algae) grown in urine
- 1 cup rice
- 4 cups water
- Salt to taste (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Cultivating Chlorella:
- Place chlorella seeds in a container with urine. Allow them to grow for a few days until a green mass resembling fish roe forms.
- Harvesting and Rinsing:
- Carefully remove the chlorella from the urine. Transfer it to a sieve and rinse thoroughly under running water to remove any residual urine.
- Cooking Rice:
- In a pot, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Add 1 cup of rice and cook over medium heat until the rice is tender.
- Adding Chlorella:
- When the rice is nearly cooked, add the rinsed chlorella to the pot. Cook for an additional 10-15 minutes until the chlorella is soft and the flavors have melded.
- Seasoning:
- If desired, add salt to taste. Stir well.
- Serving:
- Serve hot.
Notes:
- The taste of this dish may be very specific, and chlorella may be unpleasant for some people.
Context
1. The government also introduced new ersatz foods. In the early 1950s, nutrition experts worldwide were fascinated by chlorella—a miraculous algae that could produce twenty times more protein than other plants with the same amount of sunlight. However, the plankton soup intended to save millions from hunger proved impossible to cook and tasted so awful that the fad eventually faded. In China, during the famine, this algae was considered a miraculous food. It could be grown and harvested in swampy ponds, but it was most commonly cultivated in vats with human urine; the green algae was collected, washed, and cooked with rice.
— Frank Dikotter, The Great Famine: The Tragic Consequences of Mao’s Policy 1958-1962
2. Many people developed hunger edema, where fluids accumulate under the skin due to malnutrition. The skin turns yellow and swells. The most popular remedy for this was chlorella, supposedly rich in protein. It grows in human urine, so people did not use toilets but urinated into spittoons and added chlorella seeds. Within a few days, something resembling green fish roe would grow; it had to be removed from the urine, washed, and cooked with rice. It tasted terrible, but it did indeed reduce the swelling.
— Source: histurion.pl
3. City dwellers also faced hunger, but the number of deaths was significantly lower than in rural areas. People received such small rations that they could barely survive. “It seemed that life was moving in slow motion,” noted a visitor from Poland. “Rickshaw drivers barely pedaled (…), tens of thousands of semi-conscious cyclists (…), the downcast eyes of passersby.” The meat ration for city residents decreased from 5.1 kilograms per head in 1957 to a record low of 1.5 kilograms in 1960. People were told to eat “food substitutes.” One of these was chlorella, a single-celled algae resembling roe, which grew in urine and contained protein. After Zhou Enlai tasted and approved this disgusting food, it became an important source of protein for city residents.
— Source: niniwa22.cba.pl
Mao Zedong’s policy during the implementation of the five-year economic plan known as the Great Leap Forward (1958 – 1962) adhered to the slogans: more, better, faster, and cheaper. Mao wanted to make China a leading industrial power in the world at all costs. The implementation of the Great Leap caused unprecedented devastation in every sector of the economy, most drastically affecting rural areas. The countryside was subjected to forced collectivization, with peasants’ property confiscated and them concentrated into giant people’s communes, where food was distributed in communal dining halls based on merit. Various forms of “substitute food,” such as paper pulp, were introduced. Soon, China faced a famine of unprecedented scale that the world had never seen before.