Roof

INGREDIENTS

Corn stalks pulled from the roof

PREPARATION

Climb onto the roof. Snap off a piece of corn stalk and chew!

“Even straw and stalks from the thatched roofs were eaten. Zhao Xiaobai, an eleven-year-old orphan who had to work like an adult to take care of her little sister, recalled how one day, driven by hunger, she climbed a ladder to the roof. ‘I was still small. I was tormented by terrible hunger, so I broke off a piece of corn stalk (which was used to cover the roof) and started chewing. It was delicious! I chewed one piece after another. I was so hungry that even corn stalks tasted good to me.’” *1

“In whole country, residents of villages, on brink of starvation, ate anything that came into their hands, from leather belts and straw roofs to cotton padding” *2

During Mao Zedong’s policy implementation of the 5-year economic plan, known as the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962), slogans prevailed: more, better, faster, cheaper. Mao wanted at all costs to make China the world’s leading industrial power. The implementation of the Great Leap Forward principles caused unprecedented devastation in every sector of the economy, most drastically affecting rural areas. The countryside was subjected to forced collectivization, confiscating property from peasants and concentrating them in gigantic people’s communes, where food was distributed in communal dining halls according to merit. Various types of “substitute foods” were introduced, such as paper-mâché. Soon, a famine of proportions the world had never seen before swept across China.

1* Frank Dikotter, Mao’s Great Famine: The Tragic Consequences of Mao’s Policies, 1958-1962. Wydawnictwo Czarne, Wolowiec 2013. Translated by Barbara Gadomska. p. 410 / Interview with Meng Xiaoli, b. 1948, Lushan County, Henan, May and December 2006.

2* Frank Dikotter, Mao’s Great Famine: The Tragic Consequences of Mao’s Policies, 1958-1962. Wydawnictwo Czarne, Wolowiec 2013. Translated by Barbara Gadomska. p. 202.