chen pi & Shanghai secrets
Herbal (and life) wisdom from a week spent abroad.
Hi sweet friends,
It’s always a pleasure to land in your inbox.
If you’ve arrived here via the most divine Nice Nothings, welcome! I feel very lucky to have your eyes and ears. If you’ve been here a little bit, welcome back – and don’t miss Bella’s daal recipe, a thing of simple (and great) beauty.
I don’t often talk about my Chinese Medicine (TCM) degree. I’ve got a year to go, and it’s always felt a bit daunting to speak as a student, when there is a whole cosmos left to learn. But I’m hoping to write more freely – and proudly – and I figure here’s a good place to start.
I went to Shanghai a couple of weeks ago and loved the city all at once – its tree-lined streets and long, romantic shadows, exceptionally cool wine bars (thank you Vicki!) and the way it weaves medicine and daily life together with such ease.
I saw people in the park doing their daily T’ai Chi, enjoyed desserts that actually strengthen digestion (herbal jelly galore!), and watched hundreds of locals collect their weekly prescriptions – huge bags of raw, organic herbs ready to boil and decoct – for better health. Wellness here is a collective experience.
I also had the pleasure of spending six days in a TCM-Integrated Hospital, where acupuncturists work alongside GPs & specialists to provide truly holistic care.
These doctors see 20-30 patients an hour, needling with Olympic precision whilst maintaining a shockingly joyous demeanour. I lost count of the golden oldies – with lower back pain or insomnia, joint issues or headaches – who left the treatment room giggling.
My mentor explained that he keeps his ‘insides happy’ by laughing with his patients. Bringing ease and lightness to the world of wellbeing? What a refreshing idea! And quite a different story to the intermittent fasting, cold plunge, HIIT class misery we are sold here in the West.
When I wasn’t at the hospital, or dipping rice cakes into a jujube-heavy hot pot, I was snacking through herb class led by Zoey Xinyi Gong. Zoey’s a phenomenal teacher and owner of Silver Root Apothecary, an integrated TCM food therapy studio in the heart of Shanghai.
Together, we picked Chinese herbs from the garden, made teas from cooling Honeysuckle (Jin Yin Hua) and harmonising Rose (Méi Guī), and sipped chicken broth bolstered by Angelica Root (Dang Gui) and Astralagus (Huang Qi), a dynamic duo of Blood and Qi-supporting power.
I loved how Zoey brought Chinese flavours and medicinals into her menu each day. It, of course, got me thinking about sweets.
Given the Winter season and surplus of beautiful citrus, I picked up a jar of Chen Pi (Aged Tangerine Peel) to spice up some treats planned for friends and the Bronte Dispensary later in the week.
Chen Pi Magic
Chen Pi (陈皮) is the (between three and 20-year) aged peel of tangerine. It’s a much-loved herb in TCM dietetics – acrid, bitter, warm and aromatic, with a flavour somewhere between citrus and burnt espresso. Its acridity moves stagnated Qi (stuck energy of a sort) while its warmth disperses Cold and dries dampness. Cold and Damp are two external factors of disease in TCM – they contribute to poor digestion, bloating, hiccups, nausea and a whole host of symptoms that we call IBS.
Chen Pi strengthens the Spleen and Stomach (our two digestive heroes, charged with generating new (Gu) Qi from the diet), relieves unpleasant GI symptoms… and is great for a hangover. I love it in tea, thrown into a congee or added to cookies and cakes! You can find it in your local Chinese herb store or from the special people at Empirical Herbs — the more it‘s aged, the more expensive it’ll be!
Inspired as I was, I baked a flourless chocolate and orange cake, and dark chocolate cookies with caramelised blood orange — alongside Chen Pi. It added a subtle sweet-bitter citrus flavour to complement the richness of chocolate, and was a nice Spleen-supportive ingredient to soften the glucose blow. Tarragon flowers and pistachio praline also did their decorative part.
That’s all for the minute. A list of Shanghai favourites and Internet presents can be found below.
Adore you for reading this far – and see you next time,
Sazzy x
Shang-Hailights!
Restaurant Fu: Home of dark-as-night herbal jelly and a claypot rice I’ll never forget. The sweetest table adornment of tiny pumpkins, too.
ROCK BAR: A very cool listening bar with drinks made from exclusively Tibetan ingredients and can’t-stop-eating-sweet-and-spicy-peanuts.
SPOKE Bar: A place to rehydrate like the cool kids.
Yuangu Yunjing (元古雲境(五原路店): A pared-back and resonant restaurant whose simple, clean flavours felt effortless. Loved the roast chestnuts alongside grilled chicken, and artful cocktail list!
Goooods & Gu Qing Ji Nam Pak: Two perfect health food shops full of fermented rice cakes, brewing broths, and so many things I wish quarantine would let me through the gates with.
Wu Wei Natural Foods: A vegan, Buddhist restaurant attached to the Jing-An Temple. They imbued such flavour into each of the 10(!) courses – an impressive feat without onions, garlic, chives, shallots or leeks (whose pungency is said to distract from higher consciousness).
Paper Moon: Feminist bookshop – adore!
Azabuya: The double-scoop of Shodiro Soy Sauce Gelato and Caramelised Hazelnut, which was a necessity on 36°C nights. Note also their triple-strength matcha flavour via Vicki.
Internet presents!
Andy Samberg and Natasha Lyonne on Amy Poehler’s Good Hangs. A massage for the mind, laughter as medicine!
An episode of This Jungian Life, exploring The Handless Maiden fairy tale, and its dissection of the unconscious, wounded feminine and beauty of aloneness. A change in pace, one for the psychology/Jungian nerds among us.
Philo Apple Farm is a place I would like to visit. Same with Salmon Creek farm.
And this Banana Maple flapjack recipe has Winter snacking written all over it.
😮 this is so beautiful to read about. You’re the cleverest cookie of all
omg, I want to go!!!
what a special trip.
and I know first hand that the flourless orange choc cake was a 10/10!