All warm inside
From ancient Chinese medicinal plants to meaty stews and nourishing chicken soup, we turn to the fundamentals for comfort foods as we hunker down with family and friends in cold weather. Mike Peters reports.
As you read this, Chinese chefs somewhere are preparing tubers of Gastrodia elata for a healthy, warming soup. The rhizomes of this leafless orchid (tian ma in Chinese) are valued in traditional medicine for treating headache, stress and fatigue - and traditionally for convulsions such as epilepsy.
In nature, the elusive plant depends on a parasitic relationship with two different fungi to grow. That perplexed ancient Chinese gatherers who struggled unsuccessfully to cultivate it; they ultimately gave up, declaring it to be a gift from God. In the 1960s, Chinese researchers in Yunnan and Beijing decoded the plant's interactions with fungi, leading to modern cultivation.
