The Yunnan plateau and its mushrooms

Yunnan lies in the far south-west of China, on a high plateau that runs down from the edge of the Tibetan highlands towards the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. Its name means south of the clouds, and its land folds from river gorges and subtropical valleys to cold uplands, so that within one province the climate runs from warm lowland to alpine. Georgia Freedman, in Cooking South of the Clouds, draws her account of its cooking from this variety of terrain and from the many peoples who live on it, among them the Bai, Dai, Naxi, Yi and Hani.

The plateau's reputation at the table rests above all on its wild fungi. In the rainy months of summer the forests of pine, oak and mixed upland woodland produce a succession of mushrooms, and markets in Kunming and in the towns of the interior fill with them. Among those most often described are the matsutake, Tricholoma matsutake, the porcini or cep, Boletus edulis, the morel, Morchella, the chicken-oil mushroom, jizong and ganba junjun, the last two known by their local names. Freedman records how the season is waited for and how the foraging is done by families who know particular hillsides, and how the harvest is sold fresh, dried or preserved in oil. The cooking of these mushrooms is, for the most part, restrained. They are sliced and fried quickly in a little oil with fresh chilli and garlic, simmered with local ham or chicken in a clear soup, or cooked in the steaming pot known as qiguo, whose central chimney lets the vapour condense into a broth without any water being added. The aim is to keep the fungus close to its own flavour and texture, and the accompaniments are chosen to support it rather than cover it. The mushroom is one element of a wider table. Yunnan is also known for its cured hams from the north-west of the province, for fresh and fermented dairy such as the Bai fan of rubing and rushan, for rice noodles eaten across the south, and for flowers and herbs cooked as vegetables. Freedman presents these not as a single regional canon but as the food of many communities sharing a landscape, each with its own methods, and the mushrooms belong to all of them. The forests are the source of the abundance, and the seasonal rhythm that follows from it governs both the market and the home kitchen. Because the fresh harvest is brief, drying and preserving in oil carry the flavour through the rest of the year, and a cook on the plateau thinks of the mushroom as a thing of one season that has been laid by for the others.

At the Yunnan table the mushroom is eaten in the weeks of its harvest, most often stir-fried with chilli and garlic, or in a clear qiguo soup with chicken and ham, served alongside rice. The flavour sought is earthy and fragrant, with the seasoning kept light so that the fungus remains the centre of the dish.