Recipes from the Garden of Contentment (Chinese: 隨園食單; pinyin: Suíyuán Shídān) is a work on cooking and gastronomy written by the Qing-dynasty painter and poet Yuan Mei.
[4] It was originally published in 1792 (the 57th year of Qianlong Emperor), and contains instructions and critiques on Chinese cuisine as well as a large number of recipes of dishes from the period.
The work reflects Yuan's "orthodox" literati stance on Chinese cuisine, which derided the opulent displays and dishes in banquets of his time.
Correction to errors in Recipes from the Garden of Contentment were also provided by Xia along with sometimes humorous anecdotes about the foods.
[8] A bilingual Chinese and English version was published in 2018 as Recipes from the Garden of Contentment, translated by Sean J. S. Chen.