Sister Man's Culinary Journey

Sister Man has retired. Fifty years old, single, carrying a talking book and a three-thousand-year-old baby Taotie, and with a heart that believes “a little contentment is worth more than a thousand blessings,” she sets out. Starting with scallion rice cakes from her hometown, she eats her way across mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas...

Every dish holds a moment in time. Some people see loved ones they've lost in their food. Some taste their youth again. One person has waited a lifetime for a bowl of rice noodles. With her tongue, she remembers every story; with her heart, she gives every longing a place to rest.

This is not a book about food. It is a book about remembering. Remembering those who drifted away, the roads we can never take again, and the warmth that lives on in food.

Wanwan is a Taotie. Three thousand years old, palm-sized, wearing a red sweater, and round as a ball. It eats everything and thinks everything is “the very, very best.”

Momo is a dream-eating tapir. It doesn't eat food, only dreams. It can smell every kind of spice, but cannot taste a thing.

Manman is an Ao. It once bore the weight of the earth and the long passage of time. It was so slow that it thought its whole life would pass just like that, until it met Sister Man.

Cuihua is a pickled cabbage. It spent three years fermenting in a jar, waiting for someone who would understand it.

This is not a book about mythical beasts. It is a book about companionship.

This is not a book about travel. It is a book about coming home. You have to travel a long way to learn where home is.

“Flavor is the world's gentlest magic. And every traveler will eventually taste all the starlight in this world.”

Shu Fujia, A Traveler's Guide to the Flavors of Time