Culinary Codex: Soup-Erfood: The Root of Wellness
Asya Vlasova
The first time I encountered food as medicine was not in a wellness boutique selling a $14 adaptogenic latte. It was in the cramped shop beneath my apartment building: a place that officially sold SIM cards and phone chargers, and quietly doubled as an herbal store. Behind the dusty glass counter sat jars of wrinkled red dates, knotted ginseng roots, lotus seeds, dried chrysanthemum blossoms, and mysterious ingredients I couldn’t name. A clay pot of soup was always simmering. The broth was dark amber, and the steam pervaded the air that smelled faintly of cardboard and earth. When I was tired, stressed, or recovering from an illness, I always took another bowl and another brew, as long as there was no arthropod or unknown crustacean in it.
Today, many of those same ingredients have found a new audience. As wellness culture expands beyond kale smoothies and protein powders, Traditional Chinese Medicine-inspired foods are appearing in trendy grocery stores, boutique tea shops, and social media routines. Items such as goji berries are sprinkled in yogurt bowls, ginseng is blended into energy drinks, and red dates are marketed as superfoods.
One of the most recognizable offerings, besides ginger in restorative teas or fish soups, is the Cantonese-style herbal soup. These everyday tonics emerged in hot, humid subtropical climates of Southern China, where generations of families developed elaborate soup traditions to cope with seasonal heat, humidity, and disease. "Have you had soup?" is often a casual and minimally curious daily greeting. These soups often begin with a long-simmered broth—pork bones, chicken, or occasionally black chicken- into which ingredients like red dates, goji berries, dried longan, and Chinese yam are added. Red dates dissolve into a honeyed sweetness that softens the savory stock, while goji berries swell into ruby-colored bursts that taste faintly of raisins and cranberries.
Others may encounter ginseng chicken soup. For centuries, wild ginseng was one of East Asia's most prized medicinal ingredients. Rare roots were offered as tribute to emperors, reserved for elites, and traded across Korea, China, and Manchuria at extraordinary prices. Ginseng chicken soup emerged from a tradition that viewed food and medicine as inseparable, transforming an ingredient once associated with imperial courts into an everyday restorative meal. A whole chicken is stuffed with glutinous rice, garlic, jujubes, and ginseng before being simmered into a rich broth. The first spoonful of broth is startling, savory yet threaded with the distinctive bitterness of ginseng. It acts as strong medicine wrapped in comfort food. While some diners fall in love immediately, others require several bowls before appreciating why people willingly seek out such an oscillating flavor profile.
The most interesting corners of Chinese wellness culture are often hidden in places that do not quite know whether they are restaurants, pharmacies, or community centers. In Chicago's Chinatown, stores like Lisa Herbal Corporation sell drawers full of dried roots, flowers, and berries alongside ready-made tea packets. New York's Kamwo Meridian Herbs fills floor-to-ceiling shelves with roots, fungi, and carefully labeled remedies. Some customers arrive looking for relief from a lingering cough. Others come seeking ingredients for a family recipe passed down through generations.
In Hong Kong, Hung Fook Tong and Koong Woh Tong serve herbal drinks from counters that resemble old-fashioned apothecaries. One might encounter dark amber liquids with names like “Ling Zhi Momordica” and “Spica Prunellae,” which pique much more curiosity and are less embarrassing than some of their bawdy boba tea counterparts. On Douyin, one will find tea shops like "村上安煎了付汤剂" in Shanghai that document the ancient ritual of preparing traditional medicinal teas and decoctions. Instead of simply ordering drinks from a menu or kiosk, staff members move behind walls lined with wooden drawers and glass jars and measure each ingredient on a scale with pharmacist precision before assembling everything into a paper packet. Their shelves hold many rare finds that may smooth lungs, alleviate heat, and detoxify. Slices of astragalus root the color of pale driftwood, twisted codonopsis roots nicknamed the "poor man's ginseng," dried longan fruit that smells like brown sugar and honey, snow fungus resembling ivory coral, and wiry chicken-bone grass paired with licorice root.
As Hakka populations migrated through mountainous regions of Guangdong and Fujian, they were compelled to adapt to the landscape through reliance on local roots and wild plants. As a result, one may encounter five-finger peach root chicken soup, made from the aromatic root of the five-finger peach plant. Despite its name, there are no peaches involved. The root perfumes the broth with a fragrance often described as somewhere between coconut, vanilla, and fresh wood. Combined with chicken, pork bones, and red dates, the resulting soup tastes astonishingly tropical for something that looks so humble. Four Gods Soup, a pale, almost minimalist-looking broth containing lotus seeds, Chinese yam, fox nuts, and poria fungus, also likely traveled from Fujian to Taiwan alongside waves of migration during the Qing dynasty. Combining subtle creaminess and chewy nuttiness, the soup is often marketed as a restorative tonic for digestion and energy.
For something more visually dramatic, there is black silkie chicken soup, which is deeply interweaved with the postpartum recovery traditions throughout China. For centuries, women observed period of “sitting the month” after childbirth, during which specific foods were prepared to support nutrition and longstanding practices of family supoprt and maternal health. The bird's skin and bones are naturally black, creating a gothic broth when paired with red dates, longan, and ginseng. The flavor, however, is delicate rather than intense—sweet, savory, and faintly herbal. Many families associate it with postpartum recovery, holidays, and caring for loved ones.
Perhaps the most unusual ingredient of all is aged tangerine peel. In parts of Guangdong, properly aged peel is treated almost like fine wine, partly due to the region’s long history as a trading hub. Some batches are stored for decades. Added to soups, congee, and teas, it contributes an aroma reminiscent of orange zest, cedarwood, and black tea. What begins as discarded citrus peel becomes one of the most prized ingredients in the pantry.
Then there are the soups that test even adventurous diners. Traditional snake soup remains a winter delicacy. Thickened into a stew-like consistency and seasoned with chrysanthemum leaves, citrus peel, and spices, it tastes surprisingly close to shredded chicken. The appeal lies less in the novelty than in the ritual: generations of diners have lined up each winter convinced that a steaming bowl can ward off the season's chill. Across southern China, one may also find crocodile meat soup. The dried meat is simmered with almonds, figs, and herbs into a slightly gamey broth. Many Cantonese families associate it with soothing coughs and respiratory discomfort. Whether or not it delivers on those promises, the dish remains a vivid example of how deeply food and folk medicine remain intertwined.
What makes these dishes fascinating is not merely their ingredients but the worldview behind them. In many Western wellness trends, health is reduced to individual compounds of antioxidants and protein, and a reduction in carbs. Traditional Chinese food culture often approaches the question differently. Instead of asking what nutrients a food contains, it asks what role that food plays within a larger balance of seasons, symptoms, emotions, and daily life.
Yet as these ingredients move from neighborhood herbal shops, family kitchens, and into international wellness markets, they also enter a world of supplements, functional foods, and bold health claims. Not every centuries-old remedy translates neatly into a modern bottled beverage, and not every "natural" ingredient is automatically harmless. Traditional preparations were often used in specific quantities, combinations, and contexts, while today's consumers may encounter them in everything from protein bars to energy drinks. Appreciating these traditions requires more than chasing the latest superfood. It means understanding the histories and practices that shaped them, and recognizing that wellness is rarely found in a single ingredient.
