If you’ve ever wished your doctor knew more about cooking or your favorite chef knew more about nutrition, have I got a cookbook recommendation for you. It’s “Spicebox Kitchen” by Linda Shiue, the only person I’ve met who is both a practicing physician and a trained chef.
As the director of culinary medicine at a medical center in San Francisco, Shiue combined her two passions into one, all with the goal of helping patients lead healthier lives by learning how to cook delicious foods. The key is using your spice cabinet — especially the one you’re going to want to build after reading this book — to unlock the secrets of global cooking.
One of the many things I love about Shiue’s book: She demonstrates such deep respect for international traditions yet doesn’t shy away from applying her own touches. She has roots in several cultures — she grew up on Long Island with Taiwanese parents, studied in New England, lived in Singapore for a year in college, married a man from Trinidad, externed at a Moroccan restaurant, and has done fieldwork in China’s Sichuan province. And by including so many culinary influences in her book, she is, in essence, helping undo any of the whitewashing that would have you mistakenly believe that cooking for “wellness” was invented by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop. “I wanted to counteract the misconception that there’s only one diet — what I call the ‘kale and quinoa diet,’ even though I love both of those things,” she told me.
American wellness trends sometimes seem made for the same people who all “follow the same wellness trends,” she adds. “But not everybody eats those ingredients. … Besides, genetically, everybody is different, so maybe a certain way of eating is better for you than someone else’s way. These global traditions are there for a reason.”
Shiue, then, can write credibly about the Moroccan spices she uses in shakshuka on one page and the glories of Sichuan peppercorns on another.
Speaking of those peppercorns, they feature prominently, as they should, in Shiue’s take on kung pao. Her book is largely (but not exclusively) plant-based, and in this recipe she subs in tofu for the standard chicken. Perhaps more importantly, she takes the dish back to its Sichuan roots, before it picked up extra ingredients in Chinese American takeout restaurants. As she writes, “I’ve kept all the spicy, tangy flavor of the original but lightened it up, which actually enhances the flavors.” If you’ve never cooked with Sichuan peppercorns before, here’s your excuse to pick some up (or order them online).
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The ones you can get in the United States might not pack the same potency as those in China, but make this dish with them and you’ll appreciate that beautiful Sichuan combination of the heat from chiles and the tingly numbing sensation from the peppercorns (which are actually the husks of prickly-ash seeds). The latter “is a feeling you don’t get from any other ingredient,” she says. “Somebody at some point in Sichuan thought, ‘We love spicy food, but it’s too much, so what if we combine it with something anesthetizing?’”
From the front matter in Shiue’s book, you can learn that the chiles in the dish have been shown in some studies to reduce cholesterol levels and help control blood pressure and that the peppercorns contain anti-inflammatory compounds, among other benefits. But Shiue is refreshingly holistic in her approach to healthy cooking, and she is allergic to the idea of “superfoods.” She and other smart nutritionists and doctors suggest “eating the rainbow” for good reason: It’s about variety.
“You can’t put something in a vacuum and say, ‘If I just eat this I’ll be healthy,’” she says.
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What if all you’re after is a good recipe for dinner?
You have Shiue’s permission to page through the book and make and eat what appeals to you. That’s what I’ve been doing, and I’ve immediately understood the wisdom of her goal: to make cooking and eating healthy food a joy. The kung pao tofu comes together in a flash — and the first time I tasted the results, my lips tingling and my forehead beading up with a little sweat, I broke into a wide grin, and I may have actually done a little dance. After all, doesn’t happy equal healthy?
Where to Buy: Sichuan peppercorns can be found at Asian supermarkets, at some well-stocked groceries and online at sources such as foodsofnations.com.
