Fried Cabbage

History

Stir-frying as a cooking technique appears first in the Qimin Yaoshu, a sixth-century agricultural manual, and reappears as a cooking method in recipes from the Song dynasty (960–1279). In China's north, cabbage became the only vegetable available throughout the winter at difficult times, and home cooks developed quick, fuel-efficient methods to prepare it. Napa cabbage became a staple in northern China, where it was often the only vegetable that could be stored throughout the winter. The speed and simplicity of frying cabbage—high heat, minimal fat, brief cooking—made it a mainstay of household kitchens across the northern provinces and beyond.

Chinese cabbage did not arrive in Japan until the 1860s, and as the vegetable took root in Japanese cuisine, it became a component of okonomiyaki (cabbage pancakes) and other preparations. The technique of quickly frying shredded or sliced cabbage over high heat traveled alongside Japanese culinary traditions, adapting to available ingredients and home cook preferences. By the early 20th century, as Japanese and Chinese immigration brought Asian foodways to North America, simple fried-cabbage preparations became known through translated cookbooks and restaurant kitchens.

The Bosse and Watanna cookbook, published in 1914, preserved this recipe as part of a broader effort to document and teach Asian cooking for an American readership. The book's own text says the dish "is used by the poor Chinese as a substitute for fish" — worth quoting exactly rather than paraphrasing, because it is the authors' period framing of class, not a description of a cuisine. Poverty is a material circumstance, not a culinary tradition, and the line reads more honestly as the authors wrote it than recast as timeless resourcefulness. The recipe as printed is brief: hot fat, cabbage washed, dried and cut in long slender strips, salt and pepper, and five minutes of stirring with the pan shaken to keep it from burning.

Ingredients

• 1 head cabbage
• 2 tablespoons fat
• salt
• pepper

Instructions

1. Wash and dry the cabbage.
2. Cut the cabbage into long, slender strips.
3. Heat two tablespoonfuls of fat in a deep frying pan until hot.
4. Throw the cabbage strips into the hot fat.
5. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Fry for five minutes, stirring and shaking the pan frequently to keep the cabbage from burning.