Qin Shi Huang sent people east across the sea to seek the immortal herb, so why did they go the wrong way?

In the 37th year of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (210 BC), the last year of Qin Shi Huang's reign, the fangshi Xu Fu took 6000 boys and girls, boarded great ships, and once again sailed east toward Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou,to seek the immortal herb, never to return.

I really feel sorry for Qin Shi Huang and Xu Fu for failing when success was so close, because if their planned direction had been the area of present-day southeastern and southern China, not only could they haveeasily obtained the immortal herb, but all kinds of tasty desserts like turtle jelly, aiyu jelly, and sago dessert could have been easily brought back too!

Mouth watering while adding pictures... Image: epochtimes.com

Alright, enough kidding around, let's talk seriously about the immortal herb.

The immortal herb mainly comes from mesona (Platostoma palustre) in the Lamiaceae family. In the Flora of China, the scientific name of this genus is written as Mesona, but in the APG classification system based on molecular evidence, it has been reclassified into the genus Platostoma.

As for why it is called the "immortal herb," there are many folk legends, and the actual origin is already difficult to verify. One saying is that ancient people saw thata small handful of dried mesona could boil into a big pot of grass jelly, and believed it could turn little into much. But I think that although ancient people did not understand conservation of matter, they would not have been so foolish as not to see that the increase in the volume of grass jelly wasbecause of water, right?

If you take a fresh mesona plant, most people would not connect it with black jelly-like grass jelly. Square stems, opposite leaves, verticillasters, labiate corollas, four nutlets: anyone familiar with plants can see at a glance thatit is a relative in the same family as mint. Unlike mint, it does not have a strong cool minty aroma, the leaf tips are acute rather than the oval shape of mint, and the verticillasters all grow on the upper part of the stem, forming an interrupted raceme.

Mesona does not look like an immortal herb at all. Image: epochtimes.com

Mesona can be made into grass jelly because it containsabundant soluble polysaccharides, and if you pick the leaves and rub them, you can feel the slippery stickiness. Mesona polysaccharides mainly exist in the cell walls, and after dissolving in water they can congeal into a gel, generally collectively called mesona gum. Mesona gum is an acidic polysaccharide and dissolves more easily in alkaline solution, so in the process of making grass jelly,adding a little edible alkali helps release the gum. The black color of grass jelly mainly comes from flavonoids in the cells, which also dissolve out more easily in an alkaline environment; the stems of fresh mesona sometimes appear purplish red, also brought about by this pigment.

Mesona is mainly distributed in waterside or sandy-soil grasslands in southern China. In the wild it generally grows prostrate, while under cultivated conditions it is often upright and facing the sky. Interestingly, under these two growth states, the content of gummy polysaccharides produced in mesona differs. Some studies have found that prostrate mesona has higher gum content and better gelling performance, but becausegrowing sprawled out takes up too much space, the gum yield per unit area is instead lower than that of the upright type.

Immortal herb planted in rows in the field. Image: digitalarchives.tw

The coagulation principles of several common gel-like snacks are not the same. Turtle jelly mainly relies on gelatin, the hydrolysis product of animal collagen; ice jelly is pectin coagulated with the help of calcium ions; as for grass jelly, besides the action of its own gummy polysaccharides, it also depends on an outside helper--starch。

The method for making grass jelly is to put dried mesona into water and boil it, and you can also add some seasonings such as dried longan, which will boil out a pot of black soup; at this point add sugar,and finally starch needs to be added to thicken it, and after it cools it will coagulate into black grass jelly.

After coagulation, grass jelly is often cut into small cubes, very cute. Image: wiki commons

There are many ways to eat coagulated grass jelly. In Hong Kong, China, Macao, China, and Taiwan, China, people cut it into small pieces and add it to sugar water with ice, which is very good for cooling off in summer, while in winter they sprinkle red beans, peanuts, and so on onto uncoagulated grass jelly and eat it hot, calledhot grass jelly. The way of eating it in the Chaoshan region is calledcao guo(not the green glutinous rice balls). It looks more rustic and rough: from a large ceramic jar, warm grass jelly is scraped out with a copper spoon into a bowl, scored a few times horizontally and vertically, then brown sugar or white sugar is added. When eating, not even a spoon is necessary; just slurp along the edge of the bowl and you can eat it until the bowl is clean. In Malaysia, Singapore, and other parts of Nanyang, grass jelly is also often cut into small strips and mixed into drinks.

Hot grass jelly. Image: senshanxiancao.com

Chaoshan cao guo. Image: sohu.com

Grass jelly is also often mixed with other ingredients to make desserts. Image: lovesomei.com

Alright, after looking at so much delicious grass jelly in the middle of the night, are you a little hungry?--The good news is that grass jelly actually does not really satisfy hunger.

This article is a 2016 article from Species Calendar, from Species Calendar author @Desert Porcupine.

Alright, come and think about it: if you were Qin Shi Huang, besides having Xu Fu bring back more immortal herb, what else would you plan to have him bring back along the way? (What, have you already enteredfood deliverymode!)

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Lamiaceae Origanum vulgare