Content

The work reflects Yuan's "orthodox" literati stance on Chinese cuisine, which derided the opulent displays and dishes in banquets of his time. Yuan also resented what he regarded as the corruption of Chinese food by Manchu cooks. The work contains a preface, two chapters on gastronomy, and 12 chapters on recipes using various ingredients:

• "Preface" (序)

• "Essential Knowledge" (須知單): 20 sections

• "Things to Avoid" (戒單): 14 sections

• "Seafood" (海鮮單): 9 sections

• "River Delicacies" (江鮮單): 9 sections

• "Sacrificial Animal" pork (特牲單): 43 sections

• "Various Animals"' (雜牲單): 16 sections

• "Poultry" (羽族單): 56 sections

• "Scaled Fish" (水族有鱗單): 17 sections

• "Scaleless Fish" (水族無鱗單): 28 sections

• "Various Vegetable Dishes" (雜素菜單): 47 sections

• "Small Dishes" (小菜單): 41 sections

• "Appetizers and Dim Sum" (點心單): 55 sections

• "Rice and Congee" (飯粥單): 2 sections

• "Tea and Wine" (茶酒單): 16 sections

Foods and theory

A wide variety of foods and recipes are presented in the Recipes from the Garden of Contentment that show the gustatory preferences of Yuan Mei and people during the mid-18th century. For instance, a particular recipe to imitate roe-filled mitten crabs, shows that the demand and intense fondness for crab and crab-roe in Chinese cuisine goes back several centuries, and that people have also actively attempted to find a substitute for it when it is unavailable:

Annotated manuscript

More than half a century after the publication of the Recipes from the Garden of Contentment, Xia Chuanzheng (, 1843–1883) annotated and expanded the contents of the original work and published it as the Recipes from the Garden of Contentment, Extended and Rectified (; ). The modified work contains two additional chapters:

• "Sweeteners and colourants" (糖色單)

• "Condiments" (作料單)

The original text was also thoroughly annotated with reference to Chinese historical and philosophical works, and listed therapeutic effects of the food based on traditional Chinese medicine. Correction to errors in Recipes from the Garden of Contentment were also provided by Xia along with sometimes humorous anecdotes about the foods.

Bilingual translation

A bilingual Chinese and English version was published in 2018 as Recipes from the Garden of Contentment, translated by Sean J. S. Chen. It is 428 pages in this hardback edition, with extensive annotations, illustrations, and a glossary. In 2019, it was republished in trade-paperback form as The Way of Eating. The book was developed from the author's online translation project, Way of the Eating, developed from 2013 through 2017.

目錄

續作

後清光緒年間夏曾傳（字薪卿，號笏床，別號醉犀生）於此書基礎上再次進行增補修訂，完成《隨園食單補證》。