Sitting the Month: Postpartum Recipes For Rest & Recovery

After the birth of her first child, Clarissa Wei checked into a Taiwanese confinement center to observe zuò yuè zi, or “sitting the month,” the Chinese tradition of devoting the weeks after childbirth to rest, warmth, and restorative food. Instead of feeling cared for, Wei found herself overwhelmed by rules no one explained and meals whose purpose she didn’t understand.

She spent the next two and a half years speaking with herbalists, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, and Western physicians, then approached her own recovery differently after the birth of her second child. 

The resulting 88 recipes preserve the nourishing premise of zuò yuè zi while adapting its cooking for contemporary home kitchens. Gingery chicken congee with goji berries becomes a complete meal; cordyceps flower and black dates lend a smoky sweetness to chicken soup; and roasted Eucommia bark is brewed with black soybeans, goji berries, and jujubes. Egg drop seaweed soup, scallion oil chicken, black vinegar pork knuckle stew, and the elaborate Ten Tonic Supreme Soup round out a collection informed by traditional Chinese medicine without treating its practices as unquestionable rules.

Wei’s larger argument is a generous one: postpartum recovery deserves time, good food, and care, and understanding the traditions surrounding it allows new mothers to decide for themselves which ones still serve them. 

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.