My Maodong Experience in 2025

by Chloe Wang

A slow living approach to winter, guided by food, memories, and simple pleasures.

A Shift in The Air

This year’s summer in Shanghai felt endless. It began with the Monsoon season, full of wet and heavy rain, then shifted into a scorching heat that drained every bit of my energy. By the end of October, I was still wearing a T-shirt, applying bug repellent before going out, and wondering when the osmanthus trees would finally bloom.

When the temperature finally dropped, it felt like I could finally breathe again after holding my breath for months. As a northerner living in the south, that first swirl of cold air in my nose brought back a flood of winter memories. I remembered how my parents would buy huge piles of Chinese cabbage and store them outside on our balcony in the cold. For weeks, we ate cabbage stew with braised pork and sweet potato noodles, or cabbage dumplings that tasted even better during freezing cold days.

The Slow Rhythm of Winter Cooking

If you travel further north than Beijing, this winter ritual becomes even more serious. In the northeast, people prepare for the long season by turning almost everything into something preserved. Cabbage, pickles, fermented vegetables, jars of sauce, and anything that can last through the cold winters are made in big batches with a sense of pride and practicality.

Just as cats curl up for warmth, people do the same. Homes glow with the comfort of centralized heating. Kitchens stay busy with pots bubbling, steam rising, and the smell of something warm filling the air. Food becomes a way to push through winter and a way to celebrate it. Maodong, which literally translates to “cat winter,” describes this quiet, cozy, and very natural way of welcoming the cold. It is a season of slowing down, staying in, and letting simple food remind us of warmth and belonging.

Gurgles, Bubbles, and Surprises in the Kitchen

Since this past spring, I have been the proud owner of a large pickling jar that many people in Sichuan use for vegetable pickling and fermentation. It is a glass jar with a big rounded belly in the middle, and on top it has a very smart and intricate design to stay sealed. There is an extended moated neck where you pour water, and a small round lid that sits on top, its edges submerging into the moat. The lid, together with the ring of water around the neck, keeps outside air from entering. At the same time, the fermentation process creates lactic acid and gas inside the jar, so in the first few days you can often hear the water gurgling.

Sometimes the sound pops up out of nowhere and catches you by surprise.

Although many Sichuan OGs would probably argue that glass jars are not ideal for true Sichuan fermentation, since traditional ceramic jars provide better sealing and temperature control, I still chose glass. As an amateur, I love being able to watch the entire process unfold. It also lets me congratulate myself every time something goes right in my little fermentation experiments.

As I write this, the first jar I started at the beginning of November is still slowly working its way through its fermentation process. The vegetables already look amazing, and I cannot wait to take the long beans out for a quick stir fry, but I need to wait for the nitrite level to drop after about twenty days.

Every morning, I wake up, open the kitchen door, and walk to the corner of the counter to check on the jar. I watch the clear liquid slowly turn milky as the days go by. I see large bubbles rise and then shrink into tiny ones. I add a bit of water to the ring on top to ensure it stays sealed. Sometimes the jar makes a sudden sound that startles me.

These are good days. 

A Little Sour Spark

On a recent trip to Beijing, we sat at a well-known pizza place in Sanlitun at 9 pm. It felt different from the pizza places in Shanghai, where people sit facing the street, speak English with their international friends, and listen to music that is always a little too loud. Restaurants in Beijing feel less bougie. People actually greet you instead of standing behind the counter pretending to be busy. The servers are not just young people who could not care less about their customers. That was a bit mean, I have to admit, but what I really mean is that Beijing feels more down to earth. Even though the city is joked as a “culinary desert”, something about it still feels like home.

Alongside our American style pizzas, we ordered carbonated drinks made with hawthorn pulp. Hawthorn is a fruit that is most common in the northern parts of China. Bright red, tangy, and filled with seeds, it is used in one of the most typical winter treats we grew up with, called táng hú lu (冰糖葫芦). Táng hú lu is traditionally made with skewered hawthorns dipped in hot sugar syrup that hardens into a shiny shell. The sweetness balances the tartness and creates a perfect winter dessert. Whenever you see someone on the street carrying a whole branch of hawthorns, you know winter has truly arrived.

The drink was amazing, with a perfect balance of sweetness from the syrup and tartness from the hawthorn pulp. Combined with carbonated water, it tasted bright, zingy, and was surprisingly addictive. In traditional Chinese medicine, hawthorn is also known as a great appetite opener and a gentle aid for digestion.

So, I messaged my mom to ask if we had harvested any hawthorn this year. Last week, a huge bag of bright red hawthorns arrived in Shanghai. What do I plan to do with them? Jam, of course. What better way to preserve the fruit than turning it into jam and enjoying it for the rest of the winter.

Winter, At Last

Now the cold rain has arrived in Shanghai. People are suddenly digging out their winter coats. Osmanthus has bloomed and disappeared again, making me wonder whether those days when the streets were filled with its fragrance were even real. I know they were, because I managed to save a little bit of that sweetness in the glass jars in my kitchen. Maodong is settling in as the days turn colder, and I find myself thinking about those short-lived moments that felt so good while they lasted.