Whenever you eat in Nujiang, Yunnan, there is always lacquer-oil chicken on the table — stir-fried or stewed in lacquer oil, fragrant with a hint of the freshness of trees and a lingering aftertaste. Lacquer oil is the fat pressed from the seed coats of the lacquer tree. In Nujiang, lacquer trees (below) grow in valleys and gullies at 970–2,800 m.

When the seeds ripen, the seed coats are pressed for oil. The clear oil solidifies into blocks on cooling, slightly paler than beeswax, whitish-yellow and glossy as if coated with wax, and is therefore also called lacquer wax (below).

Chop a chicken into pieces and boil it with ginger slices from cold water; two or three minutes after boiling, when the scum rises, remove the chicken, rinse and drain. Melt lacquer oil in a pan, stir-fry the chicken until golden, transfer it to a prepared earthen pot, add water and simmer gently for half an hour, adding salt and spring onions before serving. This makes a delicious lacquer-oil chicken stew (below).

Lacquer-oil chicken is a traditional high-value tonic food of the Lisu, Nu and other peoples. During breastfeeding after childbirth, after exhausting work or after falls and internal injuries, it is eaten to nourish the body, replenish qi and blood and strengthen sinews and bones; it is thus also regarded as an effective remedy for injury and illness. Note: some people with allergic constitutions may react to lacquer-oil chicken.