When I was a student in China, breakfast was always my favorite meal of the day, and I always ordered the Chinese breakfast instead of the Western breakfast. Chinese breakfasts always include dilute rice soup or congee. Such rice porridges can be modified in almost infinite ways by adding this or that ingredient to it. There are even restaurants in Hong Kong which serve nothing but congee. There's a huge pot of boiling rice soup and a buffet of scores of different possible additions. These run the gamut from chopped scallion to slivered raw fish. If one adds one or two Chinese medicinals to their congee, one can make a healthy breakfast designed to treat just about every condition under the sun. There are congees for common cold and asthma, for diabetes and arthritis, and for dysmenorrhea and infertility. In addition, there are long life congees designed to prevent disease and maintain maximum health way into old age. Because my wife and I love to eat congee ourselves, the research for this book was a joy to undertake, and I hope more Westerners consider eating congee instead of eggs and bacon or sugar-filled cold cereal with chilled milk.

AUTHORBIO: Bob Flaws, Dipl. Ac. & C.H., is one of the most famous Western doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the world today. An internationally known author and lecturer on Chinese medicine, Bob Flaws has been practicing and teaching Chinese medicine for more than 20 years. His other credits include writing, translating, and editing more than 100 books and scores of articles on all aspects of Chinese medicine, being a Fellow and past Governor of the National Academy of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine, a founder, past president, and Lifetime Fellow of the Acupuncture Association of Colorado, a Fellow of the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine (UK), and a founder of the Council of Oriental Medical Publishers and the National Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine Alliance.

REVIEW: Flavor & Fortune, December 1997, p.13: "Time honored combinations of any member of the grains, vegetables, meat, eggs, and/or Chinese herbs make porridge known as jook or congee. For most folk, they are breakfast foods. They are also easily made overnight in a crock pot, economical, popular among the elderly, nutritious, and delicious."

BACKCOVER: This book is all about Chinese medicinal porridges, or in Cantonese, jook. Usually cooked in a crock pot overnight, jook is a combination of specific grains, vegetables, meats, eggs, and Chinese herbs. These porridges can be used either as the main or supporting treatment of numerous diseases or preventively to promote good health and long life. Delicious and nutritious, they offer an easy and economical way to revolutionize the typical Western breakfast, often referred to as "a heart attack on a plate."

Author Bob Flaws is one of the leading Western authorities on Chinese medicine. Having written dozens of books and scores of articles in professional journals, in this book Dr. Flaws offers hundreds of time-tested remedies that can easily be incorporated into anyone's diet.

This book is an introduction to the tradition of Chinese medicinal porridges, called jook in Cantonese and "congee" or "porridge" in English. By combining specific grains, vegetables, meats, eggs or various Chinese herbs and simmering them in a crock-pot overnight, one can cook up medicinal porridges for every type of ailment. Hundreds of medicinal porridge recipes are included for both prevention and remedial purposes. This book can be used by laypersons as well as physicians.