The Five Flavors of Food (4 Volumes)

Zhang Ding is an author about whom limited public information is available. His works span several fields, including health, culture, theory, and history. Four of his books are included in the collection. In the area of health, there are Annotated Translation of Dietetic Materia Medica and The Five Flavors of Food (4 volumes); the former offers translation and annotation of traditional dietetic materia medica texts, while the latter introduces knowledge about the five flavors of food in a multi-volume format, reflecting his interest in traditional Chinese dietary and health culture. In design and technology, he wrote the After Effects Cross-Platform UI Motion Design Tutorial, which addresses the practical aspects of interface motion design. Liu Hua: An Illustrated Biography is a historical work in the biography category. These works show that Zhang Ding writes across a wide range of subjects, combining traditional textual scholarship, health popularization, design tutorials, and biographical accounts for different readerships.

Lin Hong's biographical details are scarce in publicly available records: his native place, dates of birth and death, and official career are difficult to verify with certainty. Nevertheless, his work Shan Jia Qing Gong (Pure Offerings of the Mountain Household) holds considerable importance in Chinese writings on food. Compiled in the Song dynasty, the book focuses on the everyday fare of rural households, recording cooking methods, evaluations of ingredients, and related poems and allusions. Lin Hong's prose is clear, restrained, and elegant; he blends recipes with anecdotes and poetic sensibility, lending ordinary vegetables and simple dishes a distinctly literati charm. The library also holds Shi Zhi Wu Wei (The Five Flavors of Food, 4 volumes), which continues his attention to the flavors of food and shows that his writing on cuisine extends beyond kitchen matters to seasonal produce and the pleasures of daily life. Reading his works today offers a glimpse of ancient dietary customs as well as a sense of a plain, self-possessed attitude toward living. Given the lack of historical sources, Lin Hong's own life still awaits further research.

Zhu Yizun (1629–1709), courtesy name Xichang and art name Zhucha, was a native of Xiushui (present-day Jiaxing), Zhejiang. A literary figure, scholar and bibliophile of the early Qing dynasty, he passed the boxue hongci examination in 1678, the eighteenth year of the Kangxi reign, was appointed to the Hanlin Academy as a compiler, and took part in compiling the History of the Ming. His poetry was ranked alongside that of Wang Shizhen, while in ci he founded the Zhexi school and exerted a profound influence on early Qing ci poetry. He compiled Ci Zong to set out his views on the genre, and his Jingzhi Ju Qin Qu reflects his own ci style. His scholarly works include Ri Xia Jiu Wen and Kao of the Disciples of Confucius, and his Baishu Ting Ji also survives. Five of his works are held here, covering ci anthologies, food culture and Eastern philosophy.

Yuan Mei (1716–1798), courtesy name Zicai and pseudonym Jianzhai, was a native of Qiantang, Zhejiang, and a Qing-dynasty poet, essayist, literary critic, and gastronome. A jinshi of 1739, he served as a county magistrate in Jiangning and elsewhere before retiring in midlife to Suiyuan in Nanjing. He championed the "xingling" theory of poetry, which stresses genuine feeling and individual expression, and was known together with Zhao Yi and Jiang Shiquan as one of the "Three Masters of the Qianjia Era." His works range widely: Suiyuan shihua comments on poetry, Suiyuan shidan records the art of cooking and eating, and Zi buyu collects tales of the strange. His writing is fresh and natural, and Suiyuan shidan combines practical guidance with literary value. This library holds 46 of his works, spanning poetry criticism, food writing, prose miscellanies, and classical literature.