Tianma Soup (天麻汤 – 温补)

Over the last decade, I started to have migraine.  It became so bad, that the doctors thought I had a stroke: I could not move the left side of my body, and I could not speak coherently.  I could not even smile properly.

After a series of checks and scares of TIA (Transient Ishaemic Attack), I was cleared of anything that serious. The stroke-like symptoms, though for only a few hours, was scary and disturbing.  They diagnosed it as migraine aura.

When my older kids were young, the Chinese coaches used to bring them to Kunming for high altitude training just before their competitions. The air there is thin and that is supposed to improve their performance. I accompanied them when they were young.

Our driver in Kunming comes from a family of Chinese doctors. I had wanted to know about dog meat and why they eat it in winter. She told me that dog meat is not suitable for young children, as it is too strong (补)。She recommended that I give my children tianma (天麻) weekly.  Not too strong, and good for their brains.  I did that religiously for a year or two, and then stopped when it became hard to get the tianma.

Here’s her recipe, and drink it like a soup.

tianma soup

Note:

The last serious migraine attack I had was in August 2014, when I had to be rushed to the hospital and went through two weeks of checks. I resumed taking this soup since November 2014, and did not have any major attack since, though I still get mild headaches once in two months.  I used to get a serious attack every month.

My mum is 80 years old and I observed that she is losing her memory. So, I gave her a bag of this tianma plant and gave her these instructions to cook for herself weekly.  She told me she has a better memory now. I notice she is not so forgetful as well, at least she knows the way to the toilet in my house!

The only way to get the whole tianma is to buy them in China, and only in Yunnan. To know if you’ve gotten good tianma, they have to look ugly.  The pretty and plump ones are farm-grown, while the uglier ones are picked from the wild.

You cannot import those whole ones, but can find slices in most parts of the world, and you cannot send them via post from China.  The real McCoy is not expensive if you manage to lay your hands on it, but is apparently a controlled product.  I get mine from friends who would carry them by the kilograms for me.