Spleen Meridian Summer: Cooling Foods & TCM Nourishment

Your Body Knows: Why Summer Cravings Follow TCM Logic

In the summer heat, when humidity rises from the pavements and the air itself seems to steam, I find myself wanting a glass of watermelon juice. Or a mojito, if the vibe calls for it. I also want to stop at a gelato shop and order at least two scoops, enough to keep the cooling sensation in my mouth all the way to wherever I am going.

If you have felt this too, it is not a lack of self-control. It is your body responding to what the season demands. The ancient understanding that the human body and the natural order are inseparable. You did not need TCM to tell you what to want. The body already knew.

TCM simply explains why and gives us the tools to respond with a little more intention.

For more on why summer demands cooling, see Heart meridian emotions and heat

Four natures, five flavours

In TCM, food from nature is understood through two dimensions: the Four Natures and the Five Flavours. The Four Natures 四氣 (Sì qì) — cold, cool, warm, hot — describe a food's effect on the body's temperature. The Five Flavours 五味(Wǔwèi)— sour, bitter, salty, pungent, sweet — describe which organs a food nourishes and how it moves energy within the body.

Think of it like a wine specialist who can trace how a taste evolves across the tongue — first fruit, then earth, then a long finish that arrives somewhere unexpected. With attention, we can learn to feel the same thing with food: how sweetness gathers and settles, how bitterness clears, how pungency rises. The body is always giving this information. TCM gives us the language to understand it.

TCM Summer Foods: Cooling Nature, Bitter Flavour

Watermelon is cold in nature and sweet in flavour. In TCM, sweetness nourishes the spleen and stomach, the organs responsible for producing and distributing fluid throughout the body. Its coldness dissolves internal heat immediately. This is why watermelon cools, hydrates, and supports the body's natural elimination. 

The mint leaves in a mojito play a different role. Mint is cooling and pungent. When you chew mint-flavoured gum, the cooling sensation travels up through the tongue and sometimes reaches the sinuses, making you sneeze. In TCM, the pungent flavour carries energy upward, and mint takes that quality to its extreme. It does not simply cool the body as watermelon does. It actively disperses heat outward and upward, opening the channels through which the season's excess can leave.

Two ingredients in one glass working together — one dissolving the heat from within, one dispersing it from without. 

Generational Wisdom: How Asian Families Use Seasonal Eating

I grew up in Hong Kong, where eating according to the season was simply what families did. We had stir-fried bitter melon with black soybean marinated fish 苦瓜炒豆豉鯪魚 (Kǔguā chǎo dòuchǐ líng yú), old cucumber soup with azuki beans and lentils 黃瓜赤小豆扁豆湯 (Huángguā chìxiǎodòu biǎndòu tāng), and stuffed winter melon soup 冬瓜盅 (Dōngguā zhōng). These recipes passed from one generation to the next without anyone citing a medical framework. My mother used to say: eat melons in summer, vegetables in winter.

She had not studied TCM formally. Neither had her mother. But they were paying attention to what grew in each season, to what the body asked for, to what had always worked. This is perhaps the most important thing the Five Flavours framework teaches: not a set of rules to memorise, but a direction of attention. The wisdom was always available. TCM simply wrote it down.

Eating the season in Europe

Living in Switzerland, some of the traditional ingredients are not easy to find. I have learned to adapt. Old cucumber, which carries sweetness to nourish the spleen and is deeply hydrating, can be replaced with honeydew melon in the soup - the same energetic quality in a different name. I make a summer gazpacho by blending watermelon, tomatoes, bell pepper, basil, and peppermint together. The sweet and sour flavour acts as a digestive aid, supporting the stomach through the heaviness that summer heat can bring.

And the gelato. I have made my peace with one scoop instead of two. Ice helps cool the body temperature immediately, and I understand the impulse completely. But in TCM, excessive cold damages the spleen and stomach over time, impairing the very organs responsible for fluid distribution and digestion. One scoop is an act of joy. Two scoops, on the hottest days, is borrowing against tomorrow. 

The rule your body already follows

You do not need to memorise the Four Natures or the Five Flavours. You do not need to follow any specific recipes. The body has been following the season's logic long before either of us had words for it.

Learn from nature. Listen to your body. Follow the flow.

Five Elements Essential Oils: A TCM Body Type Guide

TCM’s Five Elements framework offers something Western astrology does not: a personalized map of your constitutional type, and the essential oils that support it. Discover which element you are, and the aromatherapy practice designed specifically for your body type.

The Scented Compass | Aromatherapy in TCM wisdomDaphne Lee

Postscript

The Cantonese dishes I mentioned are not difficult to make, and you can find all the ingredients in most Asian supermarkets. Stuffed winter melon soup — 冬瓜盅 (dōng guā zhōng) — is a particularly interesting dish. It can be prepared simply at home or elaborately in a restaurant, and the result is always a little theatrical.

Here is the home version. Use a whole mini winter melon with the peel intact rather than slices — the finished dish will look like a natural serving cup, which is half the pleasure of making it.

Stuffed Winter Melon Soup Recipe 冬瓜盅 (dōng guā zhōng)

Prep time: 30 min | Cook time: 2-2.5 hours | Serves: 2–3

Ingredients

• 1 mini winter melon (approximately 1–1.2 kg)
• 150g pork or chicken, diced
• 100g fresh shrimps, peeled and deveined
• 3 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked until soft, diced
• 2 slices of sandwich ham, diced
• 500–600ml clear chicken broth
• Seasoning Salt to taste

Method

1. Prepare the melon. Wash the winter melon thoroughly. Cut off the top third horizontally to create a lid. Use a spoon to scrape out the seeds and pulp. Carefully scoop out some of the inner flesh, leaving a wall approximately 1.5 cm thick. Dice the removed flesh and set it aside — it will go into the filling.

2. Prepare the cup. For presentation, cut a zigzag pattern around the rim of the opening. Rub a small pinch of salt inside the melon to remove the raw, grassy taste.

3. Pre-steam. Place the melon cup and its lid into a steamer. Steam on high heat for 15 minutes to soften the melon wall slightly and help it hold its shape during the long steam.

4. Assemble. Fill the melon cup with the diced melon flesh, pork or chicken, mushrooms, ham, and shrimps. Pour in the chicken broth until the cup is approximately 80% full.

5. Slow steam. Cover the melon with its lid. Return it to the steamer and steam over medium-high heat for 1.5 to 2 hours, until the melon flesh turns translucent and tender.

6. Finish. Ten minutes before the end of cooking, add the fresh shrimps. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning with salt just before serving.

To serve: scoop the soft melon flesh from the inner wall together with the soup and fillings into individual bowls. Serve at the table directly from the melon for the full effect.

In restaurants, the filling is typically upgraded — sandwich ham gives way to Jinhua ham — 金華火腿 (jīn huá huǒ tuǐ) — and the proteins shift toward seafood: fresh scallops, dried shrimps, and crab. Most impressively, the green peel of the winter melon is carved into elaborate scenes of Chinese landscape painting before the dish is served. It is a joy to eat and a pleasure to look at — one of those dishes where the craft is inseparable from the flavour.