Earlier this year, we realized that we had been feeding our sixteen-year-old cat complementary food instead of complete food. As we desperately sought advice from our feline-keeping friends, we learned that many have personally tasted cat food and have cooked for their furry companions.A cat once owned by a childhood friend was fed dendrobium nobile, the pricey Chinese herb known as the ‘never-dying plant,’ in her final years. Reality and fantasy may have mixed in memory: he lived to be twenty-seven years old.

In parallel to our arduous feeding reform, we invite friends to share their home recipes and explore myths of edible immortality.