It is well known that Zhang Daqian is a great painter and calligrapher, but few people may know that he is also a gourmet, and he can not only eat, but also cook, and has created many dishes of his own.

In the 1940s, he inspected the Dunhuang Grottoes and stayed in the wild for more than two years. Under such difficult conditions, he still left behind a menu of dishes that he created using the resources he could find, including: large pieces of boiled mutton, honey-glazed ham, scrambled eggs with yuqian, fried chicken slices with tender alfalfa, Stewed haggis with fresh mushrooms, stewed chicken with abalone, sardines, shredded chicken, jujube and yam seeds. Abalone and sardines were canned food he brought over. Mushrooms, alfalfa, elm money, yams, chickens, and sheep were all dug or bought locally. Alfalfa is a wild vegetable that is usually used to feed pigs, and he can also fry it. Of course, so are vegetables and Yuqian.

Before leaving Dunhuang, Zhang Daqian specially drew a secret map of the growing places of wild mushrooms and gave it to Chang Shuhong, who later served as the director of the Dunhuang Art Research Institute. The map clearly marked the locations of wild mushrooms. The picking routes and picking times also indicate where the wild mushrooms grow best and taste best.

Zhang Daqian also likes a dish called South Leg Hat Knot. The south leg refers to Jinhua ham, and the "hat knot" originally refers to the knot in the middle of the top of men's hats in the Qing Dynasty. The Maojie in this dish is a kind of slender young bamboo shoots. They are bought dry and soaked until soft. Each bamboo shoot is tied into a knot before being put into the pot, so it is called Maojie. In fact, this dish is ham stewed with bamboo shoots. Zhang Daqian named it "South Leg Hat Knot". The soup of this dish is thick and white, and the meat is juicy and crispy.

In the 1930s, Zhang Daqian often went to a Fujian restaurant called Chunhualou in Wudao Temple outside Xuanwumen, Beijing. He specially designed a dish for Chunhua House called Silver Beef, which later became Chunhua House's signature dish. The method of making this dish is to cut the beef tenderloin into thin strips and coat it with thick gravy, then place the shredded beef in a mesh-shaped spoon made of wire, and immerse the spoon in the oil. The oil is best lard, or a mixture of lard and rapeseed oil. The spoon is constantly swaying in the oil, and it will be lifted out in about thirty to fifty seconds. At this time, the beef is tender and fragrant.

Zhang Daqian is also fond of eating chicken butts, and his representative dish is mushroom-roasted chicken tails. He became obsessed with this dish when he was in Shanghai. When he returned to Chengdu during the Anti-Japanese War, he asked his chef to find twenty cocktails and made a full plate himself.

Another dish that Zhang Daqian likes to cook is soft-fried fried fingers. This dish is made by washing the pig fat intestines, steaming them in a cage and then soft-frying them. When the dish is ready, it will be golden-red in color, crispy on the skin, tender on the inside, soft and fragrant. When eating, wrap it with lettuce and dip it in sweet and sour sauce.

When Zhang Daqian was sixty-one years old, he held an art exhibition in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo Sichuan Hotel specially invented a dish for him called Liusi Cai. This dish is made of six kinds of vegetables, including mung bean sprouts, magnolia buds, enoki mushrooms, leek yellow, celery white, and coriander stalks, plus shredded ham. It is the so-called six vegetables and one meat, with four colors of red, white, green, and yellow. Later, this dish would be served every time he entertained guests, and it became a reserved dish for his family banquets.