Xuzhou cuisine

The local cuisine in Xuzhou is a blend of many of the flavours of northern and southern China, as a result of the location of Xuzhou. It is known for a number of dishes, including those below, and various dog meat dishes.

Xuzhou's cuisine tends to be high in fat and salt. Restaurants use a lot of oil and salt in their cooking, including vegetable dishes and soups. Meat is often very fatty, and it tends to be chopped up with the bones still in it.

In the history of Jiangsu diet culture, Xuzhou cuisine not only occupies an extremely important position but also is one of the birthplaces of the whole Chinese food culture. It reflected the earliest Chinese cooking theory and witnessed the formation of the Chinese cuisine.

Context

China covers a vast geographic area with 56 nationalities, hence a variety of Chinese food with different but fantastic and mouthwatering flavor. Each area has a distinct style of cooking, for example, northern Chinese food is salty, simple, fewer vegetables with wheat as the staple food; Western China food is hearty halal food with lamb the main meat, etc1.

Xuzhou in China's Jiangsu Province, also known as Pengcheng, has more than 3000 years history. It is in a special geographic area, which located in the line of the Qinling -Huaihe (the line separated north and south of eastern China) and also is the junction of Beijing, Shanghai, Longhai and other railways.

List of notable dishes

English	Traditional Chinese	Simplified Chinese	Pinyin	Notes
Xuzhou-style popiah	烙饃	烙馍	lào mó	A foodlike burrito in some way, in Xuzhou dialect sounds like luǒ mó
Wok braised chicken	地鍋雞	地锅鸡	dì guō jī
Strung pork belly	把子肉	把子肉	bǎ zǐ ròu
Diced meat with vegetables	千刀肉	千刀肉	qiān dāo ròu
Stuffed fresh fish with square mutton	羊方藏魚	羊方藏鱼	yáng fāng cáng yú
Stewed dog meat with soft-shelled turtle	黿汁狗肉	鼋汁狗肉	yuán zhī gǒu ròu	The Asian giant soft-shell turtle, namely "鼋" in Chinese, used to serve as the ingredient, has been replaced by common soft-shell turtles as the former became endangered in modern era, but the Chinese name of the dish still retains the character "鼋"
Xuzhou-style spicy soup	辣湯	辣汤	là tāng	Different from Henan's, its main ingredients are chicken, pig bone, swamp eel, gluten, pepper, spring onion and ginger
Sha soup	𮨻湯[note 1]	𬲱汤[note 2]	shá tāng	According to legend, this chicken soup was invented by the legendary Peng Zu in ancient times. In order to make the broth, chicken is stewed for 3 hours with chops before it is removed. The chicken meat is sliced and added to the broth together with hulled wheat, ground star anise, ground chili, onion and ginger juice. Then after two more hours’ brewing, the starchy sauce is added to thicken it with more seasonings including ground pepper, vinegar, sesame oil and the sliced chicken meat.
Soup of assorted ingredients	燒雜拌	烧杂拌	shāo zá bàn	Usually only be treated in local banquet
Tadpole-like liangfen	瓦魚（~兒）	瓦鱼（~儿）	wǎ yú （~ér）	Be made from the starch jelly. Its name nearly was written as "蛙鱼" nowadays, namely the frog in Chinese[1] It is soft and gelatinous. The broth is a little sour and it is better with spice

Others include:

• Ground pan is originating from the traditional cooking method of farmers of Xuzhou. By putting chicken, fish and other articles into an iron pan and cooking it on an oven with wood. When the water in the pan boils, then sticking the bread on the pan edge. It is similar to braising chicken/ fish in sauce. The taste is salty and spicy, and both the soup and bread are very delicious.
• Luomo (baked bread) is made by the unfermented flour. With a thickness of about 0.1 cm, it can be rolled into a kind of snack or subsidiary foodstuff. It has a smooth feeling and is better to eat with Sangza, which is a kind of fried food and similar to the crisp noodle.
• Lamb Soup—the Fu Yang Festival is the most popular activity, which is starting on the day of Chufu (around mid-July depends on the lunar calendar)