There are five rivers in Lake Tuohu crabs , not big, but the meat is sweet; golden eye circle silverfish , made into silverfish holding eggs, is the old man, the children are greedy for home cooking. These rivers and lakes, and "fat" some distance, but it is Bengbu people eat out of the fun and flavor.

The train carries a thousand flavors

In 1912, the Jinpu Railway was opened. Bengbu became a "stop" for trains to add water and coal, and for travelers to get off the train and rest. There were also merchant ships coming from Hongze Lake, loaded with Banpu Huaihua salt, in this collection and distribution. The former small town, became a bustling transportation hub, commercial town.

People who speak with different accents also bring different flavors.

In the early twentieth century in Bengbu, there were restaurants such as Jiangzhuikuan, Dongtianju and Hongqinglou, which could prepare a variety of dishes from the four major cuisines of Beijing and Tianjin, Huaiyang, Sichuan and Anhui. Hongqinglou is also said to have been helmed by an imperial chef who had been displaced from the Qing Palace ("Bengbu Market View").

With the opening of the Jinpu Railway and the Shanghai-Nanjing Line, the cosmopolitan lifestyle that was popular in Shanghai made its way to Bengbu along the railroad tracks. Some of the local restaurants began to serve Western food on the side, making salads, hams, pork chops, and other Western delicacies. After the founding of New China, Bengbu's restaurant industry flourished due to the inheritance of traditions and conscious importation of learning.

The temptation of southern sweetness and northern saltiness begins in the morning

There are countless ways to open the breakfast of Bengbu people. But the tone of each is cozy and warm. Sweet in the south, salty in the north, spicy in the east and sour in the west, the richness of the city's flavors begins to show from a slow breakfast.

What soup?

It's not uncommon to see two big words at a breakfast stand in Bengbu:

The complicated strokes are confusing: what soup is this? Yes, it's sá soup.

In the junction of Shandong, Jining, Zaozhuang, and Anhui, Suzhou, Mengcheng, etc., there is also the habit of drinking "sá soup" for breakfast. Shandong is written as "grits", Anhui is written as "month?" (one word).

As early as in the "Rituals - Nei Zi" is recorded: "grits, take cattle, sheep, boar meat, three as one, small cuts, and rice. Rice two, meat one, combined as a bait, fried." It can be seen that the main ingredients of sá soup are meat and cereals, which is a long history of Middle Kingdom flavor.

But unlike other regions where mutton and beef are used, Bengbu's sá soup is mainly cooked with chicken, and in some cases, with cock. Often it takes a day to select the ingredients, put the chicken, wheat seeds, and various spices into a cauldron, and simmer for more than ten hours before the hot sá soup is served on the table the next morning.

But the process of making sá soup doesn't end in the kitchen.

Often, the owner of a breakfast restaurant will crack an egg into a bowl, whisk it, and then wash it down with a big spoonful of boiling sá soup in front of the customer. When the egg in the soup noodle wisps of diffusion, diners have long been hungry, but the boss is still not slow to point on the sesame oil, sprinkle pepper, an overflowing meat and eggs and wheat flavor of the morning before the real start.

The heat, flavor, and freshness of sá soup give it its versatility. It is both the protagonist and the base in breakfast. Whether it's the savory aroma of Beef Pancake Buns, the freshness of Small Dumpling Soup Buns, or the crispiness of the fritters, it's easy to navigate and complement each other.

Four-color Lanterns in Wine Soup: The Blind Box of Desserts

Because of the development of trade and transportation, the people of Bengbu have a long history of eating sweets. One of the most unique and widely spread is the four-color Lanterns in Wine Soup.

The so-called "four colors" of the "color", not in the skin, but in the filling. The four fillings - hawthorn, bean paste, sesame, and osmanthus - are rolled in the same cauldron. The four-color Yuanxiao with wine in muddy soup is made in clear soup and boiled in muddy soup. After the first boil, the amber-colored sugar oil made from sugar, wine wine, and sugar osmanthus is added, and the clear broth turns into a thick, sweet, pink-colored broth. Egg-sized Lanterns, white and chubby, four will be full of a bowl, each one a filling, a bowl of exactly four.

It's a mystery how the staff recognize the different fillings in the same pot. This is the store's philosophy of life: to know what flavor the next Lantern will be, you have to try it yourself with a casual mindset. The surprise is just between the lips and teeth.

Beef Box: Carbohydrate Pandora

Beef Box, which also has a place in breakfast.

Beef and vermicelli filling full to hold up the crust, pan-fried until half-cooked, and cracked with a duck egg. The oily, fragrant box of beef is truly - bigger than your face. Eaten with a light cowpea ragout, the satisfaction lasts all morning.

Many people who have eaten Bengbu's beef box are reminded of Tianjin's famous beef pies. This is as natural as people familiar with the dialects of the two cities marveling at the similarities between the Tianjin and Bengbu dialects.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di, the King of Yan, after the "war of pacification", had deployed a large number of people from northern Anhui and northern Jiangsu to guard the Tianjin guards; at the end of the Qing Dynasty, a large number of Tianjin railroad workers went down to the south to build the Tsinpu Railway. The bloodline between the two cities has a long history of kinship.

A south and a north, so similar to the two foods. Is it the hometown memories of the soldiers in the north, or is it the food style of the workers in the south? The secret of Carbohydrate Pandora has to be further unraveled.

Gluten Bubble: I'm not a doughnut

When it comes to doughnuts, almost all Chinese people in the north and south of the Yangtze River can say a few words about the legend of the "deep-fried Qin Hui". Bengbu has a breakfast that is a close relative of the doughnut.

With two thin braziers, the batter is hooked up, and the batter is constantly hooked back and forth in a hot frying pan, where it rolls and expands to become doughnut-like, but shorter and thicker gluten bubbles.