The origin of beggar chicken is quite legendary. It is said that in the Qing Dynasty, at the foot of Yushan Mountain, a beggar begged for a chicken. As there were no cookers and seasonings, he couldn't cook food, so he baked it in a local way. Kill the chicken first, remove the hair and mud from the internal organs, and pile up the broken branches and leaves into a fire. Feel free to roast chicken and sleep. After waking up, I brushed the ashes and saw that the embers were still alive and there were cracks on the surface of the mud mass. I slapped my face on the ground, and the chicken feathers flew with mud shells, but the aroma was overflowing, which made people salivate. Have a good meal without burning their hands.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Zhu A 'er of Mountain View Garden tried to cook special dishes on the guest table according to legend. He slightly improved the beggar's method of stewing mud. After taking out the internal organs, he coated it with seasoning, stuffed fresh meat, raw shrimp, chicken gizzards, ham, mushrooms, spices and other assorted ingredients into the chicken's stomach, wrapped it with lotus leaves and high-temperature paper, coated it with mud, and then stewed the chicken. The chicken stewed in this way is crispy, tender, original and unique in flavor. Since then, Mountain View Garden has become famous for its famous dishes such as beggar chicken and so on.

Nowadays, the varieties of beggar chicken are Mountain View Garden beggar chicken, Wang Si beggar chicken, Yushan beggar chicken, etc., which have been included in Jiangsu cookbooks and China famous cookbooks.