1. Dongpo elbow

In the Song Dynasty, Su Dongpo visited the Yongxiu area of ??Jiangxi and cured the disease of a local farmer's child. The farmer expressed his gratitude and specially allowed him to eat. During the dinner, Su Dongpo recited a poem: "Grass pearls are fragrant to the heart." The farmer who was cooking in the stove heard this and thought that this was Su Dongpo teaching him how to cook meat - "cook the whole meat with grass until the heart is fragrant", so he quickly put the pork and the straw that tied the meat into the pot to cook. Later generations called it Dongpo elbow.

2. Beggar’s Chicken

Beggar’s Chicken, also known as Changshu Beggar’s Chicken and Braised Chicken, is a traditional famous dish in Changshu, Jiangsu. It is prepared chicken wrapped in soil and lotus leaves. The production materials include fresh lotus leaves, yellow mud, live native chicken, etc.

The preparation method of beggar's chicken is similar to "Pao Dolphin", one of the "Eight Treasures" of the Zhou Dynasty. "Pao Dolphin" is made by wrapping the suckling pig with clay, grilling it, and then further processing it. The finished dish. It is bright red in color, fragrant, crispy and tender in texture, crispy and tender in the mouth, and has a unique flavor.

According to legend, a long time ago, there was a beggar who begged for food and ended up in a village in Changshu County. One day, he accidentally got a chicken and wanted to kill it and cook it, but he had neither cooking utensils nor seasonings. He came to the foot of Yushan Mountain, killed the chicken, removed its internal organs, and coated the feathers with yellow mud and firewood. He put the coated chicken in a fire and roasted it. When the mud dried and the chicken was cooked, he peeled off the mud shell, and the chicken feathers also followed the mud. The shell is taken off to reveal the chicken.

About 100 years ago, the "Shanjingyuan" restaurant in Yushan Resort in the northwest of Changshu County based on this legend, removed the rough and extracted the essence, and followed the example to create this chicken.

3. Dongpo Pork

Dongpo Pork is a wonder among Hangzhou’s traditional dishes. It is red in color, rich in juice and mellow in taste, and the meat is crispy and not broken. It is characterized by its crispy taste but not greasy taste. Speaking of "Dongpo Pork", there is an interesting story circulating. Su Dongpo, a writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, offended the emperor in the second year of Yuanfeng (1079 AD) and was demoted to Huangzhou. He often cooked food himself to "taste" it with his friends.

After the death of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, when Su Dongpo was re-appointed and transferred to Hangzhou as an official, most of the West Lake had been submerged by fungi. He mobilized tens of thousands of migrant workers to clear the fields and dredge the lake port, and piled the excavated mud into a long embankment, which was later called Sugong Embankment. In order to praise Su Dongpo's merits, the common people would send pork to Su Dongpo during the Spring Festival to express their feelings.

When Su Dongpo received the pork, he asked his family to cut the meat into cubes and cook it using his own cooking methods. He also sent the wine to each household according to the roster of migrant workers. But when the family cooked it, they misunderstood "sending it with wine" as "cooking it with wine". However, the cooked braised pork was more crispy and delicious, and the eaters praised it, and it was later named "Dongpo Pork". ”

4. Stinky tofu

Wang Zhihe is from Xianyuan, Anhui. In the eighth year of Emperor Kangxi's reign in the Qing Dynasty (AD 1669), after he went to Beijing to take the exam and failed, he stayed in the Anhui Guild Hall in Yangrou Hutong, Yanshou Temple Street outside Qianmen due to financial constraints. In order to take the exam again next time, while studying, he came up with a little skill of grinding tofu in the countryside to make a living. One time, the tofu made by Wang Zhihe was not sold out. It was midsummer, and he was afraid of spoilage, so he cut the tofu into square pieces. Cut into pieces, add salt, pepper and other condiments, and marinate in a vat.

Afterwards, he forgot about it until autumn. He opened the cylinder cover and found that the tofu turned green and the smell was overwhelming. He tasted it and found that it had a unique flavor. He distributed it to the neighbors in the guild hall and everyone was amazed after tasting it. Wang Zhihe failed in many attempts, so he gave up his ambition to be an official and devoted himself to running a stinky tofu business.

In the seventeenth year of Kangxi (AD 1678), he opened a workshop on Yanshou Temple Street and hung up the signboard "Wang Zhihe Sauce Garden", which instantly became famous in the capital. At first, stinky tofu was only a delicious food for poor laborers. It was eaten with stinky tofu in steamed buns, which had a unique flavor. By the time of Guangxu, stinky tofu not only entered the palace, but also became part of the palace menu.

The "use" of stinky tofu makes it worth a hundred times. Some celebrities also wrote poems to praise it. Sun Jiading, the number one scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, wrote a couplet praising: "The delicious food spreads thousands of miles to you, and my heavenly secret nourishes the heart"; "The sauce is mixed with dragon's duck and peony, and the chicken feet are blooming in the garden with hibiscus." Today, Wang Zhihe’s stinky tofu is sold abroad, and foreigners call it Chinese cheese.

5. Preserved eggs

Preserved eggs are also called preserved eggs and colored eggs. It is said that hundreds of years ago, on the shore of Taihu Lake where ducks gathered, there was a couple named Li who opened a small teahouse and also sold some side dishes, braised eggs and the like. The couple had no children but one daughter named Xiujuan.

One day, the weather was fine and the wind was gentle. The number of people visiting the lake suddenly increased, and the teahouse was also crowded with guests, keeping the family busy. In the rush, Xiujuan didn't see the two duck eggs on hand rolled into the stove ashes. A month later, I was discovered by a neighbor who came to borrow ashes to grow vegetables. I called my employer to break it and have a look. Not only did the egg whites not flow, but they also condensed together, revealing a transparent luster. I threw it into my mouth and tasted it. It's fragrant and soft, with an indescribable taste.

Everyone tasted a piece and all praised it. The eggs are delicious, what’s a good name for them? Xiujuan said happily: "You see so many patterns on the eggs, just for good luck, call them Easter eggs!" From then on, Li's teahouse started making Easter eggs, and customers from far and near came here. Later, because the eggs came from Taihu Lake, they were also called Taihu Easter Eggs. When it came to Beijing, a businessman named Chen from Zhangxinzhuang, Tong County, adapted the method of soaking the eggs. The preserved eggs they made were brightly colored and the center part of the yolk looked like caramel. They were called Beijing colored eggs or sugar-coated preserved eggs.