Litchi meat is a traditional dish in Fuzhou and Putian, Fujian Province, which belongs to Fujian cuisine. This dish has a history of two or three hundred years. Because there are white water chestnut and pork cut into cross knives in the raw materials, it is named after its appearance resembles litchi. The production method is to cut lean pork into oblique blocks with a cross knife. Because the depth and width of the incision are uniform and suitable, it is fried and curled into the shape of litchi, and is equipped with seasonings such as red distiller's grains, balsamic vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil and wet starch.

There are also allusions to the origin of litchi meat. Legend has it that there was a concubine's hometown in Fujian, which was rich in litchi in the Tang Dynasty. Because she has been away from home for many years, she will never forget the taste of litchi every year, so she will let the chef around her cook a delicious food similar to litchi, so she got this litchi meat.

The legend of litchi meat

According to legend, during the Northern Song Dynasty, Cai Jing, a native of Xianyou Fengting, once presented Puxian folk snack "Litchi Meat" to Sima Guang for tasting when he was an official in the DPRK, which was deeply appreciated. Cai Jing worked as a scholar in Xining for three years, first as a local official and then as a scholar in China. At that time, it was Wang Anshi who promoted the political reform, and Cai Jing advocated the new law, which was very appreciated by Wang Anshi. But then Wang Anshi fell from power, Sima Guang's old party came to power, and Cai Jing and have it both ways immediately catered to the current situation.

As Wang Anshi's confidant for many years, Cai Jing fully supported Sima Guang to abolish Wang Anshi's new law, but it was difficult to dispel Sima Guang's concern about Cai Jing's younger brother marrying Wang Anshi's daughter, and he always thought that he could not be reused. Cai Jing, who can turn his hands into clouds and cover his hands for rain for more than ten years in the imperial court, can start from other aspects even if there is no room for Sima Guang politically.

Sima Guang is famous for his food, but he has never heard of the food in his hometown of Cai Jing. In order to win Sima Guang in one fell swoop, Cai Jing stayed in the library for five days, but fortunately, he remembered a book "Litchi Spectrum" written by his grandfather Cai Xiang, in which he might find a wonderful prescription.