Tracing back to the source, "Dongpo Meat" was first produced in Xuzhou. According to the Records of Famous Cuisine in Xuzhou Ancient and Modern Times, when Su Shi was well-known in Xuzhou, the Yellow River burst, and Su Shi took the lead in building dikes to protect the city with the people of the whole city.

The people in Xuzhou slaughtered pigs and sheep and went to the government to comfort them. Su Shi could not refuse, so he instructed his family to cook braised pork to give back to the people. After eating it, people feel fat but not greasy, crisp and delicious, so they call it "back meat." When Su Shi was relegated to Huangzhou, he wrote the Song of Cooking Meat, and people began to imitate it, calling it Dongpo Meat.

When Su Shi was appointed as the second magistrate of Hangzhou, he made great contributions to dredging the West Lake. When everyone gave him wine and meat to celebrate the New Year, Su Shi ordered pork and wine to be cooked for migrant workers. His family mistakenly thought that rice wine was cooked with pork, but everyone felt crisper and more delicious after eating it. The reputation of "Dongpo Meat" slowly spread all over the country.

Dongpo meat, also known as boiled meat and braised pork, is a famous traditional dish in the south of the Yangtze River, belonging to Zhejiang cuisine, with pork as the main ingredient. The dishes are thin and tender, red and bright in color, rich in juice, crisp and rotten but not broken, fragrant and waxy but not greasy. Slow fire, less water and more wine are the keys to cooking this dish.

Dongpo meat is found in Zhejiang cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Hubei cuisine and other cuisines, and there are different practices in different places, such as cooking first and then burning, cooking first and then steaming, and stewing directly to get juice. The main components and shapes are similar. The main ingredient is half-fat and half-thin pork, and the finished dish is neatly packed mahjong tiles with bright red agate color, soft but not rotten, fat but not greasy.