Suzhou has a subtropical monsoon oceanic climate with four distinct seasons and abundant rainfall. It grows rice, wheat, and rape, and produces cotton, sericulture, and forest fruits. Its specialty products include Biluochun tea, Yangtze saury, Taihu whitebait, and Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs. Below I will provide you with a guide to delicious food in Suzhou. I hope you will like it!

1. Biluo Shrimp

Including live river shrimp in the Taihu Lake Basin and Dongting East and West Mountain famous teas It is cooked with Biluochun and has strong local characteristics of Suzhou.

The best white shell shrimps from Dongshan area are mainly used for shrimps. The main method is to squeeze the live shrimps out of the shrimps, add refined salt, egg white, and dry starch to make a slurry, and cook the lard until it is cooked for five seconds. When hot, slide the shrimp until they turn milky white, drain the oil with a colander, and stir-fry again over high heat. At this time, add 5 grams of Biluochun tea brewed in advance and MSG. Do not stir-fry too much, just stir it a few times. Pot and plate. At the same time, it is decorated with soaked tea leaves, with green and white contrasting each other, and the shape is delicious.

2. Beggar’s Chicken

Beggar’s Chicken is a famous dish in Changshu, Jiangsu Province, also known as yellow mud braised chicken. It is said that in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, a beggar at the foot of Yushan Mountain in Changshu got a chicken. He had no cooking utensils and seasonings. He had no choice but to slaughter it and remove the internal organs. Then he put the hair on it and smeared it with mud, put it in a pile of firewood and roasted it. After it was cooked, he knocked off the mud shell. The chicken feathers fall off the shell, and the aroma is overflowing. It happened that Qian Muzhai, a bachelor who lived in seclusion in Yushan, passed by and tried it. He felt that the taste was unique. When he returned home, he ordered his family to cook it in the same way with a little seasoning. It was even more delicious. Since then, it has become a famous dish and has been passed down to this day.

3. Mother oil chicken

Also known as hot pot oil chicken, it is a traditional dish of Changshu Wangsi Restaurant. The oil chicken is made from fat "four-yellow" new hens, and is carefully made with ingredients such as Yuliang, cinnamon, star anise, fennel, kaempferia, turmeric and other ingredients. When eating, it is topped with oil brine and dipped in soy sauce.

4. Taihu Lake Whitebait

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Taihu Lake was rich in whitebait. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, whitebait was listed as a tribute, and together with plum bream and white shrimp, it was known as the three treasures of Taihu Lake. Silverbait is shaped like a hosta, ivory-like in color, has cartilage without scales, tender meat, delicious taste, and is rich in nutrients. It contains protein, fat, iron, riboflavin, calcium, phosphorus and other ingredients. The Japanese call it "fish ginseng". Whitebait can be fried, fried, steamed, or made into soup. Whitebait scrambled eggs, whitebait soup, whitebait meatballs, hibiscus whitebait, etc. are all famous dishes in Suzhou cuisine.

Don’t forget the snacks when it comes to Suzhou delicacies. The queue for Cai Zhi Zhai’s fermented rice cakes is huge. Next is Ye Shouhe’s jujube paste sesame cake, as well as dried tofu, rice dumplings, vegetarian ham, Tang Sandao, etc., all worth trying. There are many small stalls full of life in the alleys of Suzhou. The most common ones are Suzhou snacks such as stinky dried tofu, shredded radish cakes, triangle buns, etc. It can be said that they are delicacies for the common people.

Suzhou seasonal delicacies

1. Qingtuanzi

During the Qingming Festival, people in Wu have the custom of eating Qingtuanzi. The uniqueness of Qingtuanzi is that the coloring of Qingtuanzi is a kind of wild vegetable called "qing". After picking the "green" and bringing it home, he washed it and boiled it with salt water. The whole house was filled with a faint grassy aroma. After the green dumplings are steamed, they are more fragrant and waxy than ordinary dumplings without adding greens, making them especially delicious.

2. Eggs

Eating and banging eggs during the Qingming Festival embodies people’s awe and belief in life and fertility. Eggs are a symbol of fertility and life in ancient Chinese culture.

So eating eggs during the Qingming Festival has become a trend for married but not yet pregnant women to eat a few eggs to show that they want to have children quickly.

3. Sauce Pork

It is said that Sauce Pork has been on the market more than 200 years ago. It was originally called Wine Braised Pork and used red rouge as the coloring material. Later, it was used The red rice is colored and then renamed as sauce meat. Suzhou sauce meat, the meat is sweet and plump, rotten but not mushy, oily but not greasy. The most famous store is Lu Gao Jian Delicatessen.

4. Snails

Qingming snails are field snails and snails. The best time to eat snails is before the Qingming Festival. At this time, the snail meat is plump. There are sayings like "Qingming snails are as fat as a goose" and "Qingming snails are as fat as a goose."

Farmers have the habit of eating snails during the Qingming Festival. If you use a needle to pick out the food, it is called "picking green". Throw snail shells on the roof. The rolling sound can scare mice, which is beneficial to silkworm rearing after the Qingming Festival.

5. Malantou

Also known as roadside chrysanthemum, chicken intestine, red stem cabbage, crab head, etc. Malantou has white stems and red stems, with red stems being the better. Malantou tastes juicy, neutral in nature and slightly cold. Function: Nourish liver and blood, clear liver fire, clear away heat and detoxify. It has good blood-enriching and eyesight-improving effects.

Classic dishes of Jiangsu cuisine

Huaian’s long fish banquet, that is, eel banquet, has hundreds of varieties. Yangzhou's three sets of duck, chicken, braised chicken, braised soft-shelled turtle, boiled dried shredded fish, sweet and sour mandarin fish, double-skin saury, Wensi tofu, braised lion's head, Zhenjiang's crystal hoof, steamed anchovies, Jingjiang's preserved meat, Yixing's steam pot chicken,

Nanjing's Jinling salted duck, stewed vegetable core, salted duck, pine nut meat, anchovy shrimp, egg shaomai, Suzhou's squirrel mandarin fish, three shrimp tofu, white sauce fish, Water shield pond fish fillet, rouge goose, eight-treasure boat duck, snowflake crab juice, oil-fried prawns, Changshu beggar chicken, Wuxi mirror box tofu, cherry meat, Liangxi crispy eel, Banpu lotus iron bird.

Xuzhou’s Yi Ya Five Flavor Chicken, Fuliji Roast Chicken, Farewell My Concubine, Mandarin Duck Chicken, Roasted Lone Goose with Green Onion, Lotte Duck, Ji Fei with Long Yan, Diguo Cao Chicken, Gupei Guojia Roast Chicken , Xuzhou three carp, Xuzhou four-hole carp, Longmen fish, Liangwang fish, Pengcheng fish balls, moxibustion fish, golden toad playing with beads, mutton hidden in the belly of the fish, mutton in fish sauce, dog meat in turtle sauce, Dongpo return meat, Xinyi Bundled hoof, Taixu meatballs, Kaiyang stir-fried moss vegetables, stars holding the moon, winter melon and four spirits, Xichugong vegetables, fried golden cicadas, longevity noodles, baked buns, butterfly buns, children's cakes, honey three knives, Baby soup, mixed soup, spicy soup, meatball soup, hot porridge, emperor porridge, Gupi porridge, mica soup, turtle, sweet-scented osmanthus cake, dried moss, Fengxian apple, Peixian winter peach, Peixian radio and television cold noodles, two Lai Feng Spicy Soup, Suining Sausage, Pizhou Ginkgo, etc.