Xizhou Ancient Town Dining

People who take a tour to Xizhou never forget to taste the food in Xizhou. As a city having various Chinese ethnic minorities, the local food is different from the one in other places. This article will take you into the local life to discover the stunning food in this Yunnan city. All the foods talked about below are the representatives of local food and the essence of local food culture.

Xizhou Cake

Xizhou Cake is the most famous food in Xizhou. Leaven flour, knead with vegetable oil, and add spring onion, Chinese prickly ash, and salt taste, or ham, diced meat, pork scraps, and brown sugar for a sweet taste. Toast for ten minutes and it is served.

Raw Hide(生皮)

Cut the baked pork (mostly from the hip and rear lag) and pork liver into filaments, take onions, garlic, parsley, stewed plum, spicy noodles, soy sauce, etc. As the condiments, put the filaments in the condiments for eating. This is known among the people as “eating raw hide”. The custom is said to date from the period of Nanzhao Kingdom with a long history. The shredded meat with condiments wipes off the fishy smell and provides unprecedented fresh, tender and sweet feeling.

Rushan

Rushan is made of the milk produced by local cows. It has a shape of a fan. Rushan does not only taste good, but is also nourishing. It contains many substances necessary to human bodies such as protein and amino acid. It can also regulate people’s lifeblood, soothe the nerves and strengthen the appetite, and thus is an ideal food to strengthen your corporeity and keep you fit. You can cook Rushan in different ways: fry, braise, bake, boil, blast, steam or stir-fry.

Er Kuai

Er Kuai is one of the most conventional local foods, a rice-based dish. The rice is first washed, soaked, stewed and then mashed into a paste, before being molded into various lumps, slices and shreds. It is usually grilled over burning charcoals with a sugar, walnut, or sesame filling.

Sand-pot Fish（砂锅鱼）

Sand-pot fish (shā guō yú 砂锅鱼) is a famous local dish of Dali. Put slender chicken and more than ten seasonings like dried mushrooms into the sand-pot. Then add some bow fish or carp caught in Erhai Lake into the pot. Stew them slowly. The tourists can taste sand-pot fish on the yachts or in all the restaurants in Dali or Xiaguan. Sand-pot fish is 20 yuan every pot. One pot is enough for three to four people. It is really delicious.

Three Courses Tea

Tea is the most popular drink among the Bai. It is commonly drunk as part of a ceremony involving three servings. The first cup of tea tastes bitter, the second is sweeter, while the third cup has added seasoning for a more fragrant, lingering aftertaste. This way of tea drinking can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The three servings of bitterness, followed by sweetness and finally an aromatic aftertaste are supposed to act as metaphors as part of a philosophy on life.