Li Jiangang

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Li Jiangang, Male, Han, from Jiading, Shanghai, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Chuantongmianshi Making Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-160). The tradition is documented in Jiading, Shanghai. Within the regional tradition and school record of Chuantongmianshi Making Craftsmanship in Jiading, Shanghai: As one of the representatives of Shanghai's culinary culture, Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou is delicate and tiny, with a beautiful appearance, reflecting the graceful regional character of Jiangnan's rivers and hills and the refined eating habits of the Jiangnan people. This traditional pasta-making craft originated in Nanxiang Town, Jiading District, Shanghai, later developed in the Chenghuang Temple (City God Temple) area of Shanghai, and now spreads throughout Shanghai and the Jiangnan region. In 1871, Huang Mingxian, owner of the Rihuaxuan snack shop in Nanxiang Town, improved the popular local large-meat mantou by "emphasizing the filling and thinning the wrapper, replacing large with small"—this marks the earliest form of the Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou craft. In 1900, a Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou shop opened at the Chenghuang Temple in Shanghai, and from then on Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou became widely renowned. Since then, the Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou craft has been continuously transmitted; standards and specifications were formulated in 2000.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in March 1958 in Shanghai. He is a representative bearer of the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects in traditional flour-based food making craftsmanship (Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou Making Craftsmanship). He is a senior technician of Chinese-style wheat-based foods. He began learning Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou making in 1975, and in 2004 became general manager of Shanghai Guyi Garden Xiaolong Food Co., Ltd. He formulated standards and specifications for Nanxiang Xiaolong making. These not only gave the xiaolong mantou a consistent texture but also made it possible to raise output. Within the documented technical tradition of Chuantongmianshi Making Craftsmanship in Jiading, Shanghai: In Shanghai dialect, the colloquial term "xiaolong mantou" does not refer to the steamed buns known in northern China as "mantou," but rather to filled buns (baozi). Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou is celebrated for its thin wrapper, large filling, abundant broth, and elegant shape. It uses unleavened refined flour for the wrapper, leg meat as filling, and is seasoned with ingredients such as aspic. Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou represents classic old-Shanghai snacks. Its main variety is fresh-meat xiaolong, and in recent years crab-roe, shrimp, dried-scallop, and pickled-mustard xiaolong have also been developed. The Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou craft is highly exacting: its selection of ingredients, recipes, mixing, and even dough-kneading and rolling have particular secrets, with clear specification standards in the workmanship. First is the filling, made primarily from front-leg pork supplied under a fixed sourcing arrangement, with a fat-to-lean ratio of 3:7, combined with ten auxiliary ingredients—the filling is a secret recipe. Second is the wrapper: top-grade refined white flour is mixed with water into dough and shaped by hand. Third is the wrapping skill: each xiaolong wrapper is 1.5 mm thick and weighs 8 g, enclosing 16 g of meat filling, yielding a finished product 2.5 cm in diameter with 18 pleats. Last is steaming in the bamboo basket, with strict control of temperature and time—adjusting the basket height from 3 to 10 tiers according to temperature—so that the dumplings emerge crystal-clear and translucent. Over more than 140 years, six generations of inheritors have carried the Nanxiang Xiaolong Mantou craft forward through master-apprentice transmission. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Rolling the 1.5 mm skin": Fine flour dough is rolled by hand without fermentation into a 1.5 mm, 8-gram skin holding 16 grams of meat in eighteen pleats. "The three-to-seven filling": The filling is set three parts fat to seven lean of foreleg pork, blended with ten seasonings to hold up under a thin skin. "Setting jelly into the filling": Pig-skin jelly melts into broth inside the steamer, which is where the soupiness of these small dumplings comes from. "Controlled steaming": Steaming is strictly temperature- and time-controlled, with the height of the stacked trays adjusted across three to ten levels.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2012 he established Li Jiangang Studio, opening training classes at Shanghai Dazhong Industrial School, Shanghai Tourism and Commerce School and Nanxiang Guyi Primary School to train students. In 2002 he led his team to the Fourth Chinese Cuisine World Championship held by the World Association of Chinese Cuisine and won a gold award. In 2012 he received the Culinary Craft Innovation Award of the China Golden Chef Award, conferred by the China Cuisine Association.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Li Jiangang · National Representative Bearer Archive