Chuantongmianshi Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The Laosunjia mutton paomo craft originated in 1898, with the first-generation inheritors being the uncle and nephew Sun Guangxian and Sun Wannian.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Laosunjia mutton paomo craft is a traditional culinary craft handed down through generations by the time-honored Chinese brand Laosunjia in Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province; it is rooted mainly in Xi'an and widely distributed in the urban area of Xi'an and its surroundings. Xi'an, located in the heart of the Guanzhong Plain, is a famous historical and cultural city with a warm-temperate monsoon climate, complex landforms, and extremely rich mineral, animal, and plant resources. It is the political, economic, commercial, and cultural center of Shaanxi and the birthplace and central area of Shaanxi's halal cuisine. The craft includes 5 steps and 9 links: meat selection, bone-and-flesh processing, seasoning bagging, meat boiling, and cake baking. Since the founding of Laosunjia, the soup base with "prickly ash coming to the fore" has set the flavor tone—the soup base is bright yellow with a strong prickly-ash aroma, representing the "eastern paomo" style. In selecting the meat, the first choice is northern-Shaanxi large-tail sheep, mostly free-range, walking mountain paths, eating a hundred kinds of pasture, drinking natural spring water, yielding tender meat. The fine-selected mutton and soup broth are skillfully fused to ensure Laosunjia mutton paomo's characteristics: the meat is tender yet holds together, the bone loosens yet does not crumble, the broth is bright yellow, and the baked cake is soft and slightly sweet. The uniqueness of the Laosunjia mutton paomo craft also lies in the selection of spices. It combines ten fixed spices centered on prickly ash with six secret spices in proportion and by texture, each playing its role to enhance aroma and color. The eating method of Laosunjia mutton paomo is also distinctive, stressing "knowing how to break" and "knowing how to eat": the eater must break the tuotuo cake into soybean-sized crumbs as required, so the cook can boil paomo up to standard; when eating, one must "taste-eat (silkworm-eat)" bit by bit to savor the pure true flavor of the mutton paomo. "Longzhuan has bear meat, Qin cooking has only mutton broth." The Laosunjia mutton paomo craft is the crystallization of the collision and fusion of different cultures between farming and nomadic peoples after the opening of the Silk Road, one of Shaanxi's local cultural symbols, manifesting the Chinese nation's long and brilliant culinary culture.
The pepper-forward broth
The defining taste is a bright yellow broth led by Sichuan pepper, the mark of the 'eastern' school of paomo.
Choosing and breaking down the meat
Five steps and nine links cover meat selection, boning, spice bagging, boiling and cake baking, using free-range fat-tailed sheep from northern Shaanxi.
Ten fixed spices and six secret ones
Ten fixed spices led by pepper combine with six secret ones by proportion and texture, each doing its own work in the broth.
Baking and hand-breaking the cake
The diner breaks the cake into soybean-sized crumbs by hand; only the right grain size gives the chef a correctly textured paomo.
Eating it a little at a time
The dish is eaten slowly, mouthful by mouthful, so that the mellow taste can be sifted out rather than rushed.
The first generation, uncles and nephews
Founded in 1898 by the uncles Sun Guangxian and Sun Wannian, the craft has reached its sixth generation.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Laosunjia mutton paomo is rooted in the urban area of Xi'an and its surroundings; distant diners mostly come for names like Donglaishun and Tongshengxiang. Though all are halal paomo, these houses each follow distinct paths: Laosunjia establishes its flavor with a prickly-ash-forward soup base, belonging to the "eastern paomo" line; the cake-breaking method and the tuotuo-cake making also vary by shop, so locals usually fix on a particular house and do not mix. As for where it spreads: Xi'an sits in the heart of Guanzhong, where the southern and northern methods meet within one city—southerners favor stir-fried paomo, while northerners still keep the old rule of one bowl of soup steeped through. As the birthplace and central area of Shaanxi's halal cuisine, the paomo tradition has long occupied the central place in the city's daily eating habits, and paomo houses in its streets and alleys remain numerous.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
This craft is currently transmitted mainly through the master-apprentice method and has reached the sixth generation. In addition, inheritors actively expand the craft's transmission and spread through means such as making short videos and promoting the brand.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Qingai 04-1907
- Li Huizhong 05-2858
- Li Jiangang 05-2859
- Jia Zhiliang
- Rexiti Yimiti
- Hatamusha Nuer
- Yu Zhenling
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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