Huotui Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
As early as the Tang dynasty, Jinhua already had the craft of curing ham. By the Ming dynasty, Jinhua ham was listed as a tribute product, produced throughout the Jinhua area including Dongyang and Yongkang. In 1905, Jinhua ham won a gold medal at the Leipzig World's Fair in Germany.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Jinhua ham from Zhejiang Province is renowned worldwide for its bright color, unique aroma, tempting flavor, and handsome shape—the "four perfections" of color, aroma, taste, and form—and is a fine specimen of China's cured meat products. The subtropical climate with distinct seasons and the unique geography of the Jinhua area gave rise to a distinctive ham-curing craft. The pigs used for Jinhua ham are known as the "panda pig of China"; their head-neck and rump-tail are black while the rest is white, commonly called "two-headed black" (liang tou wu). They are moderate in size, with fine bones, thin skin, balanced fat and lean, tender meat, and full ham hearts. In curing the ham, its hind legs are used exclusively as the raw material. The pigs must be slaughtered between the Beginning of Winter and the Beginning of Spring of the following year; the hind legs selected for ham require white hooves, straight legs, intact shape, and a weight between 6 and 7.5 kilograms. Jinhua ham is generally cured at low temperature between the Beginning of Winter and the Beginning of Spring each year, then goes through a series of steps—mid-temperature dewatering, high-temperature fermentation—and finally develops aroma and matures after entering the dog days; the whole curing process is refined and complex. During production, various techniques—paring, cutting, trimming, pressing, twisting, tapping, cupping, and patting—are used to unify the ham's shape, giving the finished product the form of a bamboo leaf or a pipa lute. The cured Jinhua ham has lean meat of rose-red and fat that is crystal-clear and translucent; it is rich but not greasy, delicious in taste, and can retain its original quality for three to four years when stored at natural temperature. A thousand years of transmission has created the unique curing craft of Jinhua ham and the dietary and local folk culture associated with it. Thereafter, Jinhua ham's reputation rose steadily in international catering, becoming a premium seasoning in overseas Chinese cuisine.
Archived Records of Process Steps
Jinhua ham is generally cured at low temperature between the Beginning of Winter and the Beginning of Spring each year, then goes through a series of steps—mid-temperature dewatering, high-temperature fermentation—and finally develops aroma and matures after entering the dog days; the whole curing process is refined and complex.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Jinhua ham-curing craft is centered on the areas of Jinhua city proper, Lanxi, Dongyang, and Yongkang. The counties differ slightly in curing month and salt amount: Dongyang hams mostly use hind legs of 6 to 7.5 kilograms, while Yongkang shows greater skill in laying out and airing. Compared with northern dry-cured pig legs, the Jinhua line relies on a three-stage relay of low-temperature curing, mid-temperature dewatering, and high-temperature fermentation, finally developing aroma after entering the dog days.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Huotui Making Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Yu Liangkun (per the official archives of the related inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born October 1936, a native of Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province. Representative inheritor of the third batch of the national-level intangible cultural heritage project, the ham-making craft (Jinhua ham-curing craft). A technician of Jinhua ham curing. At age 19 he entered the public-private jointly operated Jinlian Ham Factory and learned the Jinhua ham craft under master Xu Chaochun. Per the traditional ham-curing trade rules, an apprentice may not casually touch the hams during the three-year apprenticeship. While studying hard he also developed some "special skills," such as stacking twelve layers of ham without toppling—in his words, it all comes down to skill and devotion. Through long-term curing practice, he constantly improved, innovated, and accumulated experience, forming a complete set of unique curing techniques of low-temperature curing, mid-temperature dewatering, and high-temperature fermentation.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yu Liangkun 03-1428
- Guan Shengkuo 05-2861
- Chen Shuntong
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。