Mengziguoqiaomixian Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
It began in the Ming dynasty, when large numbers of troops and civilians from the interior garrisoned the frontier at Mengzi and brought with them different dietary customs, which in the end developed into the specially flavoured "Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodles". The Mengzi County Gazetteer records that in the Qing dynasty a scholar was studying hard on a small island in Mengzi's South Lake, and his wife, pitying his health, brought him rice noodles to eat, thereby unintentionally creating this delicacy.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Rice noodles are an ancient food, long prevalent in the rice-growing southern regions of our country. The Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodle making technique is the traditional handicraft of making crossing-the-bridge rice noodles in the manner peculiar to the Mengzi area of Yunnan, with Mengzi City in Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan Province, as its main source, and, historically, Yunnan Province as its chief area of distribution. Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodles consist of three parts — the rice noodles, the fresh broth and the accompaniments — and are famed for the "jade-belt crossing the bridge" way of eating them. The Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodle making technique has three main process steps: pressing the rice noodles, making the broth, and preparing the vegetable accompaniments. First, the rice noodles are pressed out through a sequence of processes: blending the rice, grinding the slurry, fermenting, combining, initial steaming, pressing, cooking and rinsing. Then chicken, pork and large bones are used as the main ingredients and simmered into a well-aged broth. Finally the accompaniments are divided into raw and cooked: raw items such as quail eggs, sliced pork loin, chrysanthemum petals and minced ginger; cooked items such as chicken, tofu skin, pea paste balls and Chinese chives. The way to eat them is as follows: a large earthenware bowl with a mouth a full 30 centimetres across, holding scalding secret-recipe stock, is brought to the table together with several small dishes of raw and cooked accompaniments; the ingredients are added raw first and cooked afterwards, and the broth is stirred to cook the vegetables; then a suitable amount of rice noodles from another bowl is transferred into the broth bowl, leaving one end in the broth and one end in the original bowl, which signifies "crossing the bridge". The distinguishing features of the Mengzi rice noodle making technique are that the noodles are slender and chewy, within 2 millimetres in diameter, and do not easily break when cooked; that each shop has its own secret recipe for making and keeping warm the broth and the vegetable accompaniments; and, further, that the high-quality rice abundantly produced in Mengzi and the "sweet water" of the ancient city's Great Well are the indispensable raw materials for pressing the noodles. Because the rice noodles were delivered across a stone arch bridge, the delicacy was named "crossing-the-bridge rice noodles". Later the scholar went to the capital for the imperial examination and passed it with high honours, and the saying arose that "a bowl of crossing-the-bridge noodles is fragrant, a time of perfect food and beauty". Through its refined making technique, mysterious recipe and distinctive way of eating, the Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodle making technique brings together the best of Central Plains food culture and frontier food culture.
Archival Record of Process Steps
The Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodle making technique has three main process steps: pressing the rice noodles, making the broth, and preparing the vegetable accompaniments. First, the rice noodles are pressed out through a sequence of processes: blending the rice, grinding the slurry, fermenting, combining, initial steaming, pressing, cooking and rinsing.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodle technique has Mengzi City in Honghe Prefecture as its main source, and the rice noodle shops of Kunming and Gejiu generally follow this method. Pressing the noodles is what most tests the local soil and water: the rice abundantly produced in Mengzi must be used, together with the sweet water of the ancient city's Great Well, and only noodles pressed to a diameter within two millimetres are chewy enough. The broth is simmered from chicken, pork and large bones into a well-aged stock. Wang Lizhu added chrysanthemum petals, white fungus and jizong mushrooms to the family broth, forming a lineage of her own.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present there are representative vendors of "Yunnan Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodles" in large and medium-sized cities throughout the country. The Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodle making technique is today transmitted mainly within families and from master to apprentice, and its transmission is orderly. This technique displays the characteristics of Yunnan's food culture and its humanistic spirit, and has considerable folkloric and social value. Wang Lizhu (recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): Female, Han ethnicity, born in December 1955, a native of Mengzi City, Yunnan Province. Representative inheritor of the Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodle making technique, a project of the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. A technician of Mengzi crossing-the-bridge rice noodles. Over more than forty years in the craft, building on the inherited family technique, she explored and improved the simmering of the broth and the preparation of the side dishes, adding chrysanthemum petals, white fungus and jizong mushrooms, and formed the distinctive Wang family traditional crossing-the-bridge rice noodle brand. In 1998 she founded the Mengzi Wangji Chrysanthemum Crossing-the-Bridge Rice Noodle Co., Ltd.; the Mengzi Wangji chrysanthemum crossing-the-bridge rice noodles that it has carried on and operated have successively received such honorary titles as the China Famous Snack awarded by the China Cuisine Association.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Lizhu 05-2908
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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