TCM Health Cultivation
01 · Historical Records
Since it was created by the famous physician Fu Shan during the Chongzhen reign of the Ming dynasty, it has been transmitted in the Taiyuan area for more than 370 years and is a distinctive local specialty food of Taiyuan.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Traditional Chinese medicine holds that human life and health are a process of adaptation between the human being and nature, and a process of change in the body through birth, growth, maturity, aging, and decline. Disease is the result of imbalance between the internal and external environments, and it has three causes: first, external causes, referring to the influence of climatic and natural changes; second, internal causes, referring to disorders of the body's own regulation; and third, causes neither internal nor external, referring to the invasion of accidental injuries, with internal causes playing the principal role. Therefore, traditional Chinese medicine attaches great importance to the body's active maintenance, regulation, and prevention; this is TCM health preservation, also called 'nourishing life' (she sheng). The idea of health preservation should run through a person's whole life, but care and maintenance before the onset of disease are especially important. The content of TCM health preservation covers the living environment, diet and daily routine, mental hygiene, and prevention before disease. The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon holds: 'In high antiquity, those who knew the Way followed the patterns of yin and yang, harmonized with the arts of calculation, ate and drank with moderation, kept regular hours in daily life, did not overexert themselves, and therefore could keep body and spirit together and enjoy their full natural lifespan.' This means that life should accord with the way of heaven and earth and adapt to changes of climate; diet should be temperate and meals should be nourishing; life should be regular and sexual activity not excessive; work and rest should be combined, with body and mind kept healthy. In later ages, through practice in daily life, people created many methods and experiences of health care, dietary regulation, and 'treating disease before it arises', continually enriching the content of TCM health preservation. Fu Shan's medicated diet Bazhen Soup, commonly known as 'tounao' (brain), is a Muslim (halal) food with good efficacy for maintaining health and strengthening the body. Bazhen Soup is a soup-paste food made from mutton, grain, and eight kinds of Chinese medicinal herbs through a refined and complex process. Regular consumption can relax the sinews and invigorate the blood, nourish the heart and benefit the kidneys, tonify the blood and generate yang, strengthen the spleen and whet the appetite, boost qi and regulate the original qi, and remedy deficiency and depletion. Bazhen Soup is particular in its choice of ingredients and complex in its process. It requires select, block-shaped, top-quality tender fatty mutton as the raw material; the meat is processed through cleaning, trimming, boiling and stewing with auxiliary ingredients, removing from the pot, cooling, and storing, and the mutton broth and mutton fat are skimmed off and set aside. At the same time, the various auxiliary ingredients are prepared by stewing, curing, boiling, or steaming in strict accordance with the established methods and set ready for use. When making Bazhen Soup, the above ingredients are decocted over fire according to the prescribed procedure and proportions, with yellow wine (huangjiu) added for flavoring. The veteran masters who have mastered the traditional craft are all past seventy years of age, and there are few successors; this local specialty faces the danger of being lost.
Archival Record of Process Steps
Bazhen Soup is particular in its choice of ingredients and complex in its process. It requires select, block-shaped, top-quality tender fatty mutton as the raw material; the meat is processed through cleaning, trimming, boiling and stewing with auxiliary ingredients, removing from the pot, cooling, and storing, and the mutton broth and mutton fat are skimmed off and set aside. At the same time, the various auxiliary ingredients are prepared by stewing, curing, boiling, or steaming in strict accordance with the established methods and set ready for use.
Preparing the accompaniments four ways
Each of the eight herbs is prepared beforehand by stewing, salting, boiling or steaming, ready for the final cooking.
Skimming the broth and keeping the fat
Prime fatty mutton is cleaned, boned, stewed and cooled, with the broth and fat skimmed off and kept for the final blending.
The final seasoning with wine
The prepared materials are cooked to a fixed formula and finished with yellow wine, a local rule of taste never altered.
The local name nao tou
Known locally as nao tou, the tonic soup created by Fu Shan has remained a local delicacy of Taiyuan for over three hundred and seventy years.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Bazhen Soup is a strand left by Fu Shan in Taiyuan. The famous physician Fu Shan created the prescription during the Chongzhen reign of the Ming dynasty; for more than 370 years it has been famous only in the Taiyuan area, commonly known as tounao, and is served as a Muslim (halal) food, suiting the breakfast trade of Taiyuan's streets and alleys. The recipe pairs block-shaped tender fatty mutton with eight medicinal herbs; the auxiliary ingredients are pre-treated separately by stewing, curing, boiling, or steaming, and yellow wine is added at the end to adjust the flavor. The crafts of selecting the sheep, trimming the meat, and skimming the broth while keeping the fat were once scattered among the veteran masters of a few old shops; now most of them are past seventy and there are few successors. The craft demands attention to heat and proportion, and equally demands successors.
Other submitting regions for the same item: TCM Health Cultivation · TCM Health Cultivation · TCM Health Cultivation · TCM Health Cultivation.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In recent years, the inheritance and development of Bazhen Soup has encountered difficulties.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
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。