Page 13 - IAV Digital Magazine #572

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Suckable Stir-fried Pebbles Sold As Street Food In China Leave Weird Taste In Mouth
Fran Lu in Beijing
Mainland social media has been rocked by the dis- covery that stir- fried pebbles are being sold at a food stall at a night market in China.
A June 4 video clip that has attracted 4 million views on Douyin shows a vendor in the central Chinese province of Hunan stir-fry- ing small river rocks with chilli, garlic, purple per- illa and rosemary before selling them for 16 yuan (US$2.3) a dish.
According to the vendor, the peb- bles are not meant to be eaten – just sucked on – and serve to comple- ment the taste of the other ingredi- ents.
Not only that, after the meal is finished, diners can save the left-
over pebbles and cook them up with whatever ingredients they chose at later meals.
The cheeky food stall owner joked: “Pass on the peb- bles for three generations. You may be gone but the pebbles will still be there.”
Online observers were stunned by the weird delicacy which they hailed as “the hardest dish in the world”.
“It might be true that as long as the seasoning is good, even stir- fried shoe soles can be a delica- cy,” one person quipped.
“Sounds like a perfect dish for dieting,” said another.
“Is this what they called ‘alchemy’?” a third said sar- castically.
The general air of
surprise was compounded when it emerged that stir-fried peb- bles were not a new innovation, but a traditional dish from central China’s Hubei province with a centuries-old his- tory.
According to a
report in the Guangming Daily, the dish, known as suo diu, or “suck and throw away” in English, originated along the Yangtze River and was invented by boatmen short of food.
It was said the pebbles tasted
like fish and went well with wine.
An online observ- er from Hubei province said some elderly peo- ple in the country- side continued the practice to the present day, “eat- ing” stir-fried peb- bles while drink- ing.
The dish was also a tradition in southwestern China’s Yunnan province after it became popular due to the hard- ships of the Sino- Japanese war from 1937-1945.
Considered by many as one of the weirdest regional dishes in China, stir-fried pebbles do have some competi- tion.
Among them is Beijing’s Douzhi, fermented mung bean milk – a grey-green drink with centuries of history that tastes sour and stinky, but is enjoyed by locals due to its richness in pro- tein and heat- relieving effect.
Another is sipun- culid worm jelly from Fujian province in south- eastern China, a delicacy made from boiled worms harvested along the coast.
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