Xiaoxian Mutton Soup 萧县羊肉汤
Xiaoxian Mutton Soup is featured among the local specialties of Anhui.
Xiaoxian Mutton Soup (萧县羊肉汤) is the goat-meat soup of Xiao County (萧县) in Suzhou (宿州), in the north-east of Anhui. It is made from the county's own white goat, and it is part of the local custom of eating goat in the hottest weeks of summer.
Ingredients
Local people prefer the Huanghuai goat (黄淮山羊), also called the Xiao County white goat (萧县白山羊), a slow-growing breed whose meat is described as fine-grained and without a strong mutton smell. Wang Haiyang (汪海洋), a provincial heritage bearer of the Xiao County fu yang banquet custom (萧县伏羊宴习俗; fu yang is goat eaten in the dog days of summer), buys white goats aged six to ten months from farmers under contract.
The Suzhou city paper Fuxiao Bao (拂晓报) says cooks at the fu yang food village (伏羊美食村) below Shengquan Temple (圣泉寺) take their water from the Shengquan spring, which it credits for a white, smooth broth, and that Xiao County chefs cooking in Beijing or Hefei bring their own goat meat and spring water.
How it is made
Wang Haiyang cooks the goat with a seasoning packet over a long simmer, which he says takes away the gamey smell and makes the broth thicker and more fragrant. The finished soup is glossy and milky white.
How it is eaten
A local saying runs "伏羊一碗汤，不用开药方": a bowl of goat soup in the dog days and you need no prescription. Eating goat and drinking the soup around the start of the dog days (三伏) is a Xiao County tradition, and the fu yang banquet custom was approved as a provincial intangible heritage item by the Anhui government in 2015. The Xiao County Fu Yang Culture Festival (萧县伏羊文化节) has been held for more than twenty years, running from the first to the last day of the dog days.
Around the Spring Festival the soup matters too: People's Daily Online reports that the first thing Xiao County people working away from home do when they get back is drink a bowl, and that over the New Year no feast is complete without goat.
According to Fuxiao Bao, the soup spread in the 1980s when goat and goat bones were cheap in the county.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.
Image credits & notes (1)
- Reference photo of a similar dish · 同类菜品参考照片A similar preparation is pictured; the local version may differ. 同类菜品参考照片，当地做法可能不同。Photo: Peachyeung316 · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized for the web; the photo itself has not been edited. Thumbnails may show a cropped view.
