Shanzhou Ten-Bowl Banquet 陕州十碗席
Shanzhou Ten-Bowl Banquet is featured among the local specialties of Henan.
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Shanzhou Ten-Bowl Banquet (陕州十碗席) is a set feast of ten dishes from Shanzhou District (陕州区) of Sanmenxia (三门峡) in western Henan, closely tied to the area's pit-courtyard dwellings (地坑院), homes dug down into the ground. People's Daily dates it to the Qing dynasty, more than 300 years ago, and it entered Henan's provincial list of intangible cultural heritage in 2021.
How it is eaten
A full banquet follows a pattern of three cold and seven hot dishes. According to the Sanmenxia Daily (三门峡日报), the cold ones are bean sprouts dressed with persimmon vinegar, dressed wild greens and seasonal vegetables steamed in a flour coating (粉蒸时蔬). The hot ones are strips of pork (条子肉), small crisp-fried pork pieces (小酥肉), meatballs steamed in an upturned bowl (扣碗丸子), kelp with daylily buds, a farmhouse mixed stew, eight-treasure rice (八宝饭) and spicy tofu. People's Daily adds leavened steamed buns (酵子馍) and hot-and-sour soup to the table.
Eight people sit round an Eight Immortals table (八仙桌), placed strictly by age and seniority. The kelp and daylily bowl stands before the seat of honour, with the spicy tofu to its left and the vinegar bean sprouts to its right. In Shanzhou this has long been the highest-ranking banquet, laid on for weddings, funerals, festivals and honoured guests.
How it is made
The dishes use everyday ingredients such as pork, tofu and radish, cooked by deep-frying, stir-frying, steaming and stewing. The key piece of equipment is the chuanshan stove (穿山灶), a clay range built with seven or nine cooking holes whose heat falls away from the main fire outwards. On one stove a single cook can steam, stir-fry, stew, braise and keep dishes warm at the same time, and so turn out the whole banquet alone.
Where it comes from
The Sanmenxia Daily links the banquet to Shanzhou's dry, cold climate and low rainfall: local people put together warming, nourishing menus that mix meat and vegetables to see them through the cold. The skill is passed down collectively, not through one family, and is concentrated on three loess tablelands, Zhangbian (张汴塬), Zhangcun (张村塬) and Caiyuan (菜园塬), where villages still keep the full banquet routine and its etiquette for receiving guests. The paper describes the food as fragrant without being dry and sweet without being cloying.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.