Daye Thick-Broth Noodles 大冶糊面

Daye Thick-Broth Noodles (大冶糊面) are a village noodle dish from Daye (大冶), a city in Huangshi (黄石), Hubei, in which noodles cut to one or two centimetres cook with diced pork and tofu until noodles and paste merge into one thick bowl.

How it is made

The Daye city government lists the dish among the city's local products and describes it as a folk food of the Daye countryside. The noodles are broken or cut short, to one or two centimetres, and go into the pot while the water is still cold, together with diced lean pork and diced tofu. Everything cooks together, and the seasonings are added only once the noodles are done. Coriander is also listed among the additions.

Flavour and texture

What sets the dish apart is the shortness of the noodles: once they are cooked, in the city government's words, there is paste, hu (糊), in the noodles and noodles in the paste, the two merged into one. The city government also calls the taste pure and pleasant.

Where it comes from

The city government credits women in their forties and fifties in Daye's villages as the most skilled makers, and says the dish is reputed to have existed in Daye for several decades as a cheap, good-value food that people do not tire of. In recent years it has won many fans among diners at some hotels and restaurants in Daye and Huangshi. Most of them are aged 30 to 50 and either grew up in the countryside or spent years there, and some ask for it as the staple of their meal.