Tongnan Cold Starch Jelly 潼南凉粉
Tongnan Cold Starch Jelly is featured among the local specialties of Chongqing.
Tongnan Cold Starch Jelly (潼南凉粉) is the cold jelly of Tongnan District (潼南区), Chongqing, made from sweet potato and peas and dressed to be numbing and hot. Several family stalls in the district make it, and the Chongqing Local Chronicles Office (重庆市地方志办公室) uses the Yuan family's version, Yuan's Liangfen (袁凉粉), to describe it.
Ingredients
The Chronicles Office entry describes Yuan's Liangfen as a family recipe passed down among the Yuan (袁), made by hand from local sweet-potato starch (红苕豆粉) and peas, with small-mill rapeseed oil, Sichuan pepper, natural spices and well water. It lists the flavour as numbing, hot, savoury and fragrant.
Where it comes from
Chinese Wikipedia names three well-known family makers: Mi's Liangfen (米凉粉), Gong's Liangfen (龚凉粉) and Yuan's Liangfen. Gong's was sold from shoulder baskets on the old street of Zitong town (梓潼镇) and is known for selling out a single load before the seller had walked the street once. Yuan's moved to a stall at the county sports stadium from Shuangjiang town (双江镇).
Where to eat it
People's Daily's Chongqing channel suggests that visitors to Shuangjiang Old Town (双江古镇) see its Qing-dynasty houses and taste Tongnan Cold Starch Jelly, which it calls an intangible-heritage snack. At the 2022 Tongnan rapeseed-flower festival the district put it on its list of eighteen signature dishes, together with Tai'an fish (太安鱼) and quick-fried chicken (小煎鸡).
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-26. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.