Shangnan Immortal Leaf Jelly 商南神仙叶凉粉

Shangnan Immortal Leaf Jelly (商南神仙叶凉粉) is a dark green summer jelly from Shangnan County (商南) in Shangluo (商洛), southern Shaanxi. It is set not from starch but from the leaves of a mountain shrub, and a Ministry of Culture and Tourism feature on Shangluo names it among Shangnan's local foods.

The leaf

The shrub is erchi liudaomu (二翅六道木), which grows on the hillsides of Shangnan, south of the Qinling Mountains (秦岭). Its leaves are rich in pectin, and people there simply call them jelly leaves. Shangluo Daily (商洛日报) reports that the shrub grows 1 to 2 metres tall at 600 to 1,800 metres above sea level, with blue-purple flowers on sunny slopes and white ones on shady slopes. It also grows in Shanyang (山阳), Zhen'an (镇安), Zhashui (柞水) and parts of Shangzhou (商州), and the best time to pick the leaves is between the Qingming festival and the Dragon Boat Festival.

How it is made

Bean, pea or sweet-potato jellies need their starch soaked, ground, settled and dried first. For this one, the leaves are washed, scalded with boiling water, rubbed repeatedly by hand while still hot, and strained through gauze to remove the stems and veins. The liquid then cools and sets into a dark green jelly that trembles like soft tofu, with tiny white bubbles on its surface. Writing in Shangluo Daily, Tian Peixin (田培信) describes making the dressing by roasting two kinds of chilli until crisp, pounding them in a stone mortar with ginger, garlic and salt, and pouring hot rapeseed oil over the paste. Aged vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, thirteen-spice powder, sesame paste and sesame oil are added, and coriander and crushed peanuts go on top.

Where it comes from

The Shanyang County gazetteer records a legend from the late Ming dynasty. After three years of drought, an old woman stopped refugees fleeing the mountains and taught them to find the leaves and make jelly. In Zhaochuan (赵川镇) in Shangnan, villagers climb the hills early on the hottest days to pick leaves, and a bowl of jelly is on the table by noon. Shangluo Daily reported in 2016 that the method of making it had been listed as intangible heritage by Shangluo city and Shanyang County. Tian notes one nickname for the jelly: laohan heng (老汉哼), roughly "the old man grunts", given by villagers.