Sixian Dalukou Sweet Potato Noodles 泗县大路口山芋粉丝

How it is made

Processing enters its busiest season of the year as the weather turns cold. The first and, according to local maker Li Qingku (李庆库), most important step is "打糊" (making the paste): sweet-potato starch is mixed with boiling water into a clear paste, then worked with raw starch into a smooth dough. The dough is awkward to handle. Kneaded in the hand it softens until it runs between the fingers; left still it soon sets hard, so it must be neither too dry nor too soft.

An experienced worker kneads the dough to the right softness and puts it into a perforated scoop (漏瓢), and it runs out evenly through more than 120 holes into a pot. In water at about 90°C the strands set into noodles; boiled too long they break, too briefly they stay raw. Another worker lifts them with bamboo chopsticks into a vat of cold water, then onto racks. The wet strands are hung on wooden poles and quick-frozen in a cold store so they do not stick together, then thawed, sun-dried, inspected and packed.

People's Daily Online lists the older hand method that earlier generations in Si County knew by heart: selecting, washing, grinding, filtering, settling, drying, steaming, cutting into strands and drying again.

Flavour and texture

The Dalukou town government describes the finished hand-made noodles as smooth and springy, with a flavour of their own. In winter the villages hang with silvery strands that turn glassy in the sun.

Where it comes from

Hundreds, even thousands, of households in Dalukou make these noodles, many in their own courtyards and at the edges of the fields. Li Qingku's family began with his father's generation; the tools for pressing the noodles have improved, but his family keeps the traditional steps. Hand-made noodle processing in Si County is listed as a municipal-level intangible cultural heritage item. In 2025 the seventh China Sweet Potato Culture and Tourism Festival opened in Si County.