Smoked Cured Pork 腊肉

Smoked Cured Pork (腊肉) is a Chinese cured meat, popular mainly in Sichuan, Hunan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Guangdong; in Chongqing the pork is salted, dried in wind and sun and then smoked. The name comes from the twelfth lunar month, layue (腊月), when the curing is usually done. In Chongqing it is a Spring Festival food: a report carried by People's Daily Online calls stuffing sausages and smoking la rou part of how people in Chongqing mark the new year, and in Beibei District (北碚区) the district government sets up shared smoking points each year for residents' la rou and sausages.

How it is made

A pupil from Beibei's Chaoyang Primary School (朝阳小学), writing in Chongqing Morning Post (重庆晨报) in 2023, describes the Chongqing way: the pork is seasoned with spices and rubbed with salt, hung on bamboo racks in wind and sun for more than ten days, then hung over a stove to smoke. The writer recommends sanxian pork (三线肉), with alternating fat and lean layers, because all-lean meat turns too dry and very fat meat too greasy, and a wood fire for its scent. The Beibei district government says its smoking points burn cypress twigs, rice husks and natural wood, the traditional fuels, to keep the traditional flavour.

How it is eaten

The same writer describes the smoked pork stir-fried with garlic shoots (蒜苗) and fermented black beans (豆豉), and recommends vacuum-sealing and refrigeration to keep it for months.

Where it comes from

The Beibei government says smoke from traditional smoking affects the city's air quality and disperses poorly in winter, and People's Daily Online reports that private smoking in Chongqing's urban areas breaks national and municipal air-pollution rules. Beibei's shared points run smokeless equipment that treats the smoke; in 2024 there were six, including sites in Chaoyang (朝阳), Beiwenquan (北温泉), Xiema (歇马), Longfengqiao (龙凤桥) and Caijiagang (蔡家岗) subdistricts.