Jar-Fermented Sour Pork 酸酢肉

Jar-Fermented Sour Pork (酸酢肉) is pork mixed with salt and chilli and kept in an upside-down earthenware jar. It is a Tujia (土家) preserved meat of the Wuling Mountains (武陵山), recorded in Qianjiang District (黔江区), Chongqing.

How it is made

Households in the Tujia and Miao (苗族) areas of the Wuling Mountains keep two kinds of earthenware jar. Wet pickles go into upright jars with a water rim; dry-cured foods go into the daopu jar (倒扑坛), which stands mouth-down. The inverted jar sits in a stone trough or pottery basin of water that seals it. As long as the water is kept topped up and changed, the contents take in no water, do not leak air and stay dry, keeping for a year or two. These jars are not used for watery pickles.

In a farmhouse in Matian Village (麻田村), Pengdong Township (蓬东乡), a 2022 report found six inverted jars holding the sour pork alongside sour fish (酸酢鱼), sour pork intestines (酸酢肥肠), chilli relish (渣海椒), salted greens, fermented black beans and dried radish. Across the minority areas of the Wuling Mountains, this family of jar-made sour meats is now counted among the local classic dishes.

Where it comes from

The report cites records that in the Three Kingdoms period fresh meat was wrapped tightly in paper and sealed in earthenware jars of liquor to keep it from spoiling. After chillies reached China in the Ming dynasty, people began mixing leftover meat and vegetables with salt and chilli, and this developed into today's jar meat and dry pickles, that is, Jar-Fermented Sour Pork and salted greens.

In 2020 the Tujia technique for making it (土家酸酢肉制作技艺) was entered on Qianjiang District's seventh list of intangible cultural heritage. Qianjiang also has a long earthenware tradition: the handmade pottery craft of Shijituo (石鸡坨) in Sanmen Village, Zhuoshui Town (濯水镇), described as more than 1,000 years old, is on Chongqing's municipal intangible heritage list, and the report dates the local habit of storing food in earthenware jars to the beginnings of Shijituo pottery.