Wuyi Steamed Bowl Dishes 武邑扣碗

The bowls

A traditional kouwan spread has eight "clean bowls" (净碗), each entirely meat with no vegetables: Dongpo pork (东坡肉), lean pork, fat pork, pork knuckle, rice-flour steamed pork (米粉肉), mixed braised meat (杂烩肉), meatballs and ribs.

As living standards rose, wedding feasts grew from eight bowls to ten or twelve. Today the four essential bowls are chicken, fish, pork knuckle and four-joy meatballs (四喜丸子), and a balance of meat and vegetables is expected, which has added bowls of seafood, tofu, mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, starch sheets (粉皮) and menzi (焖子). Each bowl still holds only one kind of food.

How it is made

The meat bowls go through boiling, smoking, cutting, steaming and the addition of stock, and are then set out with fresh seasonal vegetables. The finished table has fat and lean, meat and vegetable bowls; Beijing Tourism Network describes the fatty bowls as rich but not greasy. Every village has its own kouwan cook, and a family planning a wedding books the cook in advance and has them come to the house two days before the ceremony to prepare.

Where it comes from

Beijing Tourism Network dates the custom to the Song dynasty, when Wuyi villages began serving kouwan to guests at weddings, births, funerals and gatherings of friends. Wuyi people otherwise entertain simply, with dumplings or noodles, but a wedding means a proper banquet, known locally as "ordering the bowls" (订碗子). Guests coming home from a wedding are asked, "How many clean bowls did you eat?"

In 2019 Wuyi Yide Kouwan (武邑易德扣碗) was one of 29 Hengshui intangible-heritage items on the public list for Hebei's first Yanzhao time-honoured brands (燕赵老字号) protection list, reported by Changcheng Network (长城网); brands on that list were founded in or before 1966. Restaurants named after Wuyi kouwan can be found both in the Wuyi county town and in Hengshui city.