Shangcai Taqiao Braised Pig Trotters 上蔡塔桥猪蹄

Shangcai Taqiao Braised Pig Trotters (上蔡塔桥猪蹄) are pig trotters slow-cooked in a spiced master stock in Taqiao (塔桥), a market town 18 km east of the seat of Shangcai County (上蔡县) in Zhumadian (驻马店), Henan. The Zhumadian Daily calls them a well-known local snack of Shangcai, and in February 2020 the Zhumadian city government named the making technique a municipal intangible cultural heritage item.

How it is made

The trotters have their hair burned off with a blowtorch, then are soaked, scraped, split with the skin cut open, soaked again, blanched and washed. They go into an old master stock once it is boiling, with more than 20 medicinal and spice ingredients tied in a bag, among them tsaoko (草果), nutmeg (肉蔻), cassia bark (桂皮), Chinese angelica (当归), Sichuan pepper and star anise. They cook over high heat until about seven-tenths done and over low heat until nine-tenths done, then sit covered in the hot stock; the whole braise takes about three hours.

Flavour and texture

The Zhumadian Daily describes the finished meat as tender enough to come away from the bone, fragrant but not greasy, and soft while the trotter keeps its shape; eaten cold, the bones pull out easily. Dahe Caijing (大河财立方) describes the trotters as reddish in colour with soft, sticky meat.

Where it comes from

Taqiao was once a wharf on the Hong River (洪河) on an old official road through Shangcai. According to the Zhang Peng shop's account in the Zhumadian Daily, a Zhang family moved there from Hubei in the Kangxi reign (康熙) of the Qing dynasty, opened a braised-meat shop, and took up a spice recipe of more than 20 ingredients from a neighbouring pharmacist; the current owner is the eighth generation. A second shop, Taqiao Zhang Kun, gives a different account: its manager told Dahe Caijing that Taqiao trotters began in the 1960s. In 2024 Dahe Caijing counted six or seven trotter shops at the Taqiao market.

How it is eaten

Locally the trotters are linked with 'getting rich' (发财), and a plate of them is a fixture of the New Year's Eve dinner in many homes. Both of the shops named above sell them in vacuum packs to take away.