Huangmei Fish Noodles 黄梅鱼面

Huangmei Fish Noodles (黄梅鱼面) are noodles made mainly from fresh fish, sweet-potato starch and salt in Huangmei County (黄梅县), the part of Huanggang (黄冈) where Hubei meets Jiangxi and Anhui. Almost every household in the county makes them, and in 2014 they were approved as a national geographical indication product.

How it is made

A Hubei Daily report from 2024 follows the work at a Huangmei fish-noodle factory: the fish are killed and boned, the flesh is mixed with starch, the dough is made into sheets and steamed, and the steamed sheets are then dried, sun-dried and cut into strands for sale. The makers there use fresh local black carp and grass carp with white-fleshed sweet potato, about a jin of fish (half a kilo) to eight liang (400 grams) of sweet-potato flour, pounded and mixed evenly. Each sheet is rolled quickly by hand to about 60 centimetres across and an even thickness, and the noodles are dried to under 14 per cent moisture before packing. The months before Spring Festival are the busy season.

How it is eaten

The Huanggang Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism gives a simple way to cook them: fry cured pork in a little oil, add water and bring it to the boil, then put in the fish noodles and cook until they swell and turn translucent. Straight from the pot they are pale yellow, smooth and glossy, with the taste of fish but no fishy smell, and a springy, slippery bite that is not greasy.

Where it comes from

The noodle's older name is chuiyumian (捶鱼面), "pounded fish noodles". The Huangmei County annals date its creation to 1835, in the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty, and it was sent to the court as tribute year after year. Huangmei lies with Longgan Lake (龙感湖) and the Yangtze to the south and has plenty of aquatic produce, and fish noodles are the best known of its fish products. A Huangmei producer has worked with the county market regulator on a provincial local standard for the noodles.