Shennongjia Cured Pork 神农架腊肉
Shennongjia Cured Pork is featured among the local specialties of Hubei.
Shennongjia Cured Pork (神农架腊肉) is the cured, smoked pork of the Shennongjia Forestry District (神农架林区) in Hubei. It is smoked over firewood with tangerine peel and fragrant wormwood, and is cooked in stir-fries and hotpots.
How it is made
The meat is first cured, then smoked over a wood fire to which tangerine peel (桔皮) and fragrant wormwood (香蒿) are added. The Shennongjia World Geopark describes the finished pork as either golden or jet black in colour, with firm, dense flesh.
Flavour and texture
A bite releases a deep smoky flavour together with the taste of the pork. Cured and smoked, it has a strong aroma, and the fat is rich without being greasy.
How it is eaten
It is stir-fried or cooked in a hotpot. The geopark names stir-fried bamboo shoots with cured pork (竹笋炒腊肉) as a classic local dish: the fresh shoots soak up the pork's fat and aroma, their clean, fresh taste cuts the richness, and the dish goes well with rice. Tujia chilli mash (渣广椒), chopped red chillies mixed with maize meal and salt and mostly made after the White Dew (白露) solar term, is also fried together with the cured pork.
Pig's trotters are smoked too: Shennong cured trotters (神农腊猪蹄) are smoked by Tujia households in Xiagu Township (下谷乡) and served with small dried potatoes.
Where it comes from
Cured pork has a place in local song. A folk song still sung in Shennongjia, which Xinhua quoted in 2025, recalls log-walled houses, knotty-wood fires and potatoes, and ends with cured pork washed down with shaojiu (烧酒), a distilled liquor: life so good that the immortals could not do better.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.
Image credits & notes (1)
- A common version of Shennongjia Cured Pork · 神农架腊肉常见做法参考照片。Photo: sharon1987720 · CC0Resized for the web; the photo itself has not been edited.
