Eight-Strand Fried Dough Stick 八股油条
Eight-Strand Fried Dough Stick is featured among the local specialties of Jiangsu.
Eight-Strand Fried Dough Stick (八股油条) is a Xuzhou (徐州) breakfast fritter: an oval fried dough stick made from eight pieces of dough, eaten in the city for more than a hundred years according to China.com.cn (中国网). The 'Stroll Pengcheng, Taste the Food' (逛彭城 品美食) tourism food list, released by the Xuzhou culture and tourism bureau and partners in May 2025, opens with breakfasts including it, alongside laomo flatbread rolled around sanzi fried dough strands (烙馍卷馓子) and Xuzhou huoshao (徐州火烧).
Where the name comes from
China.com.cn explains the name through the 'eight-legged essay' (八股文) of the old civil service examinations: because each finished stick is made of eight pieces of dough, it was called the eight-strand dough stick.
How it is eaten
The fritter is golden, crisp and salty-savoury. China.com.cn describes it as especially suited to eating with sha soup (饣它汤), a Xuzhou breakfast soup; the sha soup Xuzhou people remember best is that of Mashi Street (马市街) in the old city. The Mashi Street sha soup shop, said to date from the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty, was renamed Xianfeng Restaurant (先锋饭店) in 1956 and took back the Mashi Street name in 2003; it serves breakfast, including sha soup and eight-strand dough sticks among more than ten traditional snacks.
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)
- Reference photo of a similar dish · 同类菜品参考照片A similar preparation is pictured; the local version may differ. 同类菜品参考照片，当地做法可能不同。Photo: Pauloleong2002 · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized for the web; the photo itself has not been edited. Thumbnails may show a cropped view.
