Sha Soup 饣它汤

Where it comes from

The story told in Xuzhou begins with Peng Zu (彭祖), who is said to have cooked a pheasant broth (雉羹) from wild pheasant, millet (稷米) and seasonings for the ailing Emperor Yao and was rewarded with the fief of Pengcheng (彭城), today's Xuzhou. The Ta Kung Pao columnist Hai Long (海龙) points to a line in Qu Yuan's (屈原) "Heavenly Questions" (天问) that already mentions Peng Keng serving pheasant broth to the emperor. The broth came to be called "天下第一羹" (the finest broth under heaven).

The name comes from a later legend. When the Qianlong Emperor tasted the broth at a Xuzhou stall and asked "此为啥汤" (what soup is this?), an attendant who did not know answered that it was called "sha soup". Because the everyday character for "sha" (啥, "what") was thought vulgar, people in Xuzhou made up a new character for it, and that spelling is still used.

How it is made

Ta Kung Pao describes the version at the Youyicun (又一村) breakfast shop, whose owner collected old methods from around Xuzhou: old hens, pork hock and round bones cooked with wheat kernels and more than ten spices over a low flame for more than ten hours. At its core the soup is old hen, pork hock and wheat kernels.

How it is eaten

It is a breakfast soup, and a bowl with two liang of pan-fried buns (煎包) makes a full morning meal. Xuzhou Daily (徐州日报) describes queues each morning outside the Mashijie (马市街) sha soup shop, which hangs plaques naming it a century-old brand and a famous Xuzhou snack. In 2022 the same paper reported that the craft of Xuzhou sha soup is on the provincial intangible cultural heritage list.