Chengwu Sauce-Pickled Root Vegetable 成武酱大头
Chengwu Sauce-Pickled Root Vegetable is featured among the local specialties of Shandong.
Chengwu Sauce-Pickled Root Vegetable (成武酱大头) is a pickle of large-rooted mustard (大头菜) cured in fermented wheat paste in Chengwu County (成武县), Heze (菏泽), in southwest Shandong. The head of Jiunüji (九女集) township told Heze Daily that it is one of the county's best-known specialities, with a production method more than 200 years old, and that it is recognised as provincial intangible cultural heritage and as a nationally protected geographical-indication product.
How it is made
Chengwu picklers follow what they call the 'four-three-two-one' method (四三二一酱制法), handed down from the Qing dynasty. The work runs to 32 steps, all by hand, among them making the paste, fermenting the base, cutting the vegetables, curing them in paste, sunning them in the hottest weeks of summer and exposing them to the night dew. Vats are uncovered to the sun by day and covered at night to gather dew, and the paste is stirred with a rake twice a day. The whole process takes three years.
At the Jiunüji township demonstration park, more than 10,000 curing vats are set shallowly into the ground under catalpa trees. The park uses the 'Qiaoza No. 5' (乔杂五号) mustard-root variety and makes its paste from black wheat grown locally. At another works, mustard in black-glazed pottery vats must be sunned for 40 days in high summer, until the skin wrinkles and darkens.
Flavour and texture
Producers sum up the character they aim for as fresh, sweet, aromatic and crisp. Heze Daily describes a newer packaged version, cut from the heart of the root, as brownish-red and translucent, combining savoury aroma, salt and sweetness in balance, with a long-lasting fragrance and a crisp bite.
Where it comes from
According to the Chengwu county annals cited by the Dazhong group, the craft began with Wu Zhongyou (武忠友), a palace cook who brought a court pickling recipe home. In the Yongzheng reign his descendant Wu Yinchang (武银昌) opened the Laojinchang (老金昌) pickle shop in the county town, with the shop in front and the works behind. The same report says that in 1763 the county magistrate presented its pickles to the Qianlong Emperor on his southern tour, and the emperor named them 'Purple Amber' (紫琥珀). In 1957 Laojinchang merged with other pickle shops into the county's food-processing plant, and several brands followed after the reform era began.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.