Gaoping Ten-Bowl Banquet 高平十大碗
Gaoping Ten-Bowl Banquet is featured among the local specialties of Shanxi.
Gaoping Ten-Bowl Banquet (高平十大碗) is a pork-centred banquet whose ten soup bowls form the closing main event. It is served in Gaoping (高平) for major festivals and weddings.
How it is made
Most of the soup bowls use cuan (汆), briefly heating ingredients in boiling liquid; soft rice and tian’e dan (天鹅蛋) are exceptions. Pork is prepared in different ways, including frying and steaming, before being heated in broth.
How it is eaten
Tea and dried fruit precede the meal, followed by cold dishes such as pork head and liver. Stir-fries, chicken and fish come next, with steamed bread. Only after these dishes do the ten bowls arrive in sequence. Intestine soup closes the banquet.
The selection is flexible, but the total stays at ten. The usual lineup includes squid soup, meatball soup, crisp-fried pork soup, bean soup and mustard soup. Tripe soup, vegetable balls, small glutinous-rice balls or corn soup may take places in the set.
Where it comes from
Gaoping’s municipal government dates the banquet’s provincial intangible cultural heritage listing to 2011. Its 2025 account describes changes to the table: more fish, shrimp and beef, less oil and salt, and more fresh vegetables among the cold and hot dishes.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-26. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.