Zhenjiang cuisine belongs to Huaiyang cuisine (one of the four main cuisines in China). In general, Jiangsu cuisine's texture is characterized as soft, but not to the point of mushy or falling apart. Other characteristics include the strict selection of ingredients according to the seasons, emphasis on the matching color and shape of each dish and emphasis on using soup to improve the flavor.

Dear Friends, if you`ll be in Zhenjiang, you cannot miss the ¡°three fishes, two heads and three strange things¡±, the most characteristic dishes in Zhenjiang.

Three fishes represent reeves shad, saury and longsnout catfish; two heads indicate head of chub and lion-head meatball with crab roe; three strange things means that salted pork in jelly is not a dish, the vinegar won¡¯t deteriorate and pot cover floating in the noodles pot. Are you interested in local food and cuisine of Zhenjiang? Go ahead, you will see what they are.

Zhenjiang Vinegar

The best vinegar is in Zhejiang, located in Jiangsu province. Zhenjiang vinegar is unique for its color, fragrance, acid, pure and dense material among other kinds of vinegar in China. Taste it, you will feel acid and delicious, fragrant and sweet. The longer you keep it, the better it tastes. This is one of the ¡°three strange things¡±, which will never deteriorate.

The reason why Zhenjiang vinegar won¡¯t deteriorate is its unique geographical environment and exquisite production technology. The raw material of Zhenjiang vinegar is high-quality sticky rice with Acetic Acid Bacteria. It takes more than 40 procedures, which lasts more than 70 days for refining. After a certain period of storage, Zhenjiang vinegar can be sent to the market.

Zhenjiang vinegar lives up to its name. Zhenjiang Hengshun Vinegar Factory, the first vinegar factory in China, was originally founded in 1850.

Zhenjiang Pot Cover Noodles

There is a legend about Zhenjiang pot cover noodles. In ancient times, there was a family in Zhenjiang, the wife cooked noodles for her husband and the cover of the soup container slipped into the pot. To their surprise, the noodles tasted much better than before. Hence, the husband opened a noodle restaurant together with other people and used the special way of cooking the noodles. So the noodle was called ¡°Pot Cover Noodles¡±.

Nowadays, in Zhenjiang¡¯s noodle shops, people put a pot cover in the pot when they cook the noodles. The pot cover floating on the water to protect the soup from overflowing and the noodles are open to the air during the whole procedure. That¡¯s another strange thing in Zhenjiang.

Lion-Head Meatball with Crab Roe

This dish is the symbol of Huaiyang cuisine and it requires very complicated procedures. First mix the ground pork, egg white, crabmeat, rice wine, salt, scallions and ginger into a rather stiff mixture. Then divide it into four portions and roll each portion into a meatball. Add cabbage and chicken broth together with the meatballs into a casserole and place it on low heat and simmer for long time, until cooked. It has the fragrance of the pork and crab and the color of the dish is as bright as orange. It tastes rich but not greasy.

Salted Pork in Jelly

Zhenjiang salted pork in jelly has over 300-years of history until now. People always take delight in talking about its delicious taste. However, this special dish came into being for a mistake.

The story happed more than 300 hundred years ago. There is a small restaurant in Zhenjiang, whose shopkeeper bought several pig feet for doing salty pork. He put a pack of saltpeter powder instead of salt into the curing tank by mistake. The saltpeter powder was bought by his wife for making firecrackers. Next day, when the wife could not find the saltpeter powder, the shopkeeper relized his mistake. He hurriedly opened the cover of the curing tank and found the the quality of the pork still kept well and turned to be more hard and more colorful. The couple worried about whether the pork would be poisonous or not. So they washed the pig feet again and again, boiled them in water and changed the water several times. After that, they put scallion, ginger, pepper, fennel and other seasoning to boil the pork. After a while, the delicious smells emanated from the pot and pervaded to the street. Many neighbours came to try the pork and gave extremely high comments. Seeing this situation, the house keeper began to use this way to make the pork, and got an excellent reputation for this special-cooked pork. Since some part of the pork seems like crystals, people called it salted pork in jelly.