Zhao Family Steamed Buns are a specialty snack from Nanhe County, Xingtai City, Hebei Province. Made with wheat flour, meat filling, and green onions, the preparation is simple. The dough is fermented to form the wrapper, seasoned with ten-spice powder and roasted flour seasoning, then steamed to perfection. These buns are known for being fragrant, tender, not greasy, with a lingering aroma and the characteristics of thin wrappers and generous fillings. The legend of Zhao Family Steamed Buns goes back to…
Nanhe Millet Pancakes are a specialty snack from Nanhe County, Xingtai City, Hebei Province. These pancakes are known for their crispy, tender, fragrant, and sweet taste, featuring refined coarse grains with balanced nutrition. Later developed through multiple refinements by Zhao Guoqiang, a national senior nutritionist, they became a popular food that is sweet and delicious, nutritionally balanced, naturally sourced, and easy to prepare. The specialty snack of Nanhe County...
Nanhe Golden Rice, commonly known as millet, features tightly packed golden-yellow grains that yield a richly aromatic and flavorful porridge. It is highly nutritious and makes an excellent health-promoting and beauty-enhancing gift for guests. The variety was introduced from Beijing Jingu Group and is grown in Nanhe. The soil here is neutral, with water of suitable hardness, set against blue skies and clear waters. The rice is cultivated in high-organic-matter soil without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides, ensuring zero pollution. Rich in trace elements...
Upon entering Heyang Town, most people who know about hemp paper are villagers from Yangpai Village in the town. The elderly here told reporters that in the old society, due to poverty and the need to survive, a small number of villagers began to learn a craft—making hemp paper, which became a livelihood for the villagers. “Hemp paper has a history of several hundred years.”…
Chili oil…
Guangzong’s meat hotpot is quite famous and a local specialty. Since the meat tastes authentic, not fishy or greasy, many visitors from other places always make it a point to try it when they come to Guangzong, which has made it consistently popular. Meat hotpot refers to pork offal stewed in a large iron pot. The pork offal mainly includes the pig’s head, heart, liver, lungs, stomach (tripe), intestines, and so on…
The bean buns are sticky, especially the New Year ones. Glutinous bean buns are a very popular local specialty in my hometown. They have a round shape, golden color, and when you take a bite, they are fragrant, sweet, soft, and sticky, leaving a long-lasting aftertaste. The more you eat, the more flavorful, sweeter, and delicious they become. They also have high nutritional value. In the past, people could only enjoy them during the New Year...
Guangzong hand-pulled mixed noodles offer a homey taste that has made them especially popular, earning them the golden title of Guangzong’s local specialty. These noodles are a refined dish made from coarse grains, featuring all-natural ingredients. The production process can be described as “exquisite.” First, select large, plump mung beans…
“Thin Pancake Meatball Soup” is a famous paired delicacy in Guangzong. The fragrant and soft thin pancake served with a soup of tender meatballs in flavorful broth is truly a heavenly taste. The thin pancake has been introduced earlier, and now it’s time for the meatball soup to make its appearance. Now, let me take you to try it out. In restaurants across Guangzong, you can enjoy quite authentic versions of this meatball...
In the past, during the transition between spring and summer when food supplies were scarce, poor families had little vegetables or grain. So they would mix various wild greens with cornmeal, sorghum flour, or even wheat bran and rice bran, steam them, and use them to fill their stomachs. That’s how this dish got its name — “Bitter Hardship,” meaning both bitter and hard. Nowadays, people’s living conditions have improved, and they live…
Guangzong handwoven cloth, commonly known as "laocubu" or "old coarse cloth," originates from Guangzong County in Hebei Province, renowned as the “Hometown of Chinese Folk Art.” This "old coarse cloth" boasts a history of several thousand years, with cotton weaving dating back to the Tang Dynasty. It is meticulously woven by hand, strand by strand (with over 3,000 shuttle passes per meter), embodying the sweat and heartfelt dedication of the weavers. Its value cannot be measured in mere currency—much like the sentiment expressed in the Tang Dynasty poet Meng Jiao’s poem “Song of the Parting Son”: “The thread in the hands of a fond-hearted mother / Makes clothes for the body of her wayward boy; / Carefully she sews and thoroughly she mends, / Dreading the delays that will keep him late from home. / But how much love has the inch-long grass / For three spring months of the light of the sun?” It embodies profound maternal love and steadfast romance. The traditional craft of making this cloth involves a complex process comprising twelve steps: twisting decorative knots, spinning the yarn, twisting strands, dyeing the thread, starching the thread, reeling the thread, warping, printing the fabric, setting the reed, threading the heddles, assembling the loom, and finally weaving. Old coarse cloth offers irreplaceable advantages over machine-woven fabrics—the product is pollution-free, highly breathable, sweat-absorbent, elastic, soft and comfortable, warm in winter and cool in summer, anti-static, effectively shields against ultraviolet rays, resists radiation, and has strong skin affinity. Moreover, due to its thick threads and deep patterns, the fabric surface forms numerous massage points that provide an unexpectedly soothing effect on human skin. It is a pure, natural, green, and health-promoting cotton textile with extremely high practical value. As it is made entirely from pure cotton yarn and produced through entirely manual processes, it is a truly green, eco-friendly, and natural product, free from any industrial pollution. In the 1930s, Li Rongkai, then Vice President of the Central Bank, gifted Guangzong handwoven cloth to his mentor Kong Xiangxi. Kong, so enamored with the cloth, personally named it “Shaqiu Hanjin” (Sand Dune Han Brocade). In 2009, the traditional weaving techniques of Guangzong were included in the provincial intangible cultural heritage list. In today’s world where people increasingly value nature and yearn for green living, old coarse cloth—with its thick texture, skin-friendly comfort, temperature-regulating qualities, breathability, sweat absorption, and anti-static properties—has once again become a top choice in fabrics.
Guangzong Braised Pig's Trotters are a specialty delicacy from Guangzong County, Xingtai City, Hebei Province. These trotters boast a jujube-red hue, remain intact in shape, are fall-off-the-bone tender, and offer a deliciously savory yet not greasy taste, all while being rich in nutrients. When served hot, they have a tender and smooth texture, being rich but not oily; when served cold, their gelatinous texture is soft yet resilient, with a long-lasting aftertaste. Guangzong’s famous dish “Braised Pig’s Trotters” is fairly well-known locally, and these trotters are truly delicious—their distinctive qualities largely lie in their preparation method and choice of ingredients. According to sources, the cooking method is largely the same as traditional approaches: high-quality pig’s trotters are selected, undergo strict preprocessing, and are then simmered in a master stock along with over ten seasonings including scallions, ginger, chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, as well as various Chinese herbs. The mixture is gently brought to a boil and braised for about three hours before being ready to serve. The finished product has a jujube-red color, remains whole in shape, is tender and falls off the bone, is savory without being greasy, and is rich in nutrients. Served hot, it has a tender and smooth texture, is rich but not oily; when served cold, the gelatin is soft yet chewy, with a lingering flavor.
Guangzong Purple Dates are a specialty of Guangzong County in Xingtai City, Hebei Province. The large purple jujubes from Guangzong are beloved for their superior qualities—large size, thick flesh, small pits, and high sugar content—and were selected as one of the recommended fruits for the fourth Beijing Olympic Games. The Guangzong jujube gets its name from its purple skin and is considered top-grade for medicinal use. It has a unique flavor. When dried, the fruit remains purple and wrinkled, and does not dry out completely after sun exposure…
Guangzong Thin Pancake, also known as "Wind-Blown Big Oil Pancake." The origin of this name probably lies in its extreme thinness — a pancake with a diameter of one and a half feet weighs only three or four taels, which gives you an idea of just how thin it is — so thin you can read a newspaper through it, even thinner than paper, and might just blow away in the wind. If you use this kind of thin pancake to make a meat roll…
Clustered Branch Red Apricot…
Longyao chili peppers are a specialty of Longyao County in Xingtai City, Hebei Province. Chili peppers were once one of the county’s key distinctive cash crops. From the 1980s to the early 1990s, they gained nationwide popularity, making Longyao one of the largest chili production and export bases in the province. Longyao County has long been known as the “Hometown of Chili Peppers” and is a major chili pepper export production base in Hebei Province…
Drinking lamb soup at Longyao Lamb Soup Longyao Lamb Restaurant is a real treat. When the bowl of soup arrives, it's rich and oily, with its milky-white color set off by bright green scallions and steaming white heat rising from it. The aroma is fresh and intense, instantly whetting your appetite. You can't wait to take a slurp—just as you lean in, the steam fogs up your eyes first...
Stir-fried Old Meat “When stir-frying old meat, speed is key. Once the sauce is ready, quickly add the oil-blanched meat to the sauce and stir-fry rapidly. At the same time, grab a handful of mung bean sprouts or chopped scallions and toss them into the wok to stir-fry together. Mung bean sprouts or scallions are suitable for quick cooking, and their white color or the green-and-white mix of scallions contrasts beautifully with the reddish-brown oil-blanched meat...
The "Chicken Leg Scallion" from Longyao is one of China’s most famous specialty vegetables, with over two thousand years of cultivation history. It enjoys great prestige in North and Northeast China, with an annual planting area of 40,000 mu and a yield of 40 million kilograms. The Zepan White Lotus Root is also widely renowned and was once an imperial tribute through the ages. …
Scallions have been cultivated in China for over three thousand years. The Longyao scallion is one of the many varieties of scallions in China and boasts a long history. The *Compendium of Materia Medica* by Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty records: “Sudden death from fright, whether preceded by illness or occurring unexpectedly during daily rest, is caused by evil spirits. Quickly insert the yellow core of a scallion into the nostril—left for men, right for women—seven…