Boiled Pork Soup Feast

Boiled Pork Soup

　　If you want to experience the bold, meat-loving, drink-toasting spirit of the people in Tongren, this dish might be the perfect representation. Eating Boiled Pork Soup is an old rural custom in Tongren. As the Lunar New Year approaches and the time comes to cure cured meats, farming families slaughter a well-fed pig they’ve raised for a whole year while the meat is still fresh and even warm. They slice the still-warm pork, pork blood, and internal organs, then stir-fry them in a pan. They also use the pig’s intestines to make a pot of soup, adding some homemade sweet wine to remove any gaminess and enhance the flavor. Once the meat is cooked and the soup is boiling, they mix the pork and other ingredients back into the pot, along with chili peppers and garlic sprouts. When eating, you can keep adding things like blood tofu, vegetables, and tofu. When enjoying a Boiled Pork Soup feast, don’t be too polite—go for big bowls of liquor and hefty chunks of meat. Like Granny Liu visiting the Grand View Garden for the third time, “eating like a cow, not lifting her head even after polishing off a whole pig,” it’s all about eating your fill, drinking until merry, laughing loudly, and perhaps even staggering a bit—that’s the true spirit of the Boiled Pork Soup meal. The livelier the gathering, the happier the hosts, as it’s also believed to bring good fortune and a bountiful harvest in the coming year. This is Tongren’s "Boiled Pork Soup," and the term “刨 (páo),” meaning to plane or scrape, refers to the carpenter’s tool used to scrape off the pig’s hair—much like how the name came about.