Douzhi

Douzhi

　　A long-renowned traditional snack from Beijing and Chengde. It features a grayish-green color, thick and rich texture, and a flavor that is sour with a hint of sweetness. Douzhi is a uniquely flavored winter and spring snack in Beijing. Elderly locals in particular have a special fondness for it. In the past, douzhi was sold either raw or cooked. Raw sellers often used hand-pushed wooden carts, selling it alongside sesame tofu; cooked sellers typically carried a shoulder pole — one end holding the douzhi pot, the other displaying deep-fried dough rings (焦圈), fried dough twists (麻花), and spicy pickled vegetables. According to *Miscellaneous Poems on Small Snacks of Yan Capital*, “The dregs actually make congee, the flavor of old fermented broth varies in thickness. Men and women alike sit together, each sipping a bowl suited to their taste for saltiness and sourness.” It also says, “The taste lies beyond just sour and salty — only those who eat it know; it can be called exquisitely wonderful.”

　　Douzhi must be eaten with finely chopped pickled vegetables — typically turnip in summer, or for the more particular, thinly sliced aged salted mustard greens tossed with chili oil. It is best paired with golden, crispy fried dough rings (焦圈), offering a unique flavor. Douzhi is a traditional Beijing snack made from the byproducts of making mung bean starch or vermicelli. Raw douzhi is produced by soaking mung beans in water until softened, grinding them with water, removing most of the starch (used for making vermicelli or cold noodles), and then fermenting the remaining liquid. Douzhi generally tastes sour, slightly bitter, and has a faint sour odor.

　　Douzhi has a long history — it is said to have been a popular food among commoners as early as the Liao and Song dynasties. In the 18th year of the Qianlong reign (1753), someone petitioned the court: “Recently, a new item called douzhi has emerged. Yi Libu has been assigned to inspect whether it is clean and drinkable. If it is free from impurities, Yunbu should recruit two or three douzhi makers and assign them to work in the imperial kitchen.” Thus, what originated among the people became an imperial dish.

　　Some say douzhi is a food for the old Manchu bannermen, but in truth, those who enjoy it are not limited by ethnicity or wealth. In the old days, well-dressed individuals might be mocked for eating blood sausage or sheep’s small intestine at a street stall, but drinking douzhi there was nothing to be ashamed of. Douzhi sellers would usually buy raw douzhi from starch shops, carry it to temples, and cook it on-site. They would set up a long table with four large glass display cases: one holding spicy pickled vegetables, one with dried radish, one with sesame paste pancakes and “horse hoof” buns (a type of flatbread shaped like a horse’s hoof, available in peppery salt or double-layer varieties), and one with small fried dough rings. The table was covered with white cloth and adorned with blue drapes featuring white-cut patterns labeling it as “× Shop Douzhi.” In summer, a cloth awning was also erected to block the sun. Usually run by one or two people, the vendors would constantly shout to passersby: “Come on, folks, hot pancakes, hot fried dough — we’ve got seats inside!”

　　— Old Beijing’s Douzhi —

　　Most people, whether drinking it hot or cold, can’t really appreciate its qualities. Moreover, some modern douzhi vendors cook it and then let it sit until it cools before reheating — some don’t even reheat it — so how can one possibly taste authentic douzhi? Drinking it cold, it immediately tastes like swill; but when drunk hot, the flavor is different — sweet with sourness, and sour with a hint of astringency, creating a truly unique taste. Paired with pickled vegetable strips, fried dough rings, or pancakes, it becomes even more flavorful.

　　Old Beijingers love drinking douzhi — either buying raw douzhi to boil at home, which is how they usually do it in winter, or going to temple fairs and street stalls to drink it, which is more common in summer. Nowadays, street vendors selling douzhi are gone, though you might still find them occasionally at temple fairs. Douzhi is hard to come by, and authentic douzhi even harder. This has made life difficult for those Beijingers who love it — they can only satisfy their craving at a limited number of snack shops.

　　To try this delicacy, Huguo Temple Snack Shop in Huguo Temple Street, Xicheng District, still serves relatively authentic douzhi.

　　— How Douzhi Is Made —

　　Ingredients: 1 kilogram of mung beans, and appropriate amount of spicy pickled vegetables. Douzhi is actually a byproduct of making mung bean starch or vermicelli. Mung beans are soaked until the skins can be rubbed off, then drained and ground with water into a fine slurry. This is poured into a large vat to ferment. What settles at the bottom is starch; what floats on top is douzhi. The fermented douzhi is then boiled in a large sand pot with water added, mixed with the fermented liquid, brought to a boil again, and kept warm over low heat — ready to serve as needed.

　　Making Process:

　　1. Rinse the mung beans to remove impurities, wash them thoroughly, and soak them in a basin with cold water (use lukewarm water in winter; use twice as much water as beans) for over ten hours. When the skins rub off easily, drain the beans and grind them with water into a thin paste (the finer, the better) — approximately 2.65 kilograms of paste per kilogram of beans. Then, mix in 1.5 kilograms of thin slurry (i.e., the clear water previously skimmed off during douzhi or starch production) and gradually add no less than 12 kilograms of cold water to filter. This will yield about 17 kilograms of starch slurry and 2 kilograms of bean dregs.

　　2. Pour the starch slurry into a large vat and let it settle overnight. White starch will sink to the bottom, above it a layer of grayish-brown black powder, then a layer of grayish-green, thick raw douzhi, and on top foam and thin slurry. Skim off the foam and slurry, then ladle out the raw douzhi (about 8 kilograms of douzhi, plus roughly 500 grams of starch and a little black powder). Before boiling, let it settle once more — six hours in summer, overnight in winter. After settling, skim off the slurry on top.

　　3. Add a little cold water to the pot, bring it to a rapid boil, then pour in the raw douzhi. As the douzhi expands and threatens to overflow, immediately reduce the heat to low to keep it warm (don’t use high heat, or it’ll turn into sesame tofu). Serve it as needed, paired with spicy pickled vegetables.

　　Features of Douzhi:

　　Despite its unappealing appearance, it has long been loved by Beijingers due to its richness in protein, vitamin C, crude fiber, and sugar. It also offers health benefits such as relieving summer heat, clearing internal heat, warming yang energy, strengthening the spleen, stimulating appetite, detoxifying, and reducing dryness.

　　Douzhi — when talking about Beijing snacks, douzhi is often the first thing that comes to mind. Beijingers love drinking it and consider it a real treat. But the first time you try it, its swill-like smell makes it hard to swallow. After holding your nose and trying it twice, the experience becomes quite different. Some even become addicted, actively seeking it out and lining up just to have a taste. *Miscellaneous Poems on Small Snacks of Yan Capital* says: “The dregs actually make congee, the flavor of old fermented broth varies in thickness. Men and women alike sit together, each sipping a bowl suited to their taste for saltiness and sourness.” It also says: “The taste lies beyond just sour and salty — only those who eat it know; it can be called exquisitely wonderful.”