Four-Dao-Shui Cured Meat

Four-Dao-Shui Cured Meat

　　Four-Dao-Shui Cured Meat

　　Four-Dao-Shui Cured Meat is a specialty of Shaanxi Province with a history of several thousand years. According to records, over two thousand years ago, when Zhang Lu, who styled himself the King of Han’ning, was defeated in battle and retreated southward toward Bazhong, he passed through Si-Dao-Shui in Hanzhong. The locals there served him top-quality cured meat. It is also said that in the 26th year of the Guangxu reign during the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu took refuge in Xi’an. Local officials from southern Shaanxi presented cured meat as an imperial tribute, and after tasting it, Cixi praised it highly.

　　The traditional practice of processing and making cured meat is not only time-honored but also widespread. During the winter and La months — from “Minor Snow” to just before “Lichun” — every household slaughters pigs and sheep. Aside from keeping enough fresh meat for the New Year, the rest is preserved while still fresh. Salt is used along with a set proportion of spices such as Sichuan peppercorns, Chinese prickly ash, star anise, cinnamon, and cloves to cure the meat in jars. After seven to fifteen days, the meat is hung up with palm leaf ropes to drip dry before being processed further. It is then slowly smoked and dried using cypress branches, sugarcane husks, Chinese toon bark, or firewood smoke. The meat may be hung above the stove where firewood is burned, or suspended above the hearth used for warming, allowing the smoke to gradually cure it. The western region is rich in forests and grass, so nearly every household burns firewood for cooking or heating — providing ideal conditions for curing meat this way. Even city dwellers, though they don’t slaughter pigs or sheep, often go to the market during the winter and La months to select quality cuts of pork, whether fatty or lean, and take them home. There, they follow the same curing methods and smoke a few pieces of cured meat to enjoy the smoky flavor. If they don’t have a fireplace at home, they ask relatives in the countryside to smoke a few pieces for them.