Ji County Handmade Noodles

Ji County Handmade Noodles

　　    Ji County Chenjiayancun handmade noodles are among the finest traditional noodle dishes in northern Shaanxi. The village has over 140 households, all surnamed Chen. According to the "Chenjiayancun Village Annals," the ancestors of the Chen family migrated from under the Great Locust Tree during the early Ming Dynasty. The making of Chenjiayancun handmade noodles began during the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era and boasts a history of several hundred years. To this day, the traditional handmade noodle craft of Ji County remains thriving and enjoys widespread fame in northern Shaanxi.

　　    Legend has it that during the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu era, a villager named Chen Shixian returned from working in the fields one day and found an elderly man collapsed unconscious at his doorstep. Although the old man was gaunt and pale, he was neatly dressed. Chen Shixian concluded that he must not be seriously ill but had probably fainted from hunger. He quickly fed the man a leftover steamed cornbread from breakfast. After eating it, the old man woke up but immediately cried out in stomach pain. Chen Shixian then gave him some opium paste, which had pain-relieving properties. Within three to five days, the old man gradually recovered. Before departing, he said to Chen Shixian, “I must repay your life-saving kindness. I see that times are hard for your family, so I will teach you the craft of making handmade noodles, ensuring your descendants will never want for food or clothing.” And so, the art of making handmade noodles began. Only later did Chen Shixian learn that the old man he had helped was a former imperial chef who had fled to the countryside due to war, and who possessed an exceptional skill in crafting handmade noodles. After mastering the noodle-making technique, Chen Shixian passed it on to his three sons and several nephews. From then on, handmade noodles took root in Chenjiayancun and became a livelihood for many families. Later, a woman from Chenjiayancun married into Zhangjiashan Village in Wuqi County and brought the craft there. Together with the hollow handmade noodle-making tradition of Zhangjiashan, both were successfully included in the third batch of Shaanxi Province’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2011.

　　    The ingredients used in Ji County handmade noodles are: high-quality flour from Ningxia, edible salt, and water. The method of preparation is as follows: taking the processing of one bag (25 kilograms) of flour as an example, 10 kilograms of cold water and about 1 kilogram of edible salt are required. The amount of salt may vary slightly with the seasons — less when temperatures are low and slightly more when temperatures are high. First, dissolve the salt in water, then cut the dough with a knife, knead it by hand into thin strands, coil it in a basin, and repeat the process two or three times. Then, pull the dough out of the basin and hang it on rods. It is subsequently placed in a processing chamber and hung on noodle racks to dry until it becomes uniformly dry and thread-like. Finally, the noodles are cut into lengths similar to chopsticks, bundled into small portions, and are ready for use. The characteristics of handmade noodles are: convenient to eat, smooth and delicate in texture, pure in color and fragrant in taste, easy to digest, and particularly suitable as a quick breakfast for working people, as well as for postpartum women, patients, and the elderly.