Chinese Dishes and Their Stories ：Dongpo Meat

Many famous Chinese dishes have stories attached to them that are as enter-taining to diners as the dishes themselves are satisfying to the taste buds. Most of the stories involve noted figures in Chinese history.

In Hangzhou in East china’s Zhejiang Province, there is a well-known  dish called Dongpo Meat. It is named  after su Dongpo, a literary  giant who lived about 900 years ago.The story is  that when he was the prefectural governor of Hang zhou,he had a dam built across the West Lake.The lake was dredged and became a rich source of irrigation for the farmland,thus making it possible for the local people to have a bumper harvest each year. The dam is now known as the sudi Dam. www.1155815.com

When the  spring  Festival arrived, many folks went to Su Dongpo’s  home to wish him Happy New Year. They took  along pork  and wine to show their thanks.  Su Dongpo accepted the gifts. But then he and the meat  cooked in a special way and sent it on to the families of the people who had worked on the West Lake dredging project.The local people greatly praised su dongpo for this good deed and named the dish Dongpo Meat. One restaurant manager was  very quick to capitalize on the  name. When he saw how popular  the dish proved, he asked his cook to prepare  the meat in the same way. His business soon jflourished. Of course, other  restaurants began to copy him. Before long, Dongpo Meat was available in  every  restaurant in Hangzhou. Soon, Dongpo Meat ranked first on the list of local dishes. Even today, when people there hold a feast,Dongpo Meat is still often featured. 

1155815.cn

中华民俗节庆网