A Spring Festival Homecoming: Food Memories of Ranghe, Wenchang Chicken, Red Sausage and Sand Worms

The Spring Festival holiday is over — what flavours of home did you enjoy this year? In this episode of Food Talk, Foodthink colleagues gathered to share their festive food memories, stretching from Shaanxi to Hainan and on to Harbin and Beijing, each place carrying its own distinct food culture and eating habits.

Ze’en, from Jingyang in Shaanxi, misses most the local speciality “ranghe” — a cold dish made by steaming layers of crumbled steamed bun, lean pork, ginger and eggs together — and hopes to learn the craft from her elders back home. Ning Chen, a self-styled Hainan “islander”, shared how Wenchang chicken is prepared and the Hainanese passion for seafood. Xiao Qi is from Harbin, where the New Year table featured red sausage, fermented cabbage dumplings, “kvass” and frozen pears. Now that Harbin has become a sensation, what changes has the local food culture seen?

Another editor, Xiao Jing, recounted her experience in Shaoyang, Hunan, taking her own basin along to “buy rice noodles”, and got a taste of how Dianping — the “urban dining guide” — falls short in a small town. Meanwhile, Ze’en, who stayed in Beijing and invited her parents to ring in the New Year together, tried instant-boiled mutton, Peking duck, pickled vegetables, Daoxiangcun pastries… Her parents sighed: cooking in Beijing is really not easy! Even that reveals how the big cities are quietly shifting.

Finally, this episode also touches on the fantastical journey of returning to Beijing to “earn a living” from a popular tourist destination.

Although the flavours of home in memory remain the same, the food scene in small towns is changing too, with new discoveries every year. What have you found this Spring Festival? We hope this episode lets you chase the feeling of home through food and culture, and experience a different kind of journey back!

Guests in This Episode

Ze’en

A Shaanxi native newly settled in south Beijing, a devotee of old Beijing douzhi (fermented mung-bean drink), with an iron-clad Shaanxi stomach.

Ning Chen

A newcomer to Foodthink — a southerner with northern genes. Never tires of aubergine and broccoli in a lifetime of meals; hikes and does yoga to burn off the calories so the eating can carry on. New Year wish: embrace uncertainty — even if it means missing the bus.

Xiao Qi

Project Officer at Foodthink, an agriculture student longing to reconnect with the land.

Hosts in This Episode

Xiao Jing

A born-and-raised Beijing local and host who basically always spends Spring Festival in town — after becoming a Hunan in-law, she made a few trips to small-town Shaoyang to “qia” (tuck into) some properly authentic Hunan rice noodles.

Timeline

00:17 Where did the editors from Shaanxi, Hainan, Harbin and Beijing spend Spring Festival this year? What hometown flavours did they enjoy?

01:39 Asking Xiao Qi from Harbin: red sausage, fermented cabbage dumplings, “kvass” — do northeasterners really eat all this at home?

05:32 Asking Ning Chen, a Hainanese: do Hainan residents, who prize fresh chicken, all know how to slaughter one? How do you make Wenchang chicken taste its best?

10:05 The hometown sea flavour Ning Chen misses most: this year she had sand worms that were both crunchy and soft — not the sandworms from Dune!

11:40 The hometown speciality “ranghe” that Ze’en, a Shaanxi native, misses most — a cold dish made by steaming layers of crumbled steamed bun, lean pork, ginger and eggs together. As the saying goes, “no ranghe, no banquet.”

15:24 Beijing native Xiao Jing in Shaoyang, Hunan: back in a small town, don’t blindly trust Dianping! The 4.5-star chain noodle shop isn’t that great, while the 2.5-star local rice noodle stall — where everyone brings their own little bowl every morning to scoop up noodles — has zero service but is genuinely delicious.

19:01 The editorial rumble over Daoxiangcun: is it actually good? Is a pastry gift box worth it? And when will Daoxiangcun, clinging to its old recipes, start innovating?

22:19 Is hometown food consumption converging towards big-city standards? Even Starbucks, the “emblem of middle-class consumption”, is gradually blending into small-town life

25:08 Harbin’s local landscape revived by tourism: browsing small family-run eateries and community street stalls, heading to the abundant, fill-you-up northeastern wet market for little fried chicken, blood sausage and basin-sized portions of northeastern cold wide starch noodles

27:32 Used to community grocery shops on every street corner in Shenzhen, Ze’en’s parents found Beijing inconvenient: the nearest market is a good kilometre away, no exceptions

29:53 Beijing’s magical Hongqiao Market: a transformation story from community wet market to jewellery emporium

31:54 A fantastical journey home: living in a tourist hotspot where flights easily top tens of thousands and train tickets are impossible to snap up… How do Ning Chen from Hainan and Xiao Qi from Harbin get back to Beijing?