Videos of customers sampling suodiu have appeared all over Chinese social media. Suodiu is a dish originating from the province Hubei, and it is made up of chilli oil, garlic, diced peppers, and – the main ingredient – river rocks.
Vendors pour chilli oil onto pebbles being grilled teppanyaki-style, sprinkle garlic sauce all over them, then stir-fry everything with a mix of garlic cloves and diced peppers. The way you’re meant to eat it is by sucking on the small rocks to relish the rich and spicy flavour before spitting out the rock.
Hence the name suodiu, which means “suck and dispose”. The dish is believed to date back hundreds of years. It was passed down for generations by boatmen through their oral history.
In a report by the Guardian when boatmen in the landlocked province of Hubei would run out of animals and vegetables while travelling along the Yangtze River, and would then turn to – you guessed it – the rocks beneath the river.
Unsurprisingly, suodiu faded in popularity after Hubei developed economically, and motorised vessels appeared in the Yangtze, as it reduced the chances of boatmen being left stranded in the river.
The dish is also linked to the Tujia people, an ethnic minority who originate from the Wuling mountain range that straddles the borders of Hubei, Hunan and Guizhou.
But what does it taste like?!
According to one food blogger, these rocks acquire the taste of marine life over time and start tasting like fish. So when they’re cooked, they have a flavour similar to that of fish, oysters or clams.
Are you going to be trying suodiu on your next trip to China?