TO FEED HER HUSBAND – and launch a celebrated item of Chinese regional cuisine.
Visit “the land of eternal spring”, southern China’s Kunming, and you’ll find a celebrated dish often called “crossing-the-bridge rice noodles”. This bowl of deliciousness has been on the list of Kunming’s intangible cultural heritage since 2008.
Yunnan rice noodles (雲南米線) are now popular across China’s major cities – although in most parts of the country the culinary method is not as authentic as it could be.
The exact date of rice noodle dish’s origin is difficult to know for sure. It is said to have originated in Mengzi（蒙自), a town in southern Yunnan Province.
According to the county records of Mengzi, there was once a young scholar who studied hard for the imperial examinations in a small house in the middle of a local lake.
His wife came up with the idea of rice noodles to give her husband something nutritious to eat during the cold winter, to help him overcome the cold and hunger.
Noodle connoisseurs know that soup-noodles soak up the liquid if you wait too long. So she used one pot to hold soup (chicken or pork bone), and other containers to hold the rice noodles and items to add to it.
When it was time to eat, she mixed them together to make a steaming bowl of nutritious rice noodles. Each time she delivered the rice noodles, she had to cross a small bridge over the lake, hence the name “crossing-the-bridge rice noodles”（過橋米線）.
This type of portioning has two advantages: Firstly, the oil film formed on the surface of the soup ingredients blocks the heat and has a heat-retaining effect; secondly, the separation of the soup ingredients and the staple food prevents the latter from becoming soggy if left for a long time. The wife’s invention not only supported her husband to study hard and finally pass the exam, but also bequeathed a traditional cuisine to future generations.
Nowadays, vendors cook the soup, rice noodles and side dishes together in a pot and then serve it to customers in a large bowl.
Only in Yunnan are rice noodles still cooked in the traditional way, and when they are served it is an eye-catching sight to see white rice noodles, oil-covered bone broth and a variety of meat and vegetable toppings all over the table.
It’s worth noting that when the bone soup is brought to the table, there may be no visible trace of heat, but as soon as the vegetables and thinly sliced meat are added to the soup, they are fully cooked in just a few seconds, which means that the soup is very hot.
So don’t be in a hurry to eat it!
Image at the top by Visual China.