The Miao minority group reside in a beautiful mountainous area of southwestern China. They boast a series of local artwork, including excellent batik, embroidery, brocade, and silver jewels, all of which attracts tourists to visit their hometown. When you visit there, don’t miss their special baked food.” Some places even have handmade silver jewels for sale!

Walking into a restaurant, you will first be served with an apron to protect your clothes from being stained by the oil. You can call it a DIY service, as all food will be baked by yourself. Around a big electrical pan on your table, you can get various food, including mushroom, chicken, fish, shrimp, celery, potato, and some wild vegetables found in the mountain. To enjoy your delicious meal, you should first bake the raw food in the pan, then dunk it into the spicy sauce of pepper, spring onion, and garlic. You are sure to like this amazing flavor! Together with their ethnic staple food like buckwheat cake, rice glue ball, and the special ginger tea, this meal can be really big!

With a long history, baked food is loved by almost everyone in the Miao area. One small town with several different local tribes has about 500 restaurants which offer this baked food. A terrine-style vessel was ever used to bake food. The vessel is almost as big as a straw hat, protruding in the middle, and with a furrow along the side to contain oil. Before baking, brush the central part with some oil. While charcoal burns under the vessel, you can smell the sweet fragrance in the air.

There is a story about the origin of this famous practice of baking food. About 400 years ago, China’s imperial government sent army to suppress the insurgence in the Miao area. The local people, in order to escape the war, hid in the nearby forest and started to live by hunting and gathering. They put the quarries and wild vegetables they found in the forest on tiles, and baked them together with oil. To their surprise, the baked food didn’t taste bad at all as they expected. Later, this baked food became popular in the Miao area, and almost everyone who has visited there loves this food.

This baked food got a gold medal in the first Chinese Gastrology Festival held in 2003.

While traveling in Miao area, you can enjoy this wonderful food, and unique silver jewels as well. That’s really great!

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