It’s been an extended break since the last update, mostly owing to my having been away for fieldwork. I just spent more than a week in Changsha researching shopping malls in work hours and tracing the remnants of its old city wall and seeking out its finest spicy food in off time. That could make for pretty interesting writing, but I’m back in Shanghai for only one day before heading out again to Hefei. So instead of getting into the Changsha stuff, I’m going to finish up the last of the Xi’an National Day travel posts.
This post is all about the gustatory pleasures of Xi’an’s Hui Min snack street. Hui Min refers to the city’s Hui minority of Chinese Muslims, and the snack street runs through the downtown Muslim quarter, making it the center of one of Xi’an’s top tourist destinations. It’s lined with delightfully ramshackle buildings and hundreds of shopfronts and snack carts manned by aggressive hawkers shouting the names of their wares while shaping, skewering, pouring, and grilling all manner of delicacies. The whole street is closed to cars, and in the midst of the National Day chaos, it looks like this:
The snacks make all the elbowing and shoving worthwhile. I had been hoping to do some research on the various snacks available there and do a proper introduction of how each one began in such-and-such dynasty and was a favorite of so-in-so historic figure, but in the end there were just too many snack and not enough time. I’ll have to let the pictures do the heavy living.
This is a glutinous rice dish that we came back for seconds for. It’s made of layers of compressed rice with a filling of red bean paste, and covered with sesame seed, honey, and brown sugar syrup. The hawker cut it into a bite size chunks and gave it to us to eat with toothpicks. The syrup and honey provide an initial burst of sweetness, while the sesame seeds add a grainy texture before you get to the mix of chewy rice and mild red bean paste. It was the perfect cool treat for the late days of summer.
As its name implies, many of the people cooking along Hui Min street are members of China’s Muslim minority, identifiable by their white caps. The man in the photo above is fishing a round of flatbread out of an oven to add to the pile on the table.
Many Han Chinese associate China’s Muslim minorities with selling grilled meat skewers, and the snack street did not disappoint that expectation.
A variety of fruit juices on sale, including pomegranate, peach, and kiwi. The fresh-pressed sugarcane juice left the deepest impression, though.
Battered and fried banana-on-a-stick. But I’m not sure what went into the breading?
I won’t lie. I don’t actually know what this is. For years I thought it was related to pineapple, but Xi’an is far away from where those are sold.
Another variety of bread popular among the Hui minority. We bought some and brought it back to Shanghai, where my sister said it was one of the worst things she had ever eaten. Hopefully that’s just because we waited a few days to eat it?
Fresh fruit cup. Pomegranates – visible in the background – were in season during our visit and were an essential component of any fruit juice/fruit cup offerings.
Grilled potatoes with your choice of chili powder, cumin, and other spices.
Lambs hooves on the bone.
I squeezed off this picture just as were were leaving the street, and I’m honestly not sure what this stuff is. I would say the gelatinous white cubes are either compressed rice, or perhaps compressed white maize? The brown sauce on top could easily be either salty or sweet – I’d go for salty, since the cook seems to be adding a powder of pepper or cumin on top.
And finally, simple cold noodles for those lacking the sense of adventure to try the other stuff.
Dispatches from the Paradise of Adventurers 