Jingzhou City boasts a wide variety of delicious foods, including Jingzhou fish cake, fish balls, braised pork belly with tofu skin, eel strips, winter melon and turtle skirt soup, pearl glutinous rice balls, Jiangling eight-treasure rice, Gong'an beef, Songzi Du Po chicken, Shishou Bijia fish maw, Honghu lotus root and lotus root strips, and Honghu wild duck. Snacks include: Zaotang noodles, Gong'an guokui (a type of flatbread), Gong'an bean curd sheets, rice balls, glutinous rice soaked in bean curd, Huangjiatang beef rice noodles, and Xiaohu duck, among others.
Jingzhou Fish Cake
Fish cake, one of the eight famous dishes of Jingzhou/Shashi region, has a long history. "Jingzhou Fish Cake" is made from white fish meat, while red fish meat can be used to make fried fish balls. It is often served with chicken, pork kidneys, and pork stomach in a stew, becoming a famous dish at Jingzhou banquets.
Thousand-Layer Braised Pork Belly
This dish uses fatty and lean pork belly as its main ingredient. After boiling and frying, it is coated with brown sugar, sliced thinly, and steamed in a bowl covered with sugar. Because the slices are paper-thin, shuttle-shaped, and numerous, it is named Thousand-Layer Braised Pork Belly, also known as Comb Pork.
Winter Melon and Turtle Skirt Soup
Winter Melon and Turtle Skirt Soup is a soup made by simmering the skirt of a turtle (also known as soft-shelled turtle, round turtle, or soft-shelled turtle) with tender winter melon. Its preparation is meticulous, and the ingredients are carefully selected. First, the large turtles with plump skirts are slaughtered, the skirts are removed, cut into chunks, stir-fried over high heat, then simmered with chicken broth and seasonings. Finally, tender winter melon chunks are added and simmered until the turtle skirt is tender.
Deep-fried Lotus Root Balls: Legend has it that when Emperor Qianlong traveled to the south of the Yangtze River three times, passing through Honghu, the local official, to show respect to the emperor, asked the chefs to demonstrate their special skills so that the emperor could eat lotus root without actually seeing it. The chefs pondered their own specialties, and one chef recalled how, during a famine, lotus root was used to stave off hunger; he mashed the lotus root and made lotus root balls. So he combined five flavors and meticulously prepared the dish. Emperor Qianlong tasted it, was delighted, and upon returning to Beijing, designated deep-fried lotus root balls as part of the imperial cuisine.
Jingzhou Eight Treasure Rice: Jingzhou Eight Treasure Rice originated from a Qing Dynasty imperial chef who left the palace and opened a restaurant in Jingzhou. This eight-treasure rice is made by steaming red dates, lotus seeds, Job's tears, longan, candied cherries, candied winter melon strips, osmanthus sugar, and glutinous rice into a dough, then adding white sugar and lard and simmering it. Hence, it is also called "Scattered Eight Treasures." When eaten, it is smooth and melts in the mouth, fragrant and sweet, oily but not greasy, sweet but not cloying.
Zaotang Noodles, a famous traditional breakfast in Shashi, has a history of over a century. The most convincing explanation for its origin is that after Shashi opened as a treaty port in 1895, a local noodle shop owner, noting that dockworkers, who engaged in manual labor, preferred rich, oily foods, created this type of noodle dish with thick, oily toppings and a flavorful broth. Because dockworkers often ate noodles at the noodle shop in the early morning before going to work, it got its name.