Shaxian Delicacies and Luosifen will become China’s national intangible cultural heritage

On December 22, 2020, China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage preparation catalogue. This catalogue contains more than 100 projects that are expected to become China’s national intangible cultural heritage.

Shaxian Delicacies and Luosifen are also on the list.

Shaxian Delicacies is a compound concept. In the Chinese context, it usually refers to a well-known Chinese fast food chain brand controlled by the government of Shaxian County, Sanming City, Fujian Province. But here, it refers to the cooking methods of a series of snacks that are popular in Shaxian County.

It most likely includes foods such as Steamed Dumpling, noodles, and wonton. We introduced these snacks in a previous article, and we also talked about how Shaxian opened 60,000 stores in China and became the most popular fast food chain in China.

Luosifen is a smelly food that has been popular in China since 2018. To put it simply, it is a kind of rice noodles with snails and sour bamboo shoots added to the bone soup. It originated in Liuzhou City, Guangxi Province, and is known to diners in other regions by a bite of China, a well-known Chinese food documentary. The video of Li Ziqi made it more popular and became the protagonist of Chinese food in 2020.

In another article, we described in detail the taste of Luosifen and its development. It has become the intangible cultural heritage of Guangxi Province since 2008.

In China, the declaration of intangible cultural heritage is divided into four levels, according to the territorial principle, namely, the county level, the municipal level, the provincial level and the national level. If it becomes a national intangible cultural heritage, it will have the opportunity to be declared on the UNESCO World Intangible Cultural Heritage list.