Linhai Zaogeng (Lantern Festival Savoury Porridge)
A thick porridge of finely diced pork, dried shrimp, tofu, bamboo shoot, greens and mushrooms bound with rice flour, eaten by the bowl in Linhai on the fourteenth night of the first lunar month.
How to eat it
Eat it with a spoon from a small bowl; it is closer to a thick stew than a soup and does not need chopsticks. It is served very hot and the starch holds heat, so stir it and wait before the first spoonful. There is no dipping or adding; the seasoning is in the pot. During the festival people eat several small bowls from different households rather than one large one, and it is polite to accept a bowl if you are offered it while walking through a neighbourhood. The sweet version on the following night is eaten the same way.
The story behind the dish
Linhai keeps Lantern Festival a day early, on the fourteenth of the first lunar month, and this porridge is the reason people give. The local legend says that when the Ming general Qi Jiguang was fighting pirates on the coast, townspeople had no time to cook a proper festival meal, so they chopped whatever they had, thickened it with rice flour and fed the soldiers, then celebrated the next day. This is folklore, but the custom is long established: savoury zaogeng on the fourteenth, a sweet version with red dates, beans and sugar on the fifteenth. Families cook a large pot and send bowls round to the neighbours, so the dish is as much a social ritual as a food.
For reference
Every kitchen does it its own way. What follows is the typical version — ingredients, heat and price shift from city to city and from one restaurant to the next, so take it as a guide rather than a fixed recipe.
If you have an allergy or something you can't eat, check with the staff before you order.