Do not miss Chenzhou city’s gorgeous food!

 4th Zixing Tourism Cultural Food Festival Opens

It was reported that 4th Zixing Tourism Cultural Food Festival which is also an activity of flower, fitness and food was held in Zixing Life & Ecology Theme Restaurant on October 16, 2015. Thousands of visitors and citizens tasted flowers and fitness feast and enjoyed the ecological gardening there. Li Yiheng- Former Vice Chairman of Hunan Provincial CPPCC and President of Hunan Food Industry Promotion Association attended the opening ceremony.

It was introduced that this festival focused on the theme of special food materials and flowers of Zixing city and invited many famous masters of Hunan food and Guangdong food and some taste masters to present live-show there. Series typical fitness foods of Zixing city, “ten dishes by one fish” – innovative salmon food, fruits of Dongjiang Lake, and etc. were provided on the festival, which granted the audience a taste and visual feast.

More fitness foods, fitness food culture, and integration of food industry, tourism industry and development of city were shown on the festival. Hunan Food Institution Xiangnan Branch and Dongjiang Lake Fitness Food Culture Research Center which were established after reaching the strategic cooperation with Hunan Food Industry Promotion Association greatly helped to upgrade the development of Zixing food culture and associate Zixing city with a more famous brand of special tourism food.

Some famous chefs who were invited by Hunan Food Industry Promotion Association would hold some training courses on flower dishes during that festival.

“Xifengdu” Fish Rice Noodle

Though it was cold in the end of January, when reporters arrived at “Xifengdu” Fish Noodle Inheritance Industrial Base, workers were working busily on grinding, mixing, steaming, and other procedures. Three masters were making the fish noodles in accordance with the ancestors’ engineering. Cao Yaping who is over 40 years old was cooking the noodles for guests in the kitchen.

Cao Yaping kept working for the industrial base from its establishment. Generally speaking, she can get over 3000yuan salary/month. When it was not so busy in the afternoon, she can take care of her vegetables as well. Usually, there are 6 workers including Cao work for the kitchen of the base. If in peak season, 12 workers would work together there and they can earn 80yuan/day on average.

The reporters can’t help ordering a bowl of fish noodle on smelling its flavor. “How about it?” “Very nice, it keeps the delicate flavor of fish and chewiness of noodles.”

“The main raw material for this rice noodle is Zhuyou 88 high quality rice produced by Nanxiang village, which can ensure the chewiness of the noodles. Some other ingredients as fish, spring onion, ginger, and etc. are mainly cultivated by our village.” said Chen Lianya who is the Secretary of Nanxiang Village Party Committee. Xihe river which passes through Nanxiang village grants the rich resources and fertile soil to the village and enables the rice and vegetables to be with sound yield. Furthermore, Nanxiang village keeps the tradition of vegetable cultivation for a long period of time. Because it is near some markets of the towns and Chenzhou urban area, villagers are willing to deliver some vegetables cultivated by them to sell there.

“Different from other places to lie the lands idle, we play the best advantage of every land to cultivate rice or vegetable.” said Chen Lianya. Currently, there are 2000mu lands planted with double cropping rice. It is famous as Suxian district’s rice field park and also Hunan provincial demonstration of grain production. More than 450mu lands are cultivated with vegetables that spring onion, garlic, celery, and some other vegetables are delivered to Luojiajing Farmers’ Market and Beihu Farmers’ Market all the year round. Averagely speaking, each mu land can gain over 20,000yuan income every year.

Besides rice and vegetables, fishery is another key industry of Nanxiang village. Currently, over 700mu areas are being cultivated with fishes. It was introduced by Chen Lianya that the village is the main producing area of fries of four major Chinese carps. Hundreds of millions of fries are cultivated by the village, which attracted a large number of merchants to gather here on the yield season. Chen Yuanya who is one of the fish-farmers of the village said to the reporters that he cultivate both fries and checkmate fishes. On the yield season of fries, over 60,000 fries can be yield from his pool, so that he can earn more than 60,000yuan income.

“Keeping lands and staying at home to improve well-off society by promoting local agriculture”- Nanxiang village is one of the successful cases well indicated the situation mentioned above. As introduced by Chen Lianya that the per capita income of local villagers can reach 15,000yuan in 2015.

Concerned for further development of Nanxiang village, Chen Lianya stated that: “We will handle different measures by replying on the brand of heritance base of intangible heritage of Xifengdu rice noodle and promoting new rural construction. Besides promoting modern agriculture and increasing farmers’ income by establishing more professional cooperatives as land transfer, vegetable, rice, and etc., we will combine the cultural idea of intangible heritage- heritance base of Xifengdu rice noodle and upgrading of rural image to improve rural leisure tourism and find more ways to increase local people’s income.”