No One Can Say No to Potatoes in Yunnan and Guizhou!
Places where there are people from Yunnan and Guizhou
Where there are people, there are potatoes. Yangyu is actually another nickname for potatoes. No one can say "no" to this beautiful yangyu.
Braised chicken with potatoes. To fall in love with someone from Southwest China,
you must first fall in love with this yangyu.
When it comes to potatoes, everyone loves them, but if we're talking about the places in China where people love potatoes the most, Yunnan and Guizhou must be on the list. Yunnan is one of the provinces with the highest per capita potato consumption in China, and Guizhou is also one of the provinces with the largest potato planting area in the country. These two provinces compete for the top three spots in potato planting area every year, neither willing to yield to the other.
Yangyu, the alter ego of Southwest Chinese people in another dimension.
Yangyu is the local term for potatoes in Yunnan and Guizhou. If a local walks into a local restaurant and says to the owner in the local dialect, "Stir-fry some malingshu (potatoes)," the owner will surely be confused: Is this person a tourist, or has they been away from home for so long that they've even forgotten about yangyu?
The reason why potatoes are called "yangyu" in Yunnan and Guizhou ultimately comes down to their identity as an imported product. In Fujian, where potatoes were first introduced, they were called "fanzaishu" (foreigner's sweet potato). In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, they were called "yangshanyu" (foreign mountain tuber), while in eastern Guangdong, they were known as "helanshu" (Dutch tuber). When they reached Hunan and Hubei, they were called "yangyu," and as they moved further upstream into Guizhou and Yunnan, the name "yangyu" stuck.
Many names, but the deliciousness is the same.
As a versatile food, yangyu can be prepared in countless ways. So, guess what the most popular yangyu snack is on the streets of Yunnan and Guizhou?
No one can resist the fried yangyu đ„ at the entrance of an elementary school.
The answer is revealed: fried yangyu. If you ask someone from Yunnan or Guizhou where the best fried yangyu is, they will surely point into the distance and tell you, "At the entrance of an elementary school."
It seems that yangyu is always children's favorite. Behind every elementary school, there is always at least one fried yangyu stall. The better the elementary school, the higher the "yangyu density." You will always find children near the school being scolded by their parents, warned not to eat fried food, while their eyes longingly gaze at the stall.
The yangyu sizzles in the oil,
and the stomach growls along.
Fried yangyu is a measure of a child's "family status." If a child gets to eat fried yangyu every day, other children will surely envy them. And if a group of friends pool their pocket money to secretly share a bowl of fried yangyu behind their parents' and teachers' backs, they become friends who have "shared hardships."
Donât think parents donât know how good fried yangyu is. When they were kids, they ate it even more fiercely than children do today.
Fried yangyu chunks are the most fragrant at street-side stalls.
Photo/ Tuchong Creativity · Photographer/ Piao Ran 827
The classic combinations at fried yangyu stalls mainly include three types: fried yangyu chunks, fried yangyu patties, and mint yangyu.
So-called "yangyu tuotuo" (potato chunks) are essentially just that: chunks of potatoes. More particular potato stalls will specifically choose small, softer, and glutinous "new potatoes" for frying. The potato chunks are first fried thoroughly until fully cooked, allowing the interior to release the potato's unique fresh aroma, then they are fried again to make the skin golden and crispy. After frying, they are served with five-spice chili powder.
Five-spice chili powder is the soul of fried potatoes.
Five-spice chili powder is actually a finely ground blend of chili powder with a generous amount of peanuts and sesame seeds. The perfect balance of fragrance and spiciness makes it the essential seasoning for foods like grilled meat and fried potatoes.
Photo/Tuchong Creativity · Photographer/Chihuo Yumo
"Yangyu baba," on the other hand, is essentially a mashed potato patty. In Yunnan and Guizhou, soft, glutinous, and sticky solid foods are often called "baba." A good yangyu baba has smooth, soft, and fine mashed potatoes, ideally with a glutinous, sticky texture reminiscent of freshly pounded, steaming hot rice cakes.
The mashed potatoes are shaped into patties the size of meat patties and pan-fried until a golden crispy crust forms. They are served with sweet bean sauce, chili powder, or chili dipping sauce. Generous stall owners might even give you a spoonful of chopped pickled radish on the side to cut through the richness.
Mint potatoes: the mysterious form of french fries.
"Mint potatoes," if translated, are essentially fried potato strips tossed in a mint chili sauce. The combination might sound a bit unusual, but once you taste it, youâll understand its brilliance.
The potato strips, about the thickness of a finger, are not fried thoroughlyâonly until half-cookedâso they remain crisp when bitten into. They are mixed with chopped preserved mustard tuber (a type of pickled vegetable), fresh mint leaves, and chopped fish mint. More particular versions might also include pickled radish. A spoonful of chili dipping sauce made with fire-roasted chili powder, garlic juice, soy sauce, and vinegar is added, and everything is tossed together. Thus, a dish of mint potatoes, embodying the flavors of Yunnan and Guizhou, is freshly prepared.
Chili dipping sauce is the lifeblood of the people in Southwest China.
The mint adds a refreshing aroma and cuts through the richness, complementing the flavors of the preserved mustard tuber and fish mint. With each bite, you get a combination of sour, spicy, crispy, and fragrant flavors. Itâs a childhood staple that kids on the Yunnan-Guizhou plateau never tire of. Outside of Yunnan and Guizhou, this flavor combination is hard to find, creating a lasting "addiction" for those who grew up there and later left home.
Besides these classic "big three," common fried potato varieties include fried potato shreds and fried potato slices. However, these are usually not sold at street stalls but rather produced in small, unnamed workshops, packaged in large plastic bags, and sold in small shops or markets. They are essentially "local-style potato chips."
Who can resist the temptation of "local-style french fries"?
In addition to fried potatoes, some stalls also sell spicy braised potatoes. These are also potato chunks tossed in chili dipping sauce, but instead of frying, they are braised, giving them the savory flavor of the braising liquid.
Although fried potato stalls offer a variety of options, the enthusiasm for this food tends to fade with age, like a precisely designed curve. As children grow up, they often find it hard to understand their childhood "obsession." This is a foodéćź of childhoodâonce your taste buds mature, itâs impossible to replicate that same joy and satisfaction.
Some flavors are deeply etched into the soul.
However, whenever you see waves of children excitedly rushing toward a stall, your salivary glands seem to be unconsciously awakened. No one is a child forever, but there are always children. People may move away, but the stall behind the school remains. You can always have a moment to become that child again who believes "fried potatoes are the best food in the world."
So, if you no longer love eating fried potatoes, does that mean potatoes disappear from the lives of Yunnan and Guizhou people when they grow up? Not at all. Potatoes, in the form of dishes, still hold a classic center stage position on the dining table.
Potatoes: the appetite savior on the dining table đ„
As a food that is hard to make taste bad no matter how itâs prepared, potatoes are truly the savior of adult dining tables.
A father who can't cook can relieve his kitchen embarrassment with a simple plate of stir-fried shredded potatoes; a mother is always satisfied to hear her child praise the potatoes in the braised beef as more delicious than the meat; a girl who is too tired to move after work can simply slice potatoes, add ginger and pickled vegetables, and cook them into a pot of sour and appetizing pickled potato soup; even in the most unbearable workplace cafeteria, as long as potatoes are on the menu that day, life seems manageable.
Laonai Yangyu (Grandma's Potatoes) is said to be filled with a grandmother's loving care;
Another saying is that even toothless grandmothers can enjoy eating it happily.
Photo/ Tuchong Creativity Photography/Tanhua Suimeng
But when it comes to the most delicious potato dish, Laonai Yangyu definitely makes the list.
Laonai Yangyu is essentially stir-fried mashed potatoes. The steamed potatoes are crushed and finely sieved to achieve a soft, glutinous, smooth texture that melts in the mouth. The seasoning is minimalâjust salt, a bit of scallion oil, and southern chivesâto highlight the natural freshness and aroma of the potatoes.
Guizhou, modern restaurant's new-style mashed potatoes.
Some restaurants make an exquisite version of Laonai Yangyu with jasmine flowers. In Yunnan, where fresh flowers are abundant, it's common to cook with flowers. The stir-fried jasmine flowers' fragrance is tightly wrapped in the mashed potatoes and then fully released in the diner's mouth, adding freshness and aroma. Guizhou also has its way of eating mashed potatoes, but locals pour a gravy made with minced meat and starch over the mashed potatoes, eating it with a bite of potato and a sip of meat juice.
This Gongbao Banjin (Kung Pao Pork Tendon) can drive all Guizhou people crazy with craving.
Besides mashed potatoes, the potato slices in Gongbao Banjin are also exceptional.
Gongbao Banjin is Guizhou's most popular rice accompaniment. Banjin is the part of lean pork that is half tendon and half meat, offering a tender, crispy, and chewy texture, allowing one to enjoy both meat and tendon. At Guiyang's night market stalls, a serving of Gongbao Banjin stir-fried with dried chilies, peanuts, pickled vegetables, and potato slices can attract hundreds of diners queuing up. The potato slices, infused with meat aroma and wok hei (breath of the wok), are the ultimate "rice killer."
Copper Pot Potato Rice, full of southwestern charm.
There are also soft crispy potato cubes, crispy outside and tender inside dry-fried shredded potato pancakes, and potatoes in copper pot rice that absorb the fragrance of oil and ham... Whether as a main or side dish, every corner of the dining table where potatoes appear is quickly "wiped out," which is perhaps the best way for Yunnan and Guizhou people to express their love for potatoes.
Potatoes are so adorable, who can resist them? đ„
Yunnan people cannot live without potatoes. In Yunnan, "big potatoes" are a meal. Especially for ethnic minorities who have long lived in high-altitude cold regions, potatoes were once an absolute staple food.
In hilly and high-altitude cold areas with many mountains, scarce farmland, poor soil, cold temperatures, and lack of water sourcesâwhere even highly adaptable corn failsâonly potatoes can still yield high outputs. Therefore, rather than potatoes taking over people's dining tables, it's more accurate to say that people in cold highland regions actively chose potatoes.
Yunnan's red soil, the stage for potatoes.
Similar to Yunnan, Guizhou people's love for potatoes is also tied to a history of "hunger."
Records of Guizhou people growing and eating potatoes mainly focus on the 1930s and 1940s. During that time, war in the north led to a large influx of refugees into the southwest, creating significant population pressure and extreme food shortages. To ensure increased food production, the Republican government vigorously expanded potato cultivation in Guizhou.
One potato has fed countless people in Yunnan and Guizhou.
At that time in Guizhou, potato touring exhibitions were also held. The Central Agricultural Experiment Station of the Republic of China government also set up a site in Weining County to test new varieties of potatoes. Weining later developed into the "Hometown of Potatoes" in Guizhou. Places such as Kaiyang and Xiuwen also sold potato processed products like vermicelli and starch to surrounding areas such as Chongqing and Sichuan.
Back then, the simplest way for people to eat potatoes was to bury them whole in the charcoal fire to roast. Xue Shaoming's "Travels in Guizhou and Yunnan" recorded that ordinary people in the Weining area ate potatoes for both meals of the day. When eating roasted potatoes, they paid attention to the "three blows and three pats" method: because the potatoes cooked in the charcoal fire were covered with a layer of soot, they had to blow on them with their mouths and pat off the ash with their hands before eating.
Throw it into the fire, and once it's roasted, it's ready to eat.
Even today, small stalls selling charcoal-roasted potatoes are common on the streets of Guizhou. These stalls usually have one or two small charcoal fires covered with wire mesh. When a customer arrives, the stall owner places the charcoal fire on the ground, sits on a small stool on one end, and the customer stands on the other end, roasting and eating at the same time.
Interestingly, stalls selling roasted potatoes often also sell roasted tofu, so it's common to see someone holding a small piece of tofu skewered on a thin bamboo stick in one hand while peeling a potato with the other hand and taking a bite.
Simple roasted potatoes require no embellishment.
Photo/Tuchong Creativity · Photographer/Zijin
Some foods are just so charmingâeaten in times of poverty and wealth, loved in the past and still loved today. The people of Yunnan and Guizhou, who cannot do without potatoes, have even brought their love for potatoes into other aspects of life.
When the classic cartoon "Tom and Jerry" was broadcasted widely in China, there was a very popular version dubbed in the Yunnan dialect called "Big Potato and Little Millet," in which Tom the cat was called "Big Potato."
Weining, Guizhou, potato harvest.
This version of "Tom and Jerry" is extremely popular in Yunnan and Guizhou. After all, who can resist something as adorable as "Big Potato"?
Cover photo photographer | Tanhua Suimeng