Qufu Mutton-Husk Porridge

Mutton-husk porridge is Qufu's most representative everyday breakfast, built on the husk porridge of southwest Shandong—a thick but not sticky gruel of milled millet and soybean with layered grain and bean aromas—into which thin slices of fresh mutton are scalded, giving a milky-white broth with tender, fragrant meat and a clean, smooth mouthfeel.

The dish grows from the husk-porridge tradition of southwest Shandong, which Qufu folk wed to fresh-sliced mutton to form a morning taste that embodies courtesy through food. Featured in episode sixteen of the third season of Breakfast China, it is called the taste that belongs to Qufu alone, the everyday echo of the food culture of Confucius' hometown.

Sold only in the early hours, it is most often eaten with fried dough twists, youtiao or large flatbread, with a spoonful of fresh-fried chilli oil to warm the stomach; stalls close before noon and the porridge sells out fast, a bowl locals will queue for at dawn.

The contrast of thick yet smooth grain porridge with fresh-sliced mutton, the fact that it belongs to this one city and only to the morning, and its echo of the courtesy-and-music food tradition of the holy city are the clearest marks of Qufu mutton-husk porridge.