Heshun Tounao

Heshun tounao is a warming medicinal-sweet dish of egg, pieces of fried glutinous rice cake and peanuts, into which hot brown-sugar or sweet-rice-wine water is poured and stirred, sweetness and heat mingling, fragrant and rich — a sweet speciality unique to the Heshun area of Tengchong.

The name "tounao" appears in several regions, but the Heshun version is unique to the Tengchong qiaoxiang, taking shape amid the comings and goings of the overseas-Chinese hometown from the Ming and Qing onward, blending Chinese food-therapy with local produce. In Heshun custom a mother-in-law makes a bowl of tounao by hand to welcome her son-in-law on the second day of the New Year, a wish for nourishment and long affection.

Taken hot in one sitting, the egg, rice cake and peanuts mingling in the sweet broth warm the body and lift the spirit — the most ritual-filled bowl of a Heshun winter or New Year.

The sweet-hot mingling of the sugar water, the texture of egg and rice cake, and the qiaoxiang custom of "a mother-in-law's treat for her son-in-law" make Heshun tounao distinctive.