Tianshui Guagua

Tianshui guagua is made from buckwheat starch (with pea or pea-starch variants) stirred into a batter with water, simmered, then spread and cooled into a soft cake; golden-brown, it is torn into pieces and dressed with chilli oil, sesame oil, mustard, soy sauce and garlic, carrying fragrance, heat, softness and chew at once.

Guagua is said to reach back to the late Western Han, when the warlord Wei Xiao held Tianshui and his mother was so fond of it that it became a palace dish; after his defeat it passed to the people and grew into the city's most famous snack, called the foremost food of Qinzhou. In 2017 the making of Tianshui guagua entered the fourth batch of Gansu provincial intangible heritage.

A Tianshui morning often begins with a bowl of guagua: the vendor tears the soft cake by hand into a bowl, dresses it with chilli oil, sesame paste, garlic, mustard and vinegar, and mixes it hot, the mouthful soft and savoury-spicy, a classic street breakfast of the city.

Its buckwheat-gold colour, rustic hand-torn pieces and the bold dressing of chilli oil and sesame paste set Tianshui guagua apart from cold jellies and stirred dough elsewhere.