Xuzhou Sha Soup

Sha soup—pronounced "shā"—is a hearty soup built on a long-simmered old hen broth enriched with wheat kernels and flour, thick and silky, milky-white, finished with white pepper and an egg-flower swirl, savoury and warming.

Sha soup is said to descend from the "pheasant broth" that Peng Zu presented to the Emperor Yao over four thousand years ago, itself hailed as the greatest broth under heaven. Peng Zu, a native of ancient Pengcheng—today's Xuzhou—is revered as the father of Chinese cookery, and this soup is a living fossil of the city's food culture.

Made fresh each morning and ladled hot into bowls, it is eaten with eight-strand youtiao, flatbread wrapped around fried dough, or pan-fried dumplings; one warming bowl sets the body right, the classic Xuzhou breakfast combination.

Its lineage as the "greatest broth under heaven," its milky-white silky body, and its deep tie to the Peng Zu legend of Chinese cookery set sha soup apart from morning soups elsewhere.