Fuyang (Mutton Soup)

Fuyang is the headline dish of the Xuzhou Fuyang Festival, made of local goat simmered bone-in for hours until the broth turns milky-white and rich and the meat stays tender and free of gaminess; during the hottest dog days the whole city dines on mutton and drinks the soup in a remarkable scene.

Xuzhou is Peng Zu's homeland, where eating mutton is said to date back to his age, and his dish "mutton concealing fish" is held to be the origin of the Chinese character for "fresh." The local custom of eating mutton in the dog days gave rise to the Fuyang Festival, held from the first to the last of the three ten-day high-summer periods, using heat to overcome heat and sweat out toxins, now listed as Jiangsu provincial intangible heritage.

During the festival the city's mutton houses stay open through the night; diners order a bowl of soup and a plate of skin-on mutton, sided with pounded garlic, chilli sauce and sesame flatbread, eating and drinking hot until they sweat freely, the liveliest street scene of a Xuzhou summer night.

Its "heat-overcoming-heat" midsummer custom, the milky-white fragrant broth, and its deep roots in Peng Zu's cookery tradition are what make Fuyang unique.