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Bamboo shoots and dried mushrooms on a rough wooden board in cool daylight
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Food

Anhui徽菜

The least urban of the eight and the hardest to find outside its own province. Anhui cooking comes out of the mountains around Huangshan and is built on things foraged there — bamboo shoots, wild herbs, mushrooms, and freshwater everything. The techniques are slow: braising, stewing, and a lot of curing, including some deliberately fermented dishes that are an acquired taste by any standard. If you climb Huangshan you will eat this cuisine, and it is worth knowing that the mandarin fish arriving smelling distinctly off is supposed to.

What to do

  • Eat it at the foot of Huangshan rather than in a city. Tunxi Old Street below the mountain is a kilometre and a half of this cooking, and it is closer to the source than any provincial capital version.
  • Hairy tofu is a street griddle item, not a restaurant dish. Eat it standing up, where you can see the fur on it before it goes in the pan.

Eat — Stewed bamboo shoots with ham, and the famously pungent fermented mandarin fish.