Yunnan Through The Markets: Cheese, Raw Pork, and Rice Noodles
Eating through Dali (大理) and beyond
Following Southern Sichuan and Guizhou, my latest destination in China was Yunnan, a place I’d dreamed of visiting for years. I travel to eat, so if you’re new here, you can also check out my past newsletters about Xi’an, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, and a big guide to eating in Chengdu with 40+ places.
At the end of last December, I spent a little over a week in Yunnan with my mom. Before we even arrived, I had already pinned a few markets on my map and packed a few books on Yunnan’s markets and fermentation traditions. I’ve come to believe that the fastest way to understand a region’s food culture is through its markets, and as a bonus, some of the best meals happen there, too.
Yunnan is a paradise of biodiversity, home to hundreds of edible flowers, wild herbs, and vegetables. Walking through these markets feels like visiting a living museum where the exhibits change with the seasons. Many of the plants and fruits looked unfamiliar even to me, despite growing up in neighboring Sichuan, and I often found myself stopping at stalls to ask vendors what I was looking at (or googling later, browsing the pictures).
Beyond the daily produce markets, Yunnan also has weekly or occasional gatherings known as gan jie, or gan gai (赶街), market days more commonly found in small towns and the countryside. During our short trip, I visited seven markets across Dali, Kunming, Yuxi, and Jianshui, nearly one every day.
The trip also felt personal. Yunnan was the first place I ever traveled to by plane back in 2003. My mom and aunt took my cousin and me on a classic tour-group route when recreational travel became a thing in small-town Sichuan. We rushed through packed schedules and stayed in cheap hotels. Twenty-two years later, I returned with my mom, but this time the trip moved slowly and revolved entirely around the table.
We first landed in Dali (大理). While Dali remains a top tourist destination, it has recently become a refuge for those escaping burnout in China’s megacities to explore alternative lifestyles1. A friend joked: “失恋去大理，失业去景德镇”— “People go to Dali after a breakup; they go to Jingdezhen after burnout or unemployment.”
Dali is primarily home to the Bai people (白族), along with other ethnic minorities and Han Chinese. Bai cuisine specializes in cured meats, preserved fish, cheese making, and candied fruit, often using fresh ingredients such as fish from the local lakes and mountains. The flavors balance sourness, spice, sweetness, and fragrance, sometimes with a light numbing touch from Sichuan pepper. The cooking style has also been shaped by Han Chinese traditions and Buddhist temple cuisine.
Beimen Market
Beimen Market sits near the north gate of Dali Ancient Town. It mainly serves locals and those working in tourism and food service, though plenty of tourists come too. Produce stalls, many dedicated entirely to perfect-looking blueberries and strawberries, sit beside vendors selling street food and dozens of fried mushrooms, glistening in the morning sun.
Our first meal after landing in sunny, blue-skied Yunnan was a bowl of parou ersi (耙肉饵丝), a specialty from Weishan County in Dali. It’s a bowl of rich noodle soup topped with pork simmered for hours, sometimes over a full day, until the broth turns almost gelatinous.
Er (饵) is an ancient name for steamed rice cakes that first appeared more than two thousand years ago. In Yunnan, different forms of er are popular across the region. Traditionally, steamed rice is pounded into sticky cakes called erkuai (饵块), then sliced into strips to make ersi (饵丝). Compared to mixian (米线), another common Yunnan rice noodle usually made by extruding raw rice slurry, er si is stickier, chewier, and less springy.
Rice noodle eateries in Yunnan usually have a self-serve seasoning station with toppings like chili oil, Sichuan pepper oil, scallions, mint, garlic, and pickles, letting you customize every bowl.
I ate er kuai later from a street stand, grilled and stuffed with starch sausage and preserved vegetables, a quite carb-dense snack. At another restaurant inside the ancient city, it came lightly toasted with fermented tofu and a bowl of thick yellow pea porridge called xi doufen (稀豆粉).
One of the busiest stalls sold posu baba (破酥粑粑), a flaky pastry from Xizhou. Each palm-sized round of laminated dough is baked in a traditional stone oven. Every batch produces only a few pieces, so they sell out almost immediately. We managed to grab a sweet one while it was still steaming hot. The dough had a brioche-like texture, though the layering process resembled croissant dough made with pork lard. Inside was molten brown sugar syrup scented heavily with rose. Sadly, we missed the savory version filled with ham, ground pork, and scallions.
Fengyi Market
The next day, we rented a car and explored around Erhai, the large lake at the center of Dali. Before we headed to a hilltop cafe to take a few Santorini-style photos, my first mission was to check out the weekly Fengyi market near the airport.
When I first arrived, I completely underestimated its size. It took nearly half an hour to walk from one end to the other, with some stops to shop and taste, it might take hours.
The market sold all types of fruits and vegetables, including some less familiar in an average Chinese market, such as suan mugua (酸木瓜, Chinese quince)2, prized in local cooking for its bright acidity, often dried, made into vinegar, or used for fermentation (in the cheese making). You can see this in the local fish dishes. And apples with nearly translucent cores from Zhaotong; chive roots (韭菜根/苤菜), used as an aromatic for stir-frying and braising; and even dill and kohlrabi.
There were also Yunnan-style pickles (suan yancai, 酸腌菜), mustard greens and stems coated in chili flakes, small, delicate pears (泡梨), and sour plums soaked in brine, alongside snacks like puffed fried pork skin and chips dusted with chili powder and seaweed.
Rice noodles are guaranteed sights in all Yunnan markets. Several stands specialized in ready-to-eat cold rice noodles. People stopped here for quick meals, often pairing the noodles with mantou, steamed buns. Customers could choose among three types: thick rice noodles (粗米粉), youfen (油粉), and juanfen (卷粉). Juanfen is made from steamed rice batter sliced into thin strips, similar to cheung fun (肠粉) or mipi (米皮). Youfen is a jelly-like noodle made from yellow pea starch, layered with crispy pea sheets, almost like a savory cake.
The noodles came dressed with chili paste, chili oil, garlic water, and a vinegar made from the same quince (木瓜醋). It’s leaning on the sour and slightly sweet side compared to the varieties from Sichuan. Despite all being “fen”, the three noodles offered slightly different textures: slippery, bouncy, chewy, and soft all at once.
This was only an appetizer. We noticed people crowding into a small alley for a late breakfast or early lunch, so we followed them inside.
The shop mainly served two kinds of rice noodles: one topped with ground meat sauce (zajiang, 杂酱) and another with stewed pulled pork (men rou, 焖肉). But the combinations multiplied depending on whether you wanted er si, thin or thick rice noodles, served hot or cold, with broth or without. Every bowl was cooked to order in Yunnan’s signature little bronze pots.
I ordered zajiang with thick rice noodles, and for just 8 yuan, it was better than versions I’d had at some Yunnan restaurants over the years. I even liked it more than my first bowl of er si. The broth was deeply aromatic, brightened by Yunnan’s lightly sour pickled cabbage.
The shop was extremely busy and completely self-service. Nobody had time to pull out a phone for photos except me. The only people who noticed were the couple sharing our table, who asked curiously, “Are you a Douyin blogger or something?”
Dengchuan’s Cheese and Bai Market
The next day, we drove north from the ancient town until we reached Eryuan (洱源县).
Rushan making
In the southeastern corner of Eryuan, Dengchuan is known for its dairy products, especially rushan (乳扇), a sun-dried cheese made from cow’s milk. Often translated as “milk fan cheese,” rushan comes from the area’s especially rich milk from the local dairy cows. The fat content of that can exceed 5% (compared to around 3.5–3.8% in standard milk).3
While cheese entered my own life through American fast-food chains, people in Yunnan have been making it for at least 200 years. In nearby Jianchuan (剑川), another cheese called rubing (乳饼), made from goat’s milk, resembles halloumi.
Along the streets of Dengchuan, small shops displayed rows of rushan drying outside. For the price of a single piece, many shop owners would demonstrate the entire process. We stopped at one shop run by two sisters. Besides rushan, they sold (incredibly delicious) fresh milk, yogurt, ice cream, and nougat.
Fresh raw milk arrives each morning, and rushan production usually starts around midday. The milk is gently heated and mixed with an acidic starter made either from fermented whey or fermented juice from the Chinese quince. As the milk curdles, the cheesemaker quickly gathers the curds and stretches them while still hot, using wooden sticks. The cheese is pulled into thin sheets and draped over long poles to dry.
She invited me to try. The fresh cheese had a texture similar to mozzarella, though slightly more elastic. Worried I’d ruin a perfectly good batch, I let her take over. After drying outdoors for one or two days, it transforms into something that tastes stronger (watch the process here).
Rushan can be sold plain or flavored with rose petals or jam. Raw, it tastes somewhat like a cheese string, though firmer and chewier, and the flavor is stronger, more towards Italian hard cheese. More often, it’s cooked into other dishes and street snacks. During the trip, we ate zha rushan (炸乳扇), deep-fried rushan stuffed with bean paste, which is my favorite preparation of them all. Then in Kunming, we found kao rushan (烤乳扇), grilled rushan filled with jam and chopped peanuts.
Shabajie market
The Shabajie Market takes place every Saturday and is supposed to be one of the region’s biggest fairs. On the drive to the cheesemaker, I suddenly remembered reading about it in Hannah Che’s newsletter a year ago. Luckily, it happened to be on the same day.
There wasn’t much information online, so we decided to try our luck. About two kilometers away, though, the traffic jam made it obvious something big was happening.
We parked farther out and walked in.
Compared to the Beimen Market, this one felt much less curated and closer to everyday local life. There were stalls selling farm tools, houseplants, Chinese medicine, and live poultry. People who come here both to shop and sell.
Unlike city farmers’ markets, almost nothing was labeled. We communicated in our Sichuan dialect while vendors replied in their local dialects, which sometimes felt like a game of mutual guessing.
Ironically, the only person speaking perfect Mandarin turned out to be a person who sold us “completely wild” cliff honey. I later found out that it might be just a scam.
What makes this market special is two huge open-air dining areas filled with fresh wok cooking. But the most famous dish here isn’t stir-fried food. It’s raw pork called shengpi (生皮). The whole pig is smoked and scorched until the skin blackens completely. The skin is then scraped clean, and the process repeats several times until the fat partly renders and the meat near the skin lightly cooks.
I was a bit concerned at first. But every single table around us had a plate of shengpi. I couldn’t leave without trying the one dish I’d probably never encounter again. Besides, I’d already survived the Mett in Germany (seasoned raw pork as a bread spread). My mom, normally adventurous with food, still refused.4
This is one of those Chinese dishes where texture matters as much as flavor. The pork itself tasted mild and almost neutral, without any strong porky flavor but a hint of smokiness. The skin was bouncy, a texture known as QQ in Chinese, while the fat turned creamy. Most of the flavors came from dipping the slices into a spicy and sour sauce made with plum vinegar (梅子醋), scorched chili flakes, garlic, and cilantro.
While my mom watched me eat the raw pork with complicated feelings, she enjoyed the other dishes we ordered: a sour and spicy appetizer made with anchovy-sized fish and soft tofu, a pea shoot soup with tender pork blood tofu, and Yunnan pickled vegetables. Plus a plate of really quickly wok-fired pork kidney, easily one of the best I’ve had, and it’s only possible because of the freshness of the pork—the most humble definition of “farm-to-table”.
Eryuan home-style food
Not only is Eryuan famous for its cheese, but many of the restaurant recommendations I found for Dali city traced back to Eryuan-style cooking. Before our train to Kunming, we visited a restaurant near the station recommended by documentary director Chen Xiaoqing.
Did I underestimate Chen’s cult following? Absolutely.
Even after lunchtime, groups of diners still waited outside with suitcases beside them, either freshly arrived in Dali or about to leave like us. After nearly an hour of waiting, hungry, we finally shared a lazy susan table with two young ladies from Haikou. During the time, I’ve already inspected the refrigerator a few times, which showed off the day’s vegetables and fresh meats.
The owner’s husband enthusiastically recommended dish after dish while charming every starving customer in the room. Luckily, his confidence was backed by food that tasted convincing.
Yunnan-style huangmenji (黄焖鸡) is very different from the version I knew growing up. Here, free-range chicken is stir-fried with heaps of scorched dried chilies and cubes of crispy fried potato, reminding me more of Guizhou-style laziji. Despite the amount of chili, the dish was fragrant rather than spicy. The small stir-fried beef (小炒黄牛肉) used similar aromatics, but the quality of the meat made the dish memorable. It was tender and juicy, with what my mom described as an almost milky aroma.
Oil-sizzled stinky tofu (油爆臭豆腐) arrived in a piping-hot clay pot with sizzling chili oil. Despite the name, the tofu only had a light fermented smell and a slightly creamy texture. I suspected it was actually mao tofu (毛豆腐), hairy tofu (or some call it mei doufu 霉豆腐), which is the earlier stage of the condiment fermented tofu. The owner confirmed this and even brought out the package from the kitchen to show us it had been bought fresh from the market that morning.
The combination of chili flakes and hot oil reminded me a little of mapo tofu, though without the Sichuan pepper or doubanjiang, it was more highlighting the taste and texture of fermented tofu.
One vegetable dish featured tender sponge gourd shoots (丝瓜尖), a highly seasonal ingredient. Across China (mostly southern China), tender shoots from gourds like chayote, pumpkin, and sponge gourd are known as gua jian (瓜尖) and are often stir-fried. Here, they were prepared in the way of qiang chao (炝炒), flash-fried with dried chilies. I already knew this was the flavor I’d miss most once I returned to Germany, so I made sure to savor every bite.
In the lazy afternoon sunlight, the whole meal felt dreamy and indulgent, though that might have been because we were eating at 3:00 PM. We almost missed our train to Kunming.
During my trip, I read the Chinese translation of Alec Ash’s The Mountains Are High: A Year of Escape and Discovery in Rural China, in which he writes about the alternative lifestyles and diverse communities in Dali.
In Mandarin, mugua (木瓜) usually refers to papaya (also 番木瓜), but it can also refer to flowering quince (Chaenomeles speciosa), and here, Chinese quince (Pseudocydonia sinensis) grown in Yunnan, which can be confusing.
More on Dengchuan’s dairy cows: http://www.dayc.cn/qkprint.asp?id=541
As for food safety, some sources say that shengpi is made from pork that undergoes special inspection in Dali. It’s widely served not only at farmers’ markets but also in restaurants across the region. Still, if you plan to try it, it’s worth being aware of the potential food safety risks.
This was fascinating. I wish I could have been in your entourage:) Do you think I, who only speaks English, could find my way there? I could bring your article above and point! Brava.
The shengpi section is great — your mom watching with complicated feelings while you ate raw pork at a market in Yunnan is such a perfect travel moment 😄 The rushan cheese process was also so fascinating, I had no idea Yunnan had a cheese tradition that old. Adding Dali to the list immediately.