Slick idea helps keep noodles piping hot
When you order over-the-bridge noodles, you get rice noodles swimming in a bowl of piping hot soup with an oily sheen. Thin, raw slices of fish, pork, beef or any other type of meat are dropped into the bowl before your eyes, followed by finely cut vegetables. The contents are lightly stirred with chopsticks; wait a minute or two to let them cook in the hot soup and, voil?, your meal is ready. This ingenious, fuel-free method is often associated with a romantic story about a loving wife.
In the town of Mengzi, in the southwestern province of Yunnan, there was once a school that prepared students for entering imperial examinations. Near the school was a lake, and in the middle of it was a small islet, upon which was a pavilion. The tranquillity of the island, which was connected to the shore by a bridge, made it a favourite place for studying.
Legend has it that one year, a student was there every day in the lead-up to his examinations, studying intently. Each day, his wife would prepare his lunch and pack it so he would be able to take it to the pavilion. But the scholar would concentrate so hard that he would often forget to eat his lunch, bringing the meal back home intact.
His wife, worried he wasn't eating enough, thought it best if she took lunch over to him herself. Rice noodles in soup was the scholar's favourite meal, but the journey meant crossing the bridge to the pavilion and, in those pre-Thermos days, the noodles would go cold.
One day, the scholar's wife made a soup from some fatty pork ribs. With a layer of oil on the top of the soup, hardly any steam emerged from the bowl. Unwittingly, she took a sip of the soup and scorched her lips. This sparked an idea. She made this fatty pork soup, transferred it to a bowl, and dropped in dry rice noodles, keeping them under the layer of fat to cook while she took this, along with some raw ingredients, over the bridge to the pavilion. By the time she got there, the noodles would be cooked, but the liquid would still be sufficiently warm to cook the toppings. A hot meal that cooked itself was thus created, all thanks to a little extra fat.