The noodles that became a Chinese national dish during coronavirus lockdown – with a smell that takes getting used to
- Luosifen, or river snail rice noodles, was already the bestselling food item on Taobao last year, but lockdowns have seen its popularity soar further
- Famous for its pungent smell and taste, the dish originated as a cheap street snack in the city of Liuzhou in the 1970s
A humble dish of noodles from Guangxi in southwest China has become the country’s national dish during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Luosifen, or river snail rice noodles, is a speciality of the city of Liuzhou in Guangxi, but people across China have been voicing their love of instant pre-packaged versions of the noodles online. Topics about the noodles have become top-trending items on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, such as how they became many people’s favourite food during lockdown at home, and how the suspension of factories making the noodles led to huge shortages of them on e-commerce platforms.
Originally served as a cheap street snack in neighbourhood hole-in-the-wall shops in Liuzhou, luosifen’s popularity first shot up after it was featured in a 2012 hit food documentary, A Bite of China , on the country’s state TV network. There are now more than 8,000 restaurants in China specialising in the noodles across various chains.
The country’s first luosifen industry vocational school opened in May in Liuzhou, with the aim of training 500 students a year for seven programmes including manufacturing, quality control, restaurant chain operation and e-commerce.
“The yearly sales of instant pre-packaged luosifen noodles will soon surpass 10 billion yuan [US$1.4 billion], compared with 6 billion yuan in 2019, and daily production is now more than 2.5 million packets,” said Liuzhou Luosifen Association chief Ni Diaoyang in the opening ceremony for the school, adding that currently the luosifen industry severely lacks talent.