Why Dalian menzi didn’t make it onto A Bite of China III

The raw materials of Dalian menzi are rarely local

Menzi is mostly made of sweet potato flour – the most al dente and economical but admittedly the most shabby-looking of all starches with its brownish shade. Other varieties including potatoes, corns, lotus roots and green beans are ivory in tone but lack elasticity.

The kind of flour used for menzi is rarely produced indigenously, as sweet potatoes are not one of the staple crops in Northeast China, and the corresponding post-processing sector is either wanting or costly. Given that all raw materials for Dalian menzi need to be purchased and the storage conditions for sweet potatoes are demanding, it is impractical to capture the complete process of handmaking menzi on camera by the TV series’ standards.

In the ideal scenario, as Huang He later said with regret, there should be a vintage old shop on the street and a hoary old man with longstanding menzi-making techniques that have been handed down for generations, and that the episode should include the entire narrative of menzi’s gestation, starting with cleaning to soaking, then refining, sedimentation, filtration, firing, simmering, and concluding with the final display on the stall. Despite the pointers from me and Tie Dan, Huang’s search for such a site never panned out, nor did the quest of Dalian menzi to make it onto A Bite of China III.