Have you ever joked about being so broke at the end of the month that you have to start eating stones? Well, it turns out that’s actually a thing. Recently, a video of a hawker selling stir-fried cobblestones at a night market in Changsha, China, went viral.
The video was uploaded by a netizen who saw the peculiar dish sold by a hawker at the Yangfan Night Market in Changsha. In the video, the hawker was stir-frying the small cobblestones on a grill pan, as one would with any other meat, adding seasonings like chilli, garlic, and rosemary.
While the video caused heated discussion about the dish, it turns out that the stir-fried stones are a local delicacy. A spokesperson from the Catering Association of Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Hubei Province revealed that the stir-fried stones are a local dish called ‘suodiu’ (嗦丟). The dish originated from when locals would stir-fry stones picked from freshwater streams or rivers.
The method of consuming the dish is to suck the seasoning off the stones and then spit them out. If you’re curious about what happens to them after that, the hawker in the video says that the stones can be used as souvenirs or refried for the next batch.
Of course, the video evoked many curious netizens who were surprised that such a dish exists. One netizen joked that this dish would be perfect to be eaten at the end of the month, while another jokingly asked if ‘suodiu’ is a weight-loss dish.
Like many others, this is also our first time hearing of such a dish, so we can’t help but be curious about the flavour. Maybe we’ll even start seeing it at our local night market soon.
If you’re curious about the dish, you can watch it being prepared below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RMYgDzzv7k
Source: Sin Chew Daily
Adleena contributed to this article.
