Luosifen History

Luosifen (chinese: 螺螄粉; pinyin: luósīfěn; lit ’Snail rice noodle‘) is a chinese noodle soup and specialty of Liuzhou, Guangxi.[1] The dish consists of rice noodle boiled and served in a soup. The stock that forms the soup is made by stewing river snail and pork bones for several hours with black cardamom, feennel seed,dried tangerine peel, cassia bark, cloves, white pepper,bayleaf, licorice root, sand ginger, and star arise. It usually does not contain snail meat, but it is instead served with pickled bamboo shoot, pickled green beans, shredded wood ear, fuzhu, fresh green vegetables, peanuts, and chili oil added to the soup.[2] Diners can also add chili, green onions, white vinegar, and green peppers to suit their taste.

The dish is well known for its strong smell, which comes from the pickled bamboo shoots.[3] The dish is served in small “hole-in-the-wall” restaurants, as well as luxury hotel restaurants. In the late 2010s, many luosifen restaurants have opened in Bingjing, Shanghai and Hongkong, as well as in other countries such as the US.[4] instant noodle versions are also very popular, with 2.5 million packets produced daily in 2019.[3]

History

The origin of luosifen is not certain, but many believe it originated in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There are three legends that attempt to explain its origin.

First legend

According to a legend in the 1980s, some starving tourists traveled to Liuzhou in the evening and came across a rice noodle restaurant that was closed; however, the owner still served them. The bone soup, usually the main soup, was out of order, and only snail soup was available. The owner poured cooked rice noodles into the snail soup and served the tourists with vegetables, peanuts, and a bean curd stick side dish. The tourists liked the dish, which led to the owner improving the recipe and production process, slowly shaping the prototype of snail noodle soup.

Second legend

In the mid 1980s, there was a dry cut noodles grocery store on Jiefang South Road in Liuzhou. After studying in the morning, the shop’s clerk decided to boil rice noodles with snails for breakfast. It is speculated that the old woman’s snail stall is inside the goldfish lane of Jiefang South Road.

The lady thought the noodle soup was delicious, so she started to sell it as the “snail noodle”. After years of improvement by local operators, the authentic Liuzhou snail noodle soup was created.

Third legend

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the folk commercial trade in Liuzhou began to recover slowly from the Cultural Revolution.The Liuzhou workers’ cinema was very popular during this time. Driven by the strong audience of these films, Gubu Street Night Market gradually formed.

Some people came up with an idea: river snails and rice noodles cooked together as food. After a film was over, customers accidentally asked the shopkeeper to add oil, water, and snail soup powder to the mixture. Over time, the recipe was perfected to suit the needs of customers, and the snail noodle dish gradually took shape. As the first original snack in Liuzhou, snail noodle soup has gradually become a landmark food in Liuzhou and even Guangxi.[5]

Recent development

Mass production of packaged luosifen started in late 2014,[6] making it a nationwide household food. The yearly sales of packaged luosifen reached 6 billion yuan in 2019. Sales of packaged luosifen increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.[7]