The Medicinal Bazhen Soup - A Bowl of Treasures Nourishing Generations of Shanxi People

The medicinal Bazhen Soup [Photo via the Publicity Department of the CPC Taiyuan Municipal Committee]

The medicinal Bazhen Soup is a kind of halal food, which has been passed down in Taiyuan area for more than three hundred and seventy years since it was created by Fu Shan in Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and it is a unique local and celebrated dish in Taiyuan area.

Fu Shan, as a renowned Chinese doctor in his generation, had noble medical ethics and superb medical skills, and took it as his mission to alleviate people's painfulness and improve their physical and mental health. He developed the medicinal Bazhen Soup, a medicinal soup for health by organically combining Chinese medical science with the medicinal value of food.

The medicinal Bazhen Soup is a kind of soup made of eight kinds of Chinese herbal medicines as well as grains and mutton, through a delicate and complex process. When making Bazhen Soup, the materials are selected carefully, the process is complicated and the method and skill requirements are very strict. Chunks of fat and tender high-quality lamb are chosen as the main ingredients, while all kinds of auxiliary ingredients are prepared in strict accordance with the established method. After that, the above ingredients are simmered on the fire according to a fixed recipe and proportion. In 2008, the TCM health project, the medicinal Bazhen Soup, was included in the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative List.

Over four centuries, Bazhen Soup has been widely introduced and has long been a favorite dish on the tables of Taiyuan people due to its unique benefit to health.