A dream in rice noodles pot
When Duan Chunping was a little girl, her parents cooked breakfast for her every day. The food was usually served in a traditional enameled-steel pot.
Today, Duan continues to serve small-pot rice noodles, a well-known snack of Kunming, in such pots. She says these pots are part of her childhood memory, and she dreams to show Kunming’s food culture and history to more people.
Five years ago, Duan Chunping and her husband kicked off a family business specializing in Yunnan’s rice noodles, called Pot Number 33. Tens of thousands of customers have been lured to their restaurant by the signature small-pot rice noodles ever since.
Now, as the restaurant becomes more popular, they begin to set up branches and share their understanding of small-pot rice noodles – an essence of Kunming life.
“With the help of my mother-in-law Li Yuping in these years, I’m making better small-pot rice noodles,” says Duan Chunping.
A good bowl of small-pot rice noodles always starts with pouring pork or chicken broth into a small and delicate bronze pot. Then, minced pork, Yunnan styled spicy pickles, Chinese chives as well as other seasonings are added in and boiled with fresh rice noodles for about 3 to 4 minutes before serving.
Li Yuping’s family once had a small restaurant in a nearby city of Kunming called Anning, selling small-pot rice noodles. After watching her mother preparing this Kunming people’s favorite for years, she took over the business and later opened her own rice noodles shop in Kunming.
In Yunnan, toppings have long been the key to the preparations of authentic rice noodles. As to small-pot rice noodles, the topping is made from minced pork, Sichuan spicy bean paste, soy sauce, Yunnan styled pickles and vegetable oil. And simmering, with no doubt, is the best way to mix the flavors of all these ingredients together.
It is worth mentioning that to Kunming citizens, the sourness of pickles is a rather important factor to judge weather one bowl of small-pot rice noodles is tasty or not. “Because of this, all the pickles are made by my mother till now,” says Duan.
“My parents cooked breakfast for me almost every day when I was a little girl,” Duan Chunping recalls. “And they always served the food in a traditional enameled-steel pot, so that I could eat on my way to school.” As there were numerous enameled-steel pots with different colors and patterns in the kitchen, they have – almost inevitably – become an important part of her childhood memory.
Therefore, when Duan opened up her own restaurant, she naturally chose to serve her small-pot rice noodles in enameled-steeled pots, as they used to be served. And if people ask her why, she would start telling the story which connects her parents, her mother-in-law and herself together.
Today，as the business expands, Duan has more than one restaurants to run on a daily basis. But she can always remember how food was like when she was a little girl.
“The city is moving forward. However, there should be a space where people can seek the past and come back for a better future,” she smiles.
Writing by Liu Yun; trans-editing by Wang Jingzhong