Langshan Mountain-World Natural Heritage

With the development of Xinning county’s tourism, the inheritance of intangible culture and the promotion of folk culture have made stir-fried liver with plant soot, a farm special dish, become more and more well-known.

The origin of food: Stir-fried pig liver with plant soot originated in some rural areas of Xinning county. In the era of material shortage, villagers engaged in physical labor for a long time, were malnourished and prone to eye diseases. They would fry this dish at home. In fact, the scientific name of pot ash( 锅灰) is “plant soot” (百草霜), which is a traditional Chinese medicine that has the effect of clearing away heat and detoxification.

Plant Soot

Li Shizhen’s Compendium of Materia Medica in the Ming Dynasty and Miao Xiyong’s Classics of Materia Medica recorded that ” plant soot is formed by smoke, its taste is pungent and its qi is non-toxic.” Therefore, it has high medicinal value and was used by folks in Song Dynasty to treat dysentery. Although this special stired-liver looks dark and squishy, it tastes really different from ordinary pig liver. It is smooth, fresh and tender, the taste is very unique and special.

How To Make It

Ingredients: 320 grams of pig liver, 10 grams of plant soot, 50 grams of lard, 2 grams of salt, 5 grams of dried chili joints, 5 grams of dried chili powder, 5 grams of ginger, 5 grams of garlic, 5 grams of garlic sprouts.

Notes: 1. Pig liver must be fresh; 2. The source of pot ash must be firewood, straw or corn stalk burned under iron pot in the countryside.

Stir-fried Liver with Plant Soot

Production Steps:

1. To make this dish, first scrape the pot ash, and after scraping, put it in a bowl and filter it with gauze. Then select the best fat liver, wash it with clean water, and slice it. The thickness is moderate to ensure that the liver can be evenly heated and tasted. Put a spoonful of lard in the pan while frying.
2. Heat the oil in the pan to high temperature, add garlic and ginger to saute until fragrant, then put the liver in it.
3. Stir-fry the liver with high heat. When it is almost cooked, add garlic sprouts and peppers. The last key step is to put the plant soot in the pot, so that the fried liverbe scorched outside and tender inside. Don’t put too much plant soot in the pot, otherwise it will taste bitter.
4. Take the fried liver out from the pan and put it on the plate.

The Fuyi River National Wetland Park was listed in the first batch of national wetland parks. After investigation, there are 36 species of fish in the Fuyi River National Wetland Park, belonging to 5 orders and 12 families. The fish species in the wetland park account for 1.10% of China fish species and 17.91% of the fish species in Hunan Province.

Among the rare fish resources, 7 species are unique in China. The are Acrossocheilus fasciatus, Hemibarbus labeo, Gnathopogon wolterstorffi, Misgurnus mizolepis Gunther, Mystus pelusius,Odontobutis obscurus and Ctenogobius giurinus. In addition, 3 of these 16 species of fish belong to China’s endemic fishes, namely Rhodeus sinensis, Cobitis sinensis and Mastacembelus aculeatus.

Ctenogobius giurinus

Odontobutis obscurus

Gnathopogon wolterstorffi

Rhodeus sinensis

On November 12, Deng Tao, secretary of the Xinning county party committee, visited the tea production workshop and the tea culture museum of Xinning County Shundi Tea Co., Ltd. (“Shundi Tea Farm” for short).

It is learned that Shundi tea farm has five categories of black tea, green tea, yellow tea, dark tea and Cyclocarya paliurus tea. It has become a large-scale enterprise integrating tea planting, processing and sales, eco-tourism and landscape construction. Using the first bud, second and third new leaves of wild tea trees in the Shunhuang Mountain Nature Reserve as raw materials, the Dizi Lingya super grade Kungfu black tea is carefully produced through various processes like withering, rolling, fermentation, initial baking, shaping, drying, fragrance lifting and packaging. It has been widely recognized by the industry and the market and has won many awards.

Deng Tao pointed out, the Shunhuang Mountain is a green business card with a story in our county. Shundi tea farm should closely rely on the unique historical, cultural and natural resource advantages of Shunhuang Mountain, focus on the goal of “famous mountains have famous tea”, rely on the wild tea of Shunhuang Mountain, take Emperor Shun culture and tea culture as the soul, highlight the health preservation function of tea ceremony, vigorously develop the tea tourism integration industry, and cultivate wild tea culture experience products, continuously gather the popularity and fame of Shunhuang Mountain, build Shunhuang Mountain into a new business card of ecotourism and help rural revitalization.

Dendrobium officinale, commonly known as “Chlorophytum” and “Resurrection Grass” in Xinning County, is a perennial epiphytic herb of the orchid family. It is a precious and endangered herb with unique medicinal value and high economic value. Because of its exact therapeutic and health preservation effect, the “Shen Nong’s Materia Medica” and “Compendium of Materia Medica” listed Dendrobium officinale as the top grade. The “Tao Zang” of the Tang Dynasty named it the first of the “Nine Great Immortal Herbs of China”, and the other eight species are Tianshan Snow Lotus, Ginseng weighed three-Liang, 120 years old Polygonum multiflorum, Poria cocos, Cistanche deserticola, Ganoderma lucidum, Sea Pearl, Cordyceps sinensis.

Modern pharmacological studies have confirmed that Dendrobium officinale has significant effects on improving human immunity, anti-aging, lowering levels of hypertension, hyperlipidemia and hyperglycemia, rehabilitating diabetes and its complications, suppressing tumor, boosting recovery after radiotherapy and chemotherapy. At present, Dendrobium officinale is widely sought after in the health care product market because of its good health effects, and it is very expensive.

Xinning County Forestry Bureau also takes Dendrobium officinale industry as a key project of ecological forestry and people’s livelihood forestry to vigorously carry out regional demonstration and promotion, so as to provide an effective way for Xinning’s underforest economy development, protect the forest ecological environment and increase the income of forest farmers.

Langshan navel orange is not only a delicious fruit, its juice and peel are also widely used by local people to make food, such as navel orange egg custard, fried beef with navel orange peel, pork ribs with navel orange juice, etc. Let’s check how to make them.

1. Navel Orange Egg Custard

Firstly cut the top of navel orange

Secondly hollow out navel orange and store orange juice

Thirdly prepare the egg

Fourthly pour the egg into the middle of the navel orange and cover it

Cook it mildly

2. Fried Beef with Navel Orange Peel

Slice the beef and orange peel

Cook over high heat

3. Pork Ribs with Navel Orange Juice

Mix pork ribs with ginger and flour

Fry the mixed pork ribs

Pour navel orange juice over the fried pork ribs

 

 

The History of Langshan Navel Orange

As early as in 1943, Xinning county introduced navel orange from the United States successfully introduced navel oranges in the United States for trial planting, and began large-scale planting, becoming the origin of navel orange in China. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Xinning county increased the cultivation of agricultural and sideline products and expanded the cultivation of navel orange. In 1979, Xinning was designated as one of the four major navel orange export counties in China by the Ministry of agriculture and the Ministry of foreign trade. In 1990, Xinning Langshan navel orange won the China Orange Gold Award in the National Famous Fruit Selection. In 2009, it was rated as green food raw material base county by the Ministry of agriculture. In 2020, Langshan navel orange was named as Hunan Famous Brand Agricultural Products.

The Planting of Langshan Navel Orange

Langshan navel orange is mainly planted in nine towns in the south of Xinning county, of which Huanglong town is with most output. As the saying goes: “the soul of world’s Danxia landform is Langshan, the finest Langshan navel oranges come from Huanglong”. Huanglong town is the best place for navel orange to grow because of its unique conditions. Fuyi river runs through the entire Huanglong town. The river twists and turns in its territory, with nine bends and eight twists. The two sides of the river are mostly hills. Between the valleys and hills, the land is fertile, foggy, warm, sunny, making it the best place to plant navel oranges. Huanglong navel orange has long been a banner of Langshan navel orange.

It is another year when the navel oranges are ripe, the golden navel oranges are all over the branches, the smiles of the farmers are written on their faces, and the happiness is as red as the navel oranges. With work of the “three years of poverty alleviation”, the poverty alleviation cadres have taken multiple measures to help and support the entire Huanglong town, taking agricultural development as the foundation, taking navel orange as the basic point, taking the industry to drive the subsidiary industry, to ensures the quality of Langshan navel orange and improves its quality continually. The quality of Langshan navel oranges has won unanimous praise in the national navel orange industry. It not only makes the whole town’s navel orange industry rise abruptly, but also makes a qualitative breakthrough in the living standards of the people in the town.

The Features of Langshan Navel Orange

Langshan navel orange, orange-red in color and delicate in surface, with strong sweet flavor,tender juice and rich aroma, is excellent fresh food with high quality. With long shelf life and resistant to storage and transportation, its flavor will not be diminished until April of the next year if stored at room temperature. It is rich in nutrition and has health care function so it can soften blood vessels, enhance heart and brain functions, and prevent cancer, stroke, diabetes and other chronic diseases. Langshan navel orange’s edible rate is 73%, its juice content rate is 48.75~52.71%, its soluble solids rate is 12~ 14.0%, each 100ml of its fruit juice contains 650mg of vitamin C and its ratio of solid to acid is 29:0.9.

Langshan navel orange is national grade A green food. During the 2020 epidemic, the people of Huanglong organized spontaneously, and fruit farmers actively donated and sent the health-care Langshan navel orange to Wuhan to support the fight against the epidemic, winning the praise from doctors in Whuhan medical front line and the people across the country.

Welcome to Langshan to Taste Navel Orange

The navel orange is ripe again, at this harvest season, whenever you go to the countryside, you will surely meet the fruit farmers always smile happily. I believe their smile comes from the heart. The golden fruits are all over the navel orange trees, the poverty alleviation policies benefit everyone, everyone’s face is full of yearning for a better life. What can be happier than this?

Welcome to Langshan. Blood orange, selenium rich orange, Newhall orange, 1904 orange…everything that you expect can be found here. You can miss the spring, summer and autumn of Langshan, please never miss the navel orange of Langshan.

If you don’t believe it, you can come to Huanglong to taste Langshan navel orange.

Langshan is rich in natural resources, its climate is nice for Dendrobium candidum to grow and to raise sika deer. Local villagers like making wine with sika deer and several herbal medicines to keep in good health. Luhu wine is one of those health wines.

Luhu Wine Formula

Main ingredients: penis, antler, tendon, tail and bone of sika deer, Dendrobium candidum.

Accessories: ginseng, Gastrodia elata, Panax notoginseng, Cistanche, safflower, rehmannia, medlar, etc.

Base liquor: high pure grain solid-state fermentation liquor.

There is no need to say much about ginseng, Gastrodia elata, Panax notoginseng and other traditional Chinese herbal medicines. The main ingredient is Dendrobium candidum which is a local specialty of Langshan and listed as “the first of the nine immortals in China”. According to Li Shizhen’s Compendium of Materia Medica, Dendrobium officinale is known as “Nourishing Yin saint” and known as “saving-life herb”!

 

If you visit Langshan, it is a good choice to buy Luhu wine to keep you and your family healthy.