Jiangsu Cuisine · FFET10081
Yaorou (Zhenjiang Crystal Pork)
The Qingbai Leichao records that Zhenjiang tea drinkers always took yao with their tea, a pork dish white as crystal.
A large lion's-head meatball rests on napa cabbage leaves in a clay pot, a bowl beside it holds hair-fine braised tofu threads with shrimp and ham strips, and a squirrel-cut mandarin fish is glazed with sweet-and-sour sauce.
The regional cooking of Jiangsu, divided into the Jinling, Huai-Yang, Su-Xi and Xu-Hai style areas.
The Qingbai Leichao, published in 1916, says in its entry on eating yao while sipping tea: "When Zhenjiang people drink tea they always take yao with it." It says yao is made of pork, is "white as crystal", and is cut into pieces to go with the tea, "very palatable, so that one does not notice the fat".