Liangshan, Sichuan and Yunnan Province — Yi ethnic minority
The Yi ethnic minority of Liangshan (Sichuan) and Yunnan cook with stone pots (shi guo), stone mortars, and wood fires. Their cuisine centres on pork, corn, and mountain herbs. Yi buckwheat pancakes (ku qiao ba ba), stone pot pork blood soup, and roasted whole pig are traditions. The Yi New Year (Torch Festival) features extraordinary communal fire cooking.
Rustic, mineral, smoky from wood fire, herbaceous from wild mountain plants — a fundamentally pre-modern Chinese food tradition
{"Stone pots retain heat and impart a mineral character to long-cooked dishes","Yi-style steamed corn cake (baba): corn flour mixed with water and fermented slightly before steaming","Whole pig roast: the Yi tradition of coating a whole pig in clay and roasting over wood fire for 12+ hours","Wild mountain herbs: particular emphasis on wild coriander varieties and highland chillies not found elsewhere"}
{"Yi cuisine represents the pre-Han highland food tradition of what is now called Yunnan-Guizhou plateau","The stone pot tradition is practical engineering: granite is heat-resistant and naturally non-stick for some preparations","Buckwheat (ku qiao) is the signature grain — it gives Yi preparations a distinctive nutty, slightly bitter character"}
{"Assuming Yi cuisine is simply Sichuan food — it predates and differs significantly from Han Sichuan cooking","Substituting modern grain flours for the traditional buckwheat and corn — fundamentally changes the preparation"}
Land of Plenty — Fuchsia Dunlop; Chinese ethnic minority culinary sources