Heavenly fare for vegetarians
As a Buddhist sacred site, Mount Wutai hosts many vegetarian restaurants for pilgrims and other visitors.
Monks here have long been growing vegetables and grains to support themselves, which is viewed as a way of Zen practice.
Cooking is also a part of Zen. For hundreds of years, Buddhist recipes have been circulated among temples and handed down from generation to generation. Some of the dishes have become icons of Mount Wutai.
The white pagoda tofu skin roll (bai ta xiang ling) is one of them. A long white radish is carved into the shape of the white tower in Tayuan Temple, and fried tofu skin rolls stuffed with carrots, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and mashed potato are served around the radish pagoda. The dish is prevalent on local banquet tables.
Development of tourism at Mount Wutai has spawned many vegetarian restaurants in recent years. Cooks there specialize in making vegan dishes taste and look like original meat versions.
The menus include braised pork in soy sauce and sweet and sour fish, but both are made from bean products, gluten and mushrooms.
One of the most highly recommended restaurants is Yizhanmingdeng, which literally means “a bright lamp.” Mountain delicacies such as kalimeris asters, black fungus, day lily buds and bean seedlings give rich flavors to more than 100 dishes on the menu.
“The restaurant is much more expensive than similar restaurants,” says Xiang Shulao, a visitor to the mountain. “But the quality of the ingredients and the excellent cooking skills make it all worthwhile.”
Apart from vegetarian foods, steamed oat rolls, a local Shanxi snack, are also served here. Wide oat noodles are rolled up and put into a steamer in a honeycomb configuration. The dipping sauce served with the rolls is a mixture of sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar and chili oil.
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