Lisu people living in Nujiang River area, take corns, buckwheat, potatoes and broomcorn millet as their staple food, while for those living in the river valley may choose rice together with some other food like corn and potatoes.

The Lisu people are good at making fruit vinegar. In the right season every year they pick and clean ripe peaches and pears, then put them into a huge pottery jar, dipping in the spring water. During the summer, they take out this delicious fruit vinegar and drink with seed powder of Chinese prickly ash. The old fruit vinegar is also a good remedy for diarrhea.

The Lisu people like drinking very much. Every year, immediately after the autumn, almost all families make wine so the villages fill with the fragrant wine smell. There is a kind of watery wine which is indispensable to every people there. To make the wine, you have to fry the raw materials including cereals including highland barley, wheal, and corn.

When these cereals become yellow and cooked, mix some self-made distiller's yeast. Then fill the mixture into a pottery jar, add some fresh mountain spring water, leaven the mixture to ferment, and pressurize the jar for one day. When it is ready you may serve with a hollow straw. This kind of watery wine carries a strong sweet smelling. It can stimulate the appetite as well as refresh and satisfy your thirst.

The Lisu people' main culinary ways are boiling and barbecue, and their special cuisines are inclusive of the following:

Kuoshuai Ele

Kuoshua Ele is a kind of corn porridge. First cook the green corn and peel the corn seeds. Then add the baked salt, and cook the peeled corn with kidney bean, bacon or pi-pa shaped preserved meat. When finish, add some bamboo vegetables to make the porridge much more delicious and nutritious.

Baked Meat Cubes

The Lisu people are very hospitable to the guest with very special treatment. One of the warmest welcome is to treat the guest with baked meat cubes. Anytime when the honorable guests come to visit or some local family slaughters a fat animal, the Lisu people will cut down a big chunk of freshest and purist meat and bake to treat the guest with wine.

Winnowing Basket Rice and Tongxin Wine

Eating winnowing basket rice and Tongxin wine is one of the highest etiquette for treating guests. Winnowing basket rice is called Boji Rice in Chinese, which is to fill a big round winnowing basket with white rice covered with big chunks of baked sucking pig meat, preserved meat and taros. A Boji looks like a round table which can accommodate 5-6 people at one time.

When the food and wine are ready on the Boji, the dinner is ready to serve. The way to serve you yourself is to make a rice ball with both hands instead of chopsticks and eat with a piece of meat. In Chinese it is called Shou Zhua Fan, it's so wonderful to experience the original simplicity. When eating the Boji Rice, the beautiful Lisu girls will drink Tongxin wine with every guest in turn with no exception; it is called Ban Duo or Xia Pian Da in their dialect which shows their characteristic of hospitality to the guest.

Chinatravel