Si Shen Tang 🥄

Since Si Shen Tang came up in conversation, I decided to make a post about it 😆 Growing up in a Hakka family, the Si Shen Tang I drank as a child was always sweet. It was only when I grew up that I learned – wait, there's a savory version? And then I also found out that many people don't know there's a sweet version of Si Shen Tang 😆 Si Shen Tang was originally a medicinal diet. Common ingredients nowadays include Chinese yam (Huai Shan), Poria cocos (Fu Ling), Euryale ferox (Qian Shi), lotus seeds, and Job's tears (Yi Ren), and the recipes vary slightly by region and family. The Taiwanese version, which is more familiar to many, usually includes pork intestines, stomach, or ribs, and is cooked as a savory soup. However, in some Hakka families in areas like Taoyuan and Hsinchu, there's a tradition of adding rock sugar to make it a sweet soup. Some versions don't include any meat at all, like a sweet soup with Job's tears and lotus seeds; there are also versions that add pork trotters or tail and still add sugar (though I can't quite accept the latter 🤣). Some families even cook it initially without any sweetness or saltiness, and then people decide whether to add sugar or salt when they eat it. But not all Hakka people drink the sweet version, and there's a lot of variation between families. Personally, I don't particularly like sweets, but because I grew up eating it this way, sweet Si Shen Tang is like mung bean soup or red bean soup to me – a refreshing and smooth sweet dessert 😁