Street barbeque vendor in Kunming. Jianshui tofu at center, clockwise from top: Shiping tofu, potato skewers, Jianshui tofu skewers, processed meat sticks, probably beef skewers (often fatty) and another type of meat.
Street vendors. From bottom-left: quail eggs, two types of vinegar preserved vegetables (probably radish), bamboo rice (竹饭 zhufan), barbeque Jianshui tofu, roasted corn.
Yunnan cuisine (simplified Chinese: 云南菜; traditional Chinese: 雲南菜; pinyin: Yúnnán cài) or Dian cuisine (Chinese: 滇菜; pinyin: Diān cài), is an amalgam of the cuisines of the Han Chinese and other ethnic minorities in China. As the province with the largest number of ethnic minority groups, Yunnan cuisine is vastly varied, and it is difficult to make generalisations. Many Yunnan dishes are quite spicy, and mushrooms are featured prominently. Flowers, ferns, algae and insects may also be eaten.
Two of the province's most famous products are the renowned pu-erh tea which was traditionally grown in Ning'er; as well as Xuanwei ham, which is often used to flavour stewed and braised foods in Chinese cuisine and for making the stocks and broths of many Chinese soups.
Yunnan cuisine is unique in China for its cheeses like Rubing and Rushan cheese made by the Bai people, and its yogurt, the yogurt may have been due to a combination of Mongolian influence during the Yuan dynasty, the Central Asian settlement in Yunnan, and the proximity and influence of India and Tibet on Yunnan.
Literally means "crossing the bridge noodles" or "across the bridge noodles". It is Yunnan's best known dish. It typically consists of a bowl of boiling chicken soup, to which diners add their own selection of thin meat slices, mixian, vegetables and spices, much like a hot pot. It is ubiquitous throughout the province.
Azuki beans have been used in Yunnan for millennia. Earliest domesticated examples are known from tombs in Japan (4000BC), then China and Korea (3000BC). Genetic evidence indicates that the bean later crossbred with native species in the Himalayas, and Yunnan was probably exposed to the ingredient at this time. Frequently prepared fried with kale or mint.