Yī guō zhǔ sānshěng, yāncàiyú yī guō; sìshíwǔ yī jīn, biānchéng yī wèi. — One pot cooking three provinces, one pot of pickle-fish; forty-five a jin, one border-town flavour.
Hong’an pickled-vegetable fish (洪安腌菜鱼, Hóng’ān Yāncàiyú) is the border town’s signature dish and its geography on a plate: a fish pot whose three ingredients come from three provinces — Chongqing’s pickled vegetables (重庆腌菜), Guizhou’s tofu (贵州豆腐) and Hunan’s fish (湖南鱼) — the local boast being “one pot cooks three provinces” (一锅煮三省). The dish runs about 45 yuan a jin, and its home is the town’s river-side kitchens, where the border-town identity is the recipe.
The dish is a border market’s logic: each ingredient is the best of its kind from across the river, and the pot is where the three-province trade meets the table. The pickled vegetable supplies the sour base that the fish needs, the tofu supplies the sponge that takes the broth, and the fish supplies the freshness the river guarantees. The cooking is the plain regional one — a sour soup pot rather than a chilli display — because the point is the ingredients’ provenance, not the heat.
The town’s kitchens are the address, and the correct order is by the jin with the live fish chosen first — the price follows the catch, so the bill moves with the season. The plain sour register is the locals’ order; the chilli version is the visitors’ adaptation. The pot is a lunch and dinner trade, and the river-side tables have the crossing in view.
flowcloud would say that the county’s border town cooks its geography — Chongqing’s pickle, Guizhou’s tofu, Hunan’s fish — and that the pot is the only place the three provinces agree.
Where to find it: the town’s river-side kitchens at Hong’an, where the river-side tables have the crossing in view. All checked October 2026.
Words and Names
腌菜鱼 yāncàiyú — pickled-vegetable fish · 一锅煮三省 yī guō zhǔ sān shěng — “one pot cooks three provinces” · 腌菜 yāncài — pickled vegetables, the Chongqing ingredient · 豆腐 dòufu — tofu, the Guizhou ingredient · 河鱼 héyú — river fish, the Hunan ingredient