Duoduo Fen Skewer Hotpot

Duoduo fen was born in the early 1990s in the alleyways near a primary school in Anshun. Vendors set out ceramic bowls of sour-spicy broth alongside skewered rice jelly cubes, potatoes, and tofu skin — affordable ingredients students could manage on a few coins. Rice jelly had to be eaten with bamboo skewers because chopsticks could not grip it reliably; locals called the stabbing action 夺 (to stab, to grab) in Anshun dialect, which became the dish's name. As livelihoods improved, the ceramic bowl gave way to a clay pot, the roster of ingredients expanded to dozens, and the school-gate snack became a recognized Anshun dining institution. The dish has since been featured in multiple Guizhou food-culture promotion campaigns and media spotlights.

The rice jelly cubes are the soul: barely firm at room temperature, they turn silken and yielding the moment they enter the hot broth, offering almost no resistance to the skewer. The sour broth layers fermented tomato tang, chili heat, and a faint mineral earthiness from the clay pot — each element arriving in sequence after the first sip.

Rice jelly is a starch gel set by food-grade alkali (sodium carbonate), which raises acidity, cross-links starch chains, and keeps the structure firm at room temperature. When a cube enters the hot sour broth, the lactic acid from fermented tomatoes partially neutralizes the alkali coating, loosening the surface gel network and producing the characteristic silky exterior while the interior stays elastic. The sour broth base relies on lactic acid bacteria fermenting tomatoes in clay pots over several days, converting tomato sugars into lactic acid — producing a clean, mellow sourness quite distinct from vinegar, with a rounder and more persistent finish.