Stir-fried rocks: the world's hardest dish of seasoned rocks is triumphing as street food in China

The new street food dish that is all the rage in China is going viral on social media due to the uniqueness of its main ingredient: stones.

The dish dubbed as "the hardest in the world" is called soudui (suck and throw, in Chinese), and the recipe sold by street food vendors in China consists of sautéing small stones with a variety of vegetables and spices such as garlic, chili, rosemary and oil.

Diners pay around $2 for a portion, and as the name of the dish suggests, they suck on the stones to savor them and then discard them.

Origin of the dish

Several reports indicate that the dish may have originated centuries ago in the central province of China because of food shortages suffered by Chinese boatmen. They were stranded in the middle of a river in the province and thus resorted to pebbles as food.

Do the stones have to be returned?

One of the main questions about soudui is whether they should be returned to the restaurant once the customer has finished sucking all the stones. However, once the dish is paid for, all the ingredients become the property of the diner, so cooks often reply that they can keep them as souvenirs.

A dish as popular as alcohol

A street chef was filmed while preparing the famous dish that is capturing international attention, and he claimed that soudui has become as popular a food option as liquor. Although it is unclear if this is true, more and more content creators are talking on social networks about this dish. The Chinese platforms Xiaohongshu and Weibo are filled with videos of people cooking or tasting the dish.

Jokes on the plate

Some users on social networks have made memes and jokes about the street dish, highlighting the dental problems it could cause if, by mistake, one bites into one of the stones, the creativity of the chefs, and even the danger of swallowing one of the pebbles.