Fish Soup with Pebbles

卵石鲜鱼汤

According to legend, the famous Blang dish, Fish Soup with Pebbles, was created by some Blang fishermen in the wild. The story goes that, everyday Blang fishermen had to travel a long distance to catch fish in the river far away. After catching the fish, the fishermen, usually so hungry for food, would cook the fish beside the river with extremely limited ingredients—the fresh fish just caught and a bit of salt they carried. They dug a pit on the bank and laid several layers of Japanese banana leaves over the bottom, using it as a pot. After filling it with water, they put the fish inside and began to cook the fish soup, with the water heated not by fire, but by the hot-burnt pebbles they put one by one between the leaves. Before long the redolence mixed with the flavor of the fish soup and roasted pebbles prevailed along the river. Magically, the soup was no less palatable even cooked without using a pot or other common ingredients such as edible oil, onion, ginger or garlic, etc.