For lovers of Chinese noodles and pastries, look no further than Shanxi as the first choice of food for its people is flour-based foods. When you come to Shanxi, not only will you be spoiled for choice with a bewildering variety of recipes for noodles and pastries, but you will also totally surprised by a wide repertoire of artisanal skills.

Since time immemorial, Shanxi has been a well-endowed place for growing different kinds of high quality cereals, hence the appellation “kingdom of minor cereals.” The father of Chinese flour foods, the smart people of Shanxi have created so many varieties of recipes that an ordinary housewife is capable of creating dozens dishes using wheat, sorghum, bean, buckwheat, and barley flours. When it comes to a chef, he or she can come up with hundreds of recipes and tastes using one single kind of flour. Current statistics show that there are a mind-boggling 280 flour recipes on record, with the world-acclaimed knife-shaved noodles as one of the five famous flour foods of China.