Rui Family Hand-torn Chicken

Item name and level

Rui Family Hand-torn Chicken appears in Appendix 2, the district-level ICH list, of the third batch of district-level ICH material; the appendix states that the list contains 22 items in total.

According to a reply of 28 November 2023 from the Lishui District Culture and Tourism Bureau, eight projects were reported as entering the municipal-level representative ICH list in January 2023, among them Tiger-head Shoes, Hand-torn Chicken, Mingjue Pickled Greens, Helinfang Twin Dragons, Shrimp Lantern Dance and Shiqiu Fishing Songs. In the reply the project is written as Hand-torn Chicken.

The fifth batch of the list of representative items of intangible cultural heritage of Nanjing, published on 20 January 2023 by the Nanjing Municipal People's Government under Ning Zheng Fa [2023] No. 11, carries the entry "Honglan Hand-torn Chicken Making", number NJ-VII-61, serial number 42, in the category of traditional techniques, with Lishui District as the applying area or unit. This entry records the level as municipal, with the fifth batch and the publication date of January 2023, and the project number is verifiable.

The municipal project name "Honglan Hand-torn Chicken Making", the district list wording "Rui Family Hand-torn Chicken Making" and the wording "Hand-torn Chicken" in the bureau reply differ from one another; each is reproduced as it stands, without being merged or rewritten, and the title of this entry follows the full name in the district list. Whether the three refer to one and the same craft cannot be proved from the sources in this library, and no inference is drawn.

The municipal list gives only the project name, number, category and applying area or unit; it gives no introduction, no bearers and no guardian unit, so the guardian unit is still to be verified.

Bearer

Appendix 3 of the same third-batch material, the list of representative bearers, contains 19 persons in total and records Rui Yongmei as a bearer of that batch, under the project wording Rui Family Hand-torn Chicken. That list belongs to the district batch; whether Rui Yongmei is at the same time a representative bearer of this municipal item is not stated in the municipal published document, and no assumption is made here.

To be added

The cited sources do not give the selection of ingredients and the cooking process, what the hand-torn method of serving refers to, the area and the number of generations through which the craft has passed, or the guardian unit. The cited documents record the project name and, at district level, the name of a bearer; none describes the craft itself. Until further sources are found, this entry records no detail of the craft or its history.