Duck blood vermicelli soup is one of Nanjing’s most iconic小吃. Nearly every visitor has tried or at least heard of it. But here is what you may not know — the original Nanjing duck blood soup had no vermicelli in it at all.
Before the 1990s: Pure Duck Blood Soup
Nanjing has been eating duck for over 1,400 years. The saying “Jinling duck cuisine reigns supreme” is no empty boast. Along the way, the “scraps” — duck blood, duck intestines — were turned into delicacies too.
By the early Republic of China era (1910s–1920s), pure duck blood soup was already a popular street snack in Nanjing. Into the 1980s, you could find it at snack stalls in the southern part of the city — a clear broth with silky duck blood and crunchy duck intestines, topped with nothing more than a sprinkle of garlic flowers. Clean, simple, refreshing. A bowl cost two to three mao, sold almost exclusively at street stalls; restaurants rarely carried it. Old-school Nanjing locals still prefer this pure version, and some insist that adding vermicelli is a “foreign practice.”
Mid-1990s: The Vermicelli Arrives
The birth of duck blood vermicelli soup happened around the 1990s. No one agrees on who first dropped vermicelli into the soup, but several stories compete:
The “accident” story: Someone was butchering a duck and accidentally dropped vermicelli into the duck blood. They cooked it anyway — and the aroma was irresistible.
The “Mei Ming” story: The most widespread version credits a late-Qing scholar named Mei Ming from Zhenjiang. After failing the imperial exams, he tasted a bowl of duck blood, duck offal, and vermicelli in Nanjing. Inspired, he opened a shop called “Duck Prophet” in Zhenjiang and popularized the dish.
The “modern innovation” story: Many old Nanjing residents recall that vermicelli only started appearing in the 1990s, possibly introduced by vendors from Anhui province at Confucius Temple.
Whichever story is true, the result was the same: vermicelli went in, and the broth changed too.
The original clear broth was replaced with a richer, milky white duck soup, simmered with duck fat for deeper flavor. Shop owners also added tofu puffs that soaked up the broth like sponges. What was once a simple, clean bowl became a complex, layered one. The founding of chain brand “Hui Wei” in 1996 turned this street snack into an industry.
A Generation’s Witness
The evolution from duck blood soup to duck blood vermicelli soup has happened in just the last two or three decades — within a single generation.
From the clean simplicity of the early Republic era, to the rich depth of the 1990s, to its current status as a national food trend, one generation has witnessed the entire transformation. Call it lucky — you happened to live through the biggest upgrade in Nanjing’s snack history.
And this evolution tells a simple truth: as living standards rise, tastes rise with them. Clean and simple was the peak flavor of an era of scarcity. Rich and layered is the pursuit of an age of abundance. In one bowl of soup lies the changing story of a city’s prosperity.