Buddha Jumps Over the Wall or Buddha’s Temptation (Fo Tiao Qiang)

“Buddha Jumps Over the Wall/Fence” or “Buddha’s Temptation” (fó tiào qiáng)  is a dish from China’s Fujian province that supposedly is so tempting that a fasting and/or vegetarian Buddha jumped the wall of the monastery when he came into contact with its delicious smell. The soup or stew contains many ingredients, and it usually takes days to prepare and is very expensive. Some typical ingredients include abalone, sea cucumber, shark fin, scallops, shrimp, mushrooms and bamboo shoots.
 
“Buddha Jumps Over the Wall” was printed in the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) on January 13, 1978. “Buddha Jumps Over the Fence” was printed in the San Francisco (CA) Chronicle on August 29, 1979. “Another of Fuzhou’s famous dishes is ‘Buddha jumping over the wall’ (Fo Tiao Qiang), a concoction of seafood, mutton, pork, chicken and duck sealed in a terracotta pot (the shape of a ginger jar)” was printed in the book Collins Illustrated Guide to Fujian (1988) by Caroline Courtauld.
 
   
Wikipedia: Buddha Jumps Over the Wall
Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, also known as Buddha’s Temptation (Chinese: 佛跳墙; pinyin: fó tiào qiáng), is a variety of shark fin soup in Fujian cuisine. It was created by Zheng Chunfa, celebrated chef and proprietor of the Ju Chun Yuan Restaurant in Fuzhou, Fujian Province. Zheng was private chef of a senior local official in his early years. Since its creation during the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), the dish has been regarded as a Chinese delicacy known for its rich taste, and special manner of cooking. The dish’s name is an allusion to the dish’s ability to entice the vegetarian monks from their temples to partake in the meat-based dish.It is high in protein and calcium.
 
Concerns over the sustainability and welfare of sharks have limited consumption and availability of the soup.
 
Ingredients
The soup or stew consists of many ingredients, especially animal products, and requires one to two full days to prepare. A typical recipe requires many ingredients including quail eggs, bamboo shoots, scallops, sea cucumber, abalone, shark fin, fish maw, chicken, Jinhua ham, pork tendon, ginseng, mushrooms, and taro. Some recipes require up to thirty main ingredients and twelve condiments. Use of shark fin, which is sometimes harvested by shark finning, and abalone, which is implicated in destructive fishing practices, are controversial for both environmental and ethical reasons.
     
13 January 1978, South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), pg. 8, col. 7 photo caption:
Leading chef, Mr Ho Chat—one of the experts who will prepare Chinese delicacies for the visiting gourmets—with the famous soup “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall” and its ingredients.
 
5 March 1978, South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), “Dining Out with Ann Bell: Not the best from Malaysia,” pg. 15, col. 5:
(Nam Ah restaurant, 5 Sharp Street next to Lee Theatre.—ed.)
There were three of us and we started with a small jar of soup called “Fut Tew Chung,” literally translated it means “The Buddha Jumps Over the Wall.” It consists of a very clear broth made with an assortment of ingredients from abalone to fish maw to pork and sea cucumber. The clarity of the soup was magnificent, the flavour rich and perfect. Excellent in every way.
   
29 August 1979, San Francisco (CA) Chronicle, “Dots Me All Over” by Herb Caen, pg. 33, col. 1:
THE CHINATOWN grapevine works fast: Barbra Streisand and Jon Peters sneaked into Tommy Toy’s Imperial Palace Mon. for a quiet lunch, and emerged to find two dozen fans awaiting her, pencils and pads at the ready…Barbra was not able to try Tommy’s new $50-a-head delicacy, “Buddha Jumps Over the Fence,” made entirely of ingredients from Mainland China: dried abalone, sea cucumber, sharkskin, dried fish stomach, gold coin turtle, hairy sea vegetables, deer tendons, snow fungus, bamboo mushrooms, dried scallops, tips of winter bamboo shoots, dried shrimp, Kumwah ham and an entire boned chicken. This is arranged in layers in a huge urn, covered with rice whisky—ng ka py!—and steamed for 16 hours…Why the name? Well, Buddha was fasting but when he smelled the delicious odors—there is no resisting dried fish stomach—he leaped the fence and joined in. A fable d’hote.
 
5 August 1980, The Wall Street Journal (New York, NY), “Hong Kong Record Industry Thrives” by Anthony Spaeth, pg. 31, col. 2:
Another song praises the popular Cantonese winter dish called “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall.”
 
25 January 1984, Philadelphia (PA) Daily News, “Devour an Oyster for Luck” by Mike McGrath, pg. F-4, col. 6:
The folks at Joy Tsin Lau call such a meal “Fat Tel T’Chien,” which very loosely translated means “the Buddha jumps over the wall (to join you) because it smells so good on the other side.”
       
Google Books
Collins Illustrated Guide to Fujian
By Caroline Courtauld
London, UK: Collins
1988
Pg. 19:
Another of Fuzhou’s famous dishes is ‘Buddha jumping over the wall’ (Fo Tiao Qiang), a concoction of seafood, mutton, pork, chicken and duck sealed in a terracotta pot (the shape of a ginger jar). Reputedly, its aroma enticed Buddha into jumping over a wall to find the source.
 
Google Groups: soc.culture.taiwan
most exotic chinese dishes (vote for your favorite dim sum !!)
F. Xia
1/17/96
(...)
>>I think its got to be “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall.”.
>
>
>>Sheik.
>>Singapore.
>
> What Buddha has to do with all those delicatessen of flesh?
>
> Koala
 
The fragrance/aroma of this concoction is such that the statue of Buddha in the temple next door is tempted to life and jumps over the wall to get a bite. A classic example of hyperbolic advertising if you ask me.
   
Twitter
Gary Soup
@GarySoup
Kai Mayfair’s Buddha Jumps over the Wall the most expensive (£108 per bowl) soup in the world? http://is.gd/gAjU
11:06 AM - 20 Jan 2009
 
First We Feast
Possibly the World’s Strangest Recipe Ever
This “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall” soup recipe takes three days to prepare and requires upwards of 30 ingredients.
Khushbu Shah Jun 18, 2013
How crazy can a recipe for soup really get? You just chuck some meat, vegetables, seasoning, and broth into a big pot and let it stew into deliciousness, right? Wrong. Soup recipes can get really crazy. Like, requires-three-full-days-of-cooking-and-upwards-of-thirty-ingredients crazy. The soup—unearthed by Reddit user clone822—is named Buddha Jumps Over the Wall (or Fo Tiao Qiang in Cantonese), and is a delicacy from the Fujian province of China.
(...)
The soup itself consists of a slew of animal products including shark fin and abalone, both of which raise ethical and environmental concerns, as well as more common ingredients such as scallops and Chinese ham
 
YouTube
Taipei’s ‘Buddha jumps over the wall’ index shows a rise in food prices
Formosa EnglishNews
Published on Jan 8, 2014
To assess price changes, each year the Taipei City government calculates the cost of making a bowl of the classic Chinese dish “Buddha jumps over the wall.” Its latest calculation shows a rise of 3.75 percent between 2013 and 2012. But there’s a problem: it changed ingredients. If the same ingredients are used, the price rise is closer to 8 percent. More than 10 ingredients combine to form the classic Chinese delicacy known as “Buddha jumps over the wall.” Last year, the Taipei City government began using this dish to assess annual price changes. When comparing the end of 2013 to 2012, it says the cost of ingredients rose by 3.75 percent.Huang Yi-yuTaipei Office of CommerceThere was a minor rise. We are aware of the price fluctuations.Of all the ingredients, chestnuts saw the highest incre
     
4 January 2018, Shanghai (China) Daily, “Tasty: from saliva chicken to ants climbing a tree,” pg. ?:
Buddha jumps over the wall, also known as Buddha’s temptation, is an extravagant soup dish that got its name because the flavors from cooking dozens of ingredients become so intense that Buddhas, who are vegetarians, would leave meditation, jump over the wall to partake in the meat stew.
 
A classic dish from Fujian Province, it requires expensive and highly nutritious ingredients such as sea cucumber, abalone, chicken, pigeon and ham. This soup requires one to two days to prepare, so it’s often served at formal banquets.
 
YouTube
Home-Made Buddha Jumps Over The Wall (FoTiaoQiang)家常佛跳牆
Lee Kum Kee USA
Published on Feb 5, 2018
李錦記調味雞汁  Lee Kum Kee Concentrated Chicken Bouillon
李錦記鮑魚汁  Lee Kum Kee Abalone Sauce
李錦記財神蠔油  Lee Kum Kee Choy Sun Oyster Flavored Sauce
 
Twitter
Fuqing China
@FuqingChina
Buddha’s Temptation is a Chinese dish famous for its rich taste. Its creator Feng Chunfa, a talent chef from Fuqing, one day put a variety of animal products into a jar and cooked them over a gentle heat. To everyone’s surprise, the dish tasted great.
7:32 AM - 25 Jan 2019