The local specialties include ginkgo nuts, glutinous rice dumplings stuffed with chicken, cured ham and wild rosa roxburghii juice.

The chestnuts here are purely dry-fried, tasting sweet and delicious. Unlike vendors in many other places who boil chestnuts first to save fuel before stir-frying them, leaving them soggy.

In addition, since Liupanshui borders Yunnan, fresh flowers here are much cheaper than in Guiyang, the provincial capital. Fairly large flower shops can often be found at street corners, with blooms available all year round.

Air-dried pork is a traditional specialty of the Buyi people in Libo, Guizhou. Libo County Annals compiled in the Qing Dynasty records: "The local piglets here are particularly plump and tender. Air-dried pork and roast pork have long enjoyed a good reputation." Today, air-dried pork has become a signature delicacy for grand banquets.

Features: It is made by curing young piglets and air-drying them. The finished dish features tender meat with an exquisite and appetizing flavor.

Slaughter a plump young pig and clean it thoroughly. Cut the pig into two halves along the skull and spine, then remove the brain, spinal cord and eyeballs. Grind saltpeter, clove, angelica dahurica, asarum, cinnamon, Chinese prickly ash, alpinia and dried tangerine peel into fine powder, mix with refined salt and rub the mixture all over the pig’s internal cavity. Place the pig in a large vat and marinate for a full day and night. Next, pour glutinous rice wine into the vat to submerge the pig completely, cover and soak for ten days.

Take the pig out, prop open its belly with bamboo strips and sun-dry it for seven days. Coat the inside and outside with rapeseed oil or sesame oil, then leave it to air-dry thoroughly. To serve, cut the meat into chunks, season and steam it, or cook it together with vegetables. It tastes wonderful either way.

Kiwifruit is a wild vine fruit native to China. Supplement to Materia Medica, a work of the Tang Dynasty, states: "Kiwifruit is salty and warm in nature with no toxicity. It can be used as medicine, mainly treating rheumatism, hemiplegia, premature greying of hair, hemorrhoids and other ailments."

Li Shizhen, a renowned physician of the Ming Dynasty, wrote in Compendium of Materia Medica: "It looks like a pear and has the hue of a peach. Macaques are fond of eating it, hence the name. People in Fujian call it carambola."

It is known as Chinese gooseberry in the United States and Britain, kiwifruit in New Zealand, and Chinese monkey pear in Japan. In Guizhou, locals name it goat peach, and it is also commonly nicknamed horse-dung fruit.