Li Wenchang.
According to records, around 1750, a man named Li Wenchang in Nanying Village, Yucheng County began to make braised chicken, because he added five spices such as peppercorns, aniseed, fennel, cloves and cinnamon when making it. , so it is called five-spice braised chicken.
Later on, the number of people making braised chicken increased year by year, and their skills also continued to improve. Wang Mingkui, a villager from Yueya Bay in the north of Yucheng City, also started a braised chicken business. One evening in the autumn when Wang Mingkui was 18 years old (1891 AD), he boiled more than 20 chickens in a pot, added more firewood to the stove, lit the fire and went to rest. Due to fatigue, when he woke up, It was already daybreak, and the chicken in the pot collapsed during the stew. When I lifted the chicken legs, the bones and flesh separated. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so he had to use an iron fence to carefully fish the chicken into a basket and bring it to the county town to sell, and named the cooked chicken "Five-Spice Boneless Braised Chicken". After shouting a few times at the gate of the county government office, the word "bone removal" attracted everyone's attention, and many diners were attracted in an instant. From then on, his chickens were stewed for a long time until the bones were removed, forming a unique production process. Therefore, Yucheng's five-spice boneless braised chicken became famous in the north and south. At the beginning of the next year (1892), a small restaurant was opened in Dezhou, mainly selling boneless braised chicken. From then on, Yucheng's five-spice boneless braised chicken was introduced to Dezhou. In addition, Wang Mingkui has a son named Wang Jisan. With their superb skills, the two of them opened braised chicken shops in Yucheng Railway Station, Dezhou, Jinan, Zhanhua, Lijin and other places. Yucheng's five-spice boneless braised chicken is famous It’s also getting bigger. Dezhou has always been supported by the "Nine Tianqus and the Gateway to Beijing", and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal flows here. It is an important transportation thoroughfare and has also promoted the development of the braised chicken industry to a large extent. When merchants from all over the country passed through Dezhou, they got out of the car to taste the delicious food. At that time, there was a saying that "getting out of the car after smelling the fragrance is the fastest way to taste it."
After the reform and opening up, especially in recent years, in order to further develop Yucheng braised chicken and carry forward this famous historical food, the Yucheng Party Committee and Municipal Government decided to implement the "breeding chicken breeding-chick hatching-broiler chicken" The production chain of "raising - braised chicken processing - professional sales" has promoted the development of the city's braised chicken industry.