CHINA 🐑
Ròu Jiàng 🐖

Two Cultures 🇷🇴
One Solution 🇨🇳

Both Sloiu (an ancient technique preserved by the Momârlani, the mountain people considered the living heirs of the Geto-Dacians) and Ròu Jiàng emerged from mountain and pastoral societies, seasonal fat cycles of animals, the need for high-density energy during winter, the belief that fat carries life-force, slow and respectful preparation around fire.

Ròu jiàng was essential to: winter survival, long journeys pastoral and agrarian life – ritual offerings, festivals where ancestral food techniques were honored. Even though Romania’s mountains and China’s valleys never communicated, both cultures discovered fat-preserved meat as an ancestral energy source. Together, they show the same human intelligence expressed through different animals, landscapes and flavors.

The energy carried by these two animals differs as profoundly as the cultures that relied upon them. Sheep provided what can be called warrior endurance energy, a dense and steady strength suited for mountain life, long journeys, and the harsh winters of the Carpathians. For the descendants of the Geto-Dacians in the Jiu Valley, sheep represented more than nourishment. They symbolized resilience, purity, and sacrifice, embodying the virtues needed to survive in a landscape defined by altitude, isolation, and ancestral ritual. The meat was darker, richer in intensity, and capable of sustaining those who lived as shepherds, guardians of passes, and hardy mountain people.

Pork, by contrast, offered a different kind of sustenance, one that shaped the culinary identity of ancient China. Its energy was softer, warmer, and more accessible—daily caloric comfort and richness rather than the austere stamina associated with sheep. Because pigs thrived in the fertile valleys and agricultural heartlands of East Asia, pork became the primary domestic meat from Neolithic times onward, forming the foundation of family meals, ritual foods, and winter preservation. Its fat melted readily and welcomed spices, turning preservation not only into a storage technique but into a sophisticated art of flavor. Thus, the two animals express two distinct cultural logics: sheep fueling endurance, ritual, and survival in the Carpathian highlands; pork nourishing abundance, warmth, and culinary refinement in the ancient Chinese world.

THE ANCESTRAL ENERGY
OF THE MOMÂRLANI
THE „SLOIU”

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Intergenerational transmission of technique: food as memory, identity and survival. This is culinary cognitive convergence: without contact, both cultures invented the same survival algorithm— preserve meat in fat, with time as the sacred ingredient.

This is culinary cognitive convergence: without contact, separated by 7,000 kilometers and vastly different languages, both cultures invented the same survival algorithm. The pattern: mountains + cold + pastoral life + respect for animal fat + time as sacred ingredient = preserved meat in fat.

Comparative Culinary Ethnography

Displaying sloiu alongside ròu jiàng, confit from France, guanciale from Italy—showing how mountain peoples worldwide solved the same challenge. Sloiu is more than food. It is ancestral energy preserved in fat—a testament to survival, identity and the universal human capacity to transform necessity into art. Since time immemorial, shepherds stored sloiu in clay pots as concentrated energy for the year ahead. For millennium-old pastoral communities, winter in the Carpathians was not merely a season—it was an adversary. Every family prepared for it as if preparing for battle.

The comparison between pork and sheep in ancestral food traditions begins with their fats, because fat determined how ancient communities preserved energy through winter. Sheep fat, or tallow, has a high melting point and solidifies quickly when cooled, forming a hard, oxygen-resistant seal that makes it ideal for preservation in harsh mountain climates. This is why the Momârlani of the Jiu Valley, heirs of ancient Geto-Dacian pastoral life, relied on sheep for preparing sloiu: once the meat had been slowly boiled and then fried in its own fat, the cooling tallow created a natural protective barrier that kept the food safe for months. Pork fat, in contrast, melts at a lower temperature and tends to remain soft or semi-solid. It is excellent for cooking and for absorbing spices—as seen in the Chinese ròu jiàng—but it requires jars or sealed vessels to preserve the meat effectively. Thus, while pork enhanced flavor complexity, sheep fat ensured endurance and survival. The meats themselves also shaped their cultural uses.

Sheep meat is darker, richer in myoglobin, denser in protein and traditionally associated with strength and stamina. It suited mountain labor, long winters, and the energy needs of transhumant shepherds who lived in the highlands from ancient Dacian times to the present. Its flavor is deeper and more mineral, and its structure withstands long cooking, making it ideal for slow reduction processes like sloiu. Pork, on the other hand, has a higher fat-to-meat ratio and a naturally sweeter, milder taste. It cooks more quickly and blends seamlessly with aromatics, making it the preferred meat for many East Asian preservation techniques where texture and seasoning matter as much as longevity.

The cultural environments that shaped these traditions were profoundly different. The Geto-Dacians and the later Momârlani lived in steep Carpathian landscapes where sheep thrived on poor mountain grasses, and where pastoral life, not agriculture, dominated. Sheep became not just a source of food but a symbol of resilience and purity, and their fat became the essential survival material of the highlands.

In contrast, the ancient Chinese heartlands were fertile and suited for pig farming. Pork was abundant and became the central domestic meat of East Asian cuisine. Its fat, easily rendered and richly flavored, proved perfect for methods like ròu jiàng, where the meat is slowly cooked in lard until it becomes shelf-stable and aromatic, then stored in sealed clay jars through winter.

The techniques reflect these environments. In Romania, bones were boiled first to release marrow—believed since Dacian times to carry the animal’s life-force—after which the meat simmered for hours before frying in rendered tallow. When cooled, the fat hardened into a protective shell, allowing the food to survive entire winters without spoiling. In China, pork was minced or diced, cooked in lard until all the water evaporated, and stored in jars where the soft fat formed a seal. The Romanian method relied on the physical solidity of sheep fat, while the Chinese method relied on containment and spice. Even the flavors tell a story. Sloiu carries the deep, ancient taste of bone marrow and long reduction, a flavor of mountains, smoke, and survival. Ròu jiàng carries the warmth of spices and the softness of pork, a reflection of settled agrarian life and culinary abundance. Sheep expresses endurance; pork expresses comfort.

In summary, sheep and pork were chosen not by chance but by geography, climate and culture. Sheep offered the mountain people of the Jiu Valley a way to store energy in the hardest months, using the chemistry of tallow to create a food that could withstand time and cold. Pork offered the people of ancient China a versatile, abundant ingredient perfectly suited for spiced, slow-cooked preservation. Both traditions solved the same human problem through different animals and landscapes, revealing the shared intelligence of two civilizations that, without contact, invented parallel methods for transforming meat and fat into ancestral energy.

An Academic
Narrative 🌾

The study of ancestral food traditions has become a crucial tool in reconstructing the cultural identity of Europe’s earliest agrarian communities. In Romania, few regions embody this continuity as clearly as Ținutul Momârlanilor, the mountainous homeland of the Momârlani shepherds of Valea Jiului. Their culinary practices — seasonal, pastoral and rooted in ancient transhumance — preserve ways of life that echo the agro-pastoral systems of the earliest European farmers.

The recent effort to develop Ținutul Momârlanilor as a gastronomic destination emerges from an increasing awareness that traditional knowledge is both scientifically valuable and culturally irreplaceable. Local initiatives such as the Culinary Vacation program and the Flavours of Romania thematic destination concept aim to reposition the region as a living repository of ancestral memory.

Traditional dishes, such as the Momârlănesc sloiu, are presented not simply as rural curiosities but as expressions of systems of food preservation, ecological adaptation and symbolic culture that have endured for centuries. Crucial to this broader vision is the involvement of scientific expertise. Professor Petre Săvescu, from the Faculty of Food Chemistry at the University of Craiova, provides an academic foundation for the biochemical and nutritional understanding of ancestral foods. His work supports the possibility of formally evaluating and certifying traditional preparations, anchoring them in rigorous methodology while preserving their cultural identity.

A future collaboration is planned with Professor Avram Fițiu of USAMV Cluj — one of Romania’s foremost specialists in agroecology, sustainable agriculture, and rural identity. The goal of this future conference, to be organised together with him, is to explore the deep connections between Carpathian pastoralism and the earliest agrarian cultures of Europe. This initiative is currently in preparation, representing a forward-looking step in positioning Valea Jiului as a research and heritage hub.

During academic and cultural engagements in Brașov, which took place in the context of the “Visionary Destinations” event, our delegation included Daniel Roșca and Robert Andrei from B2B Strategy, as well as Corlan Lucian from Aninoasa City Hall, counselor to Mayor Nicolae Dunca. Together, we participated in the meeting with documentary filmmaker Charlie Ottley, where we presented the Jiu Valley’s heritage and tourism potential to Romanian specialists from the touring industry. While no collaboration with Charlie Ottley took place, this meeting underscores the growing intersection between cultural researchers, destination developers, and international storytellers — all recognising the importance of Romania’s rural heritage.

His presence in the broader cultural conversation highlights the increasing visibility of Romania’s mountain regions, even as our role remained independent and rooted in academic and strategic development.

Living Heritage 🎭

Chinese Preserved Meat (Là Ròu) – This traditional cured pork, salted and air-dried over weeks, stores ancestral flavors and sustenance for long winters. Slowly prepared and carefully seasoned, it transforms ordinary cuts into a rich, energy-dense, long-lasting delicacy rooted in pastoral and agrarian traditions.

Momârlănesc Sloiu – This ancestral sheep‑fat recipe from the Valea Jiului (Jiu Valley) transforms simple mountain ingredients into a rich, energy‑dense dish preserved for winter. Slowly cooked for hours, it preserves both flavor and the heritage of shepherding traditions. Discover another shocking similarity in human tradition: the Qiang Sheep‑Skin Drum Dance of China and the Romanian Călușari, where rhythm, movement and ritual converge across continents to protect and empower communities. Daniel ROŞCA

Discover Flavours
of Transylvania

Călușarii
Journey Through
Living Heritage 🎭
The Qiang Sheep-Skin
Drum Dance 🎭 🇨🇳 🥁