In 2020, the chef and activist Jenny Dorsey spotted a video about a viral food trend in China: luosifen, affectionately known as “stinky” or “smelly” snail noodles. The rice noodle soup from the country’s Guizhou province includes pungent pickled bamboo shoots, peanuts, tofu skin, and a spicy-sour snail broth. Eager to try a soup based on river snails, an ingredient that she loved to stir-fry with, but unable to find a restaurant serving the specialty where she lived in Northern California, Dorsey eventually first experienced luosifen like most people have over the last three years: through an instant noodle packet. While no stranger to the multiple seasoning sachets that Chinese instant noodles can include, this one took her by surprise—inside the noodles’ mother plastic packet were eight individual sachets for the many components of the dish: the snail broth, the noodles, the toppings, and seasonings. “On one hand, I’m like, ‘Wow, this is not very environmentally friendly,’ but I was also just so impressed,” Dorsey remembers.
